It has been a remarkable last couple of weeks. Prince William and Kate Middleton, now known as the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge finally wed in front of 24.5 million spectators in the UK alone. Also, Britain said "no" to the Alternative Vote system in convincing style whilst Manchester United are set to be record breakers as they are on the verge of their 19th top-flight title after beating Chelsea last Sunday.
But I'm not posting a blog about any of those headlines. One headline, in my view that has dominated the press is the death of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. After ten years of hiding, he was finally found in a remote destination in north of Pakistan. US forces took their opportunity to shoot/torture him until his heart stopped beating and when pronounced dead, the military put his body in the sea. It will take a while until someone would want to retrieve his body under the sea...
To me, the whole thing was a complete surprise. For one moment, because of the lack of news coverage, I thought the US government had given up this mission, despite still being involved in Afghanistan trying to defeat al-Qaeda. Now they've killed their boss, what next?
What next? It's a very vague question, one has to admit. It's like growing a new tree. You start planting the tree, give it some natural sunlight and clean water waiting for it to grow, developing branches coming from all different directions. That is the situation we are in, but some of these branches will link together. Some in perfect harmony, some with caution.
A lot of people were effected by the 9/11 attacks, almost ten years ago which was mastermind by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and bin Laden's al-Qaeda organisation. The world came together, condoling those who lost their lives in the World Trade Centre, New York City. So the death of bin Laden on May 2nd, 2011 was good news as far as the people were concerned. As soon as Barack Obama announced this news, the world celebrated. I have never seen people so happy before. A death of a mass-murderer has given people hope and now they feel a little more secure and less paranoid, all over the death of bin Laden.
One problem with this is, just because he passed away, does not mean the organisation he lead has died. Although he was their leader, there will always be someone to replace him and probably do equally as bad things so we do have to remain cautious. US's job to defeat al-Qaeda is far from completed, but killing the leader is a start.
This leads me to the political side to the murder. The timing could not have been better for Barack Obama. We are around the time where his opposition, the Republicans pick their man/woman to go face-to-face with Obama in the 2012's general election. He has had it tough during his time as President as Americans lost faith in him rapidly after his general election win in 2008, especially on national health. It showed during the mid-term elections and he had to prove to his people he was actually born in America as people had doubts due to the fact his middle name was "Hussein". He announced the death with pride and now everyone loves him. Under his Presidency, bin Laden was found, then killed. Not George Bush who initially took his US forces to Afghanistan and Iraq in the first place.
Of course Obama gets little credit though. It only took American forces ten years to find him, seven of which he was not President and without his judgements and co-ordination with his troops in Pakistan, bin Laden would not have been found today. I praise his administration.
The death, on the other hand is a little fishy. A lot of people who I have been talking to have either said; he is not dead as there is lack of evidence to prove it or he died years ago.
These two points are very valid. Is he dead? Al-Qaeda admitted that he died, according to their official statement so it has to be true, surely? We can agree with them and say, yes he is dead - nothing we can do about it but shall we listen to what they are saying? We never listened to them before about anything like this. I hope that this organisation will not be stronger after bin Laden's death, or for this debate's sake, "supposed death".
People argued he was alive because there is no photographic evidence of his death. The White House declined to show any images of him dead. I'm glad they won't show photos of him dead. I mean, who would want to see a picture of a dead man? It would give us a piece of mind, don't get me wrong but to be honest, I don't want to see the sight of Osama bin Laden again.
Another way to find out his death as a certainty is interviewing his wives. I don't know how many wives he had but rumours are spreading that he had a few. News sources such as CNN have identified three of them. None yet have been interviewed but if they will be interviewed, it would be interesting to see what they would say about the situation.
I'm going to conclude by presuming he is dead. To be honest, for the people who say that he died "years ago", they're probably right. No one actually heard from him for quite a long time. No interruptions of Al-Jazeera news bulletins, nothing like that. The news of his death was unexpected. Although we still have to remain cautious, we now have a piece of mind that they are one less al-Qaeda member down. One thing is for certain, we could live our own lives like what we always had been living.
But I'm not posting a blog about any of those headlines. One headline, in my view that has dominated the press is the death of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. After ten years of hiding, he was finally found in a remote destination in north of Pakistan. US forces took their opportunity to shoot/torture him until his heart stopped beating and when pronounced dead, the military put his body in the sea. It will take a while until someone would want to retrieve his body under the sea...
To me, the whole thing was a complete surprise. For one moment, because of the lack of news coverage, I thought the US government had given up this mission, despite still being involved in Afghanistan trying to defeat al-Qaeda. Now they've killed their boss, what next?
What next? It's a very vague question, one has to admit. It's like growing a new tree. You start planting the tree, give it some natural sunlight and clean water waiting for it to grow, developing branches coming from all different directions. That is the situation we are in, but some of these branches will link together. Some in perfect harmony, some with caution.
A lot of people were effected by the 9/11 attacks, almost ten years ago which was mastermind by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and bin Laden's al-Qaeda organisation. The world came together, condoling those who lost their lives in the World Trade Centre, New York City. So the death of bin Laden on May 2nd, 2011 was good news as far as the people were concerned. As soon as Barack Obama announced this news, the world celebrated. I have never seen people so happy before. A death of a mass-murderer has given people hope and now they feel a little more secure and less paranoid, all over the death of bin Laden.
One problem with this is, just because he passed away, does not mean the organisation he lead has died. Although he was their leader, there will always be someone to replace him and probably do equally as bad things so we do have to remain cautious. US's job to defeat al-Qaeda is far from completed, but killing the leader is a start.
This leads me to the political side to the murder. The timing could not have been better for Barack Obama. We are around the time where his opposition, the Republicans pick their man/woman to go face-to-face with Obama in the 2012's general election. He has had it tough during his time as President as Americans lost faith in him rapidly after his general election win in 2008, especially on national health. It showed during the mid-term elections and he had to prove to his people he was actually born in America as people had doubts due to the fact his middle name was "Hussein". He announced the death with pride and now everyone loves him. Under his Presidency, bin Laden was found, then killed. Not George Bush who initially took his US forces to Afghanistan and Iraq in the first place.
Of course Obama gets little credit though. It only took American forces ten years to find him, seven of which he was not President and without his judgements and co-ordination with his troops in Pakistan, bin Laden would not have been found today. I praise his administration.
The death, on the other hand is a little fishy. A lot of people who I have been talking to have either said; he is not dead as there is lack of evidence to prove it or he died years ago.
These two points are very valid. Is he dead? Al-Qaeda admitted that he died, according to their official statement so it has to be true, surely? We can agree with them and say, yes he is dead - nothing we can do about it but shall we listen to what they are saying? We never listened to them before about anything like this. I hope that this organisation will not be stronger after bin Laden's death, or for this debate's sake, "supposed death".
People argued he was alive because there is no photographic evidence of his death. The White House declined to show any images of him dead. I'm glad they won't show photos of him dead. I mean, who would want to see a picture of a dead man? It would give us a piece of mind, don't get me wrong but to be honest, I don't want to see the sight of Osama bin Laden again.
Another way to find out his death as a certainty is interviewing his wives. I don't know how many wives he had but rumours are spreading that he had a few. News sources such as CNN have identified three of them. None yet have been interviewed but if they will be interviewed, it would be interesting to see what they would say about the situation.
I'm going to conclude by presuming he is dead. To be honest, for the people who say that he died "years ago", they're probably right. No one actually heard from him for quite a long time. No interruptions of Al-Jazeera news bulletins, nothing like that. The news of his death was unexpected. Although we still have to remain cautious, we now have a piece of mind that they are one less al-Qaeda member down. One thing is for certain, we could live our own lives like what we always had been living.
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