Today was supposed to be a post eulogizing the Haymarket Martyrs, victims of State Terror. However, this Labor Day (unfittingly falling on a Sunday this year! a year marking one of the greatest attacks on the rights of workers in many decades) has been overshadowed by reports of the confirmation of the killing of Osama bin Laden, America's favorite national enemy. Like Orwell's boogeyman, Emmanuel Goldstein, in 1984, bin Laden has been useful to our Nationalist-minded Militarists in maintaining national cohesion with the glue of patriotic fervor, all the while blinding us to their selling us out to their Corporate Masters, furthering the cannibalization of our planet, twisting our minds into justifying the death of other people's children, and hardening our hearts the the devastation of God's glorious creation.
Considering that statements from the Bush Administration statistically lack credibility (particularly in matters of that part of the world), it makes it very difficult for me to figure out who is lying. While the former administration was insisting on bin Laden's responsibility for 9/11, bin Laden on the other hand gave a surprisingly sober denial. I find this puzzling as it would seem to me he would have every reason to take credit for a startling strike against the hated USA enemy (in American political parlance referred to as "playing to his base") and thereby improve his "street/terrorist cred" amongst his supporters. In a CNN story from September 19, 2001:
"The U.S. government has consistently blamed me for being behind every occasion its enemies attack it.
I would like to assure the world that I did not plan the recent attacks, which seems to have been planned by people for personal reasons.
I have been living in the Islamic emirate of Afghanistan and following its leaders' rules. The current leader does not allow me to exercise such operations."
The CNN article here:
Bin Laden says he wasn't behind attacks
Later, when a videotape surfaced (referred to by US Government officials as the "fat bin Laden" video) confessing he was responsible, most viewers assumed it was an authentic admission of guilt. However, the FBI never indicted him, and we must assume they never took the "fat bin Laden tape" seriously, since video confessionals are always more than enough evidence to indict (and convict) criminals of their crime.
Read the article from Project Censored here:
No Hard Evidence Connecting Bin Laden to 9/11
Instead of dwelling too much over what the "truth" is (something I don't think can be known right now anyway), I find it more relevant to ask the questions: Who benefits? Who pays? Bin Laden's role he played in nationalist and militarist rhetoric fits too nicely. He is a politician's greatest gift. Stir up fear and paranoia amongst the populace, while you target them mercilessly with corporate agendas that leave them eviscerated, alienated, and impotent. It also helps us to justify our continued State-sponsored Terror upon the populations living, loving, and praying underneath the receiving end of our bombs and missiles. Bin Laden's specter gives our Imperial endeavors a narrative to justify its activities, a godsend to those who will convince us of the necessity of killing another mother's children.
State Enemies are useless when captured or killed, they only serve their purpose while (at least apparently) still alive, again, much like Emmanuel Goldstein's role as target of the nightly 2 minutes of Hate in Orwell's Oceania. Only as long as they live, do they serve their purpose. Which immediately forces me to ask: How genuinely did the mighty US machinery want to actually find him? Was it really so hard to locate him? Two years ago, a UCLA geographer, using science and publically available records narrowed down bin Laden's location to one of three buildings in Parachinar (one which had "one of the best maintained gardens in all of Parachinar")!
Read the report here:
UCLA geographers urge U.S. to search 3 structures in Pakistan for bin Laden
Now that Osama bin Laden is dead, I see Obama and the Democratic Party taking credit for the "good kill", leveraging this in the upcoming elections to win a second term of the Imperial Presidency. I suppose this will be bin Laden's final role he plays in the tragi-comedy that is the unraveling of the great US Empire.
While others orgiastically cheer his killing, I make the morbid observation, that from beyond the grave, Osama bin Laden will for one last time, unite the country in glorious bloodlust, blind hate, and murderous patriotism.
The Brain Demon
