OBAMA AND OSAMA: VIOLENT OPPONENTS
There is no evidence that Osama bin Laden planned the attacks of September 11, 2001, just as there was no evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, the pretext used for the 2003 US attack on Iraq. Osama applauded 9/11, but that falls under freedom of speech, writes Johan Galtung, Rector of the TRANSCEND Peace University and author of "The Fall of the US Empire--And Then What?".
In this article, Galtung writes that if bin Laden was unarmed in a bedroom (the latest version) and did not engage in a firefight, his recent killing is extrajudicial execution. Those who celebrate it are legitimising an approach that may be applied to themselves.
Obama has now surpassed George W. Bush, who was at war with two Muslim countries, Iraq and Afghanistan, by adding four more: Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Libya. Is Syria next? Both, Obama and Osama are extremely violent, killing civilians en masse. Both are rhetorically gifted and intelligent. But one is on the side of history, fighting, however wrongly, for the wrongfully suppressed, and the other is fighting for the wrongful suppressors, for a dying empire, against history. One could wish that the US empire were open to dialogue and conflict resolution. But Obama is as far from that as Osama was from nonviolence.
(*) Johan Galtung, Rector of the TRANSCEND Peace University, is author of "The Fall of the US Empire--And Then What?"
// NOT FOR PUBLICATION IN CANADA, CZECH REPUBLIC, IRELAND, POLAND, AND THE UNITED STATES //
© Inter Press Service (2011) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service