By: Hassan Zaingiri
‘Justice has been done’ is how US president Barak Obama hailed and celebrated the killing of Al-Qaeda Chief Osama Bin Ladin who Americans say was hiding in Abottabad town of Pakistan and was killed in a commando action by US forces last week.
It is now an admitted fact that Bin Ladin was unarmed when the compound he was housed in was stormed. Apart from the surviving family members, now in Pakistan custody, even some officials in US have stated that Osama was unarmed when US troops shot him dead. And as the bullets pierced him, Obama watching the ‘live coverage’ of the momentous event in the Situation Room of the White House with his team-mates spoke up ‘we got him’. The ‘Geronimo’.
CIA officials, who directed the ‘Geronimo EKIA’ operation, have also lent credence to the allegation. Giving details of the operation they have told reporters that prior to killing Osama they dropped the stunned bombs in the compound which on exploding produce shock waves, making the people incapable of any movement/action. That also reflects why there were no casualties on American side.
What the world wants to know from Americans is why in this backdrop – when he was unarmed or left “stunned” – Bin Ladin was not captured alive? That course taken, undoubtedly, would have proved a treasure trove and a more reliable source for the US to decipher the information, US believed, he possessed regarding 9/11 and other ‘anti-American’ ‘terrorist’ activities and the Al-Qaeda network.
That US chose not to publish the picture of Osama’s body as further added mystery to the issue. Washington says the pictures are gruesome as his face has been badly disfigured. (Beastliness of the so called champion of human values and its xenophobia knows no bounds). But was not hanging of Sadam Hussain provocative too? This raises the question was Osama shot beyond possible recognition or was the operation an eye wash? Did America fear that Osama would have walked free for lack of evidence if brought to trial. Osama dusted off his involvement in 9/11.
Many a time America expressed their desire to get Osama alive. Guantanamo Bay prison they had chosen to incarcerate the Al-Qaeda chief in and ‘bring him to justice’ through a ‘fair trial’. The killing of the aged ailing leader with some of his family members, all unarmed, in the house he had taken shelter has echoed a strong resentment from civil society in Europe, United Nation’s and human rights groups all over the world. They have despised the American action as a ‘cold-blooded assassination’. Even condemnation is growing from some sections of media inside the US itself. Though Pakistan is maligned and mucked at for ‘providing a safe heaven’ for Osama but American action, under International Law and Geneva Convention, is held a flagrant violation of the territorial sovereignty of an independent country. Pakistan has protested on the US strike terming it ‘unauthorized unilateral action’ taken without its knowledge. Its anger is that on one hand, US didn’t share the intelligence with it, and brazenly violated its sovereignty, on the other it has directed all guns of arrogance against her, forgetting Islamabad’s role in handing over hundreds of Al-Qaeda and Taliban ‘terrorists’ including some high profile leaders like Khalid Sheikh, Amjad, Abu Zubaida, Libey, and never forget, the nuclear science knowing Aasiya Sidiqa.
As if murder of unarmed Osama was not enough to satiate the vengeance of the Americans, the hastily decision of the Washington (two hours after the completion of the ‘mission’) to dump his body, whom once Americans and the West glorified as ‘Mujahid-e-azam’, in the deep waters of the Indian ocean (they only know where) has enraged the entire Muslim world – including those who opposed his ideology. The noted Muslim scholars including grand Al-Azhar University have strongly protested over this brutality that has all the trappings of crusade mentality and Hitlarian mindset.
Howsoever drugged you might be in eliminating your enemy, once he is dead, it is obligatory for you to show respect to the dead body and hand it over to the next of his kin. In absence of his kins, the state is morally and legally bound to carry his last rites in strict compliance to the religious injunctions of the deceased. Muslims throw their bodies in sea under certain compulsions as when they are on board the ship and someone dies. Here, Osama was murdered in the house and the body was flown to Bagram air base. They were under obligation to first inform the descendants of the Osama, who they knew were residing in Saudi Arabia (Incidentally Umar bin Osama, one of the sons of the deceased Al-Qaeda chief, has strongly reacted to the manner his father was killed and dead body thrown into waters of Indian ocean. In a letter he asked Americans to come up with evidence of Osama’s death within 30 days, or, he threatened, he would approach the International Court of Justice). The statement of Umar clearly shows his family in Saudi Arabia was not approached.
The lurking fear in Americans that his land burial would have ultimately provided a sanctimonious site to attract Osama’s followers is said to be the reason for opting the “sea burial” course . But that fear in no way should have insulated Americans to Muslim sensitivities, which is so arrogantly trumpeted under the hubris of technological advancement. For arguments sake let us presume burying site of Osama would have venerated into a Shrine, gravitating number of Muslim youth to it, what hampered Obama administration, as a last option, from having the last remains of a Muslim (whatever his ideological moorings) lay in rest in Guantanamo Bay, which the ‘civilized’ Americans have chosen to convert into an animal farm quarantined for those who it thinks dares to yell at its imperialist nudity.
Whether or not the burial site of Osama might have become a mausoleum for his followers is a debatable preposition, but the sacrilegious affront to Muslims by US and in the highly provocative and insulting way, has in it all the ingredients to fuel rage and hatred in Muslim world against the US. That way Osama eliminated would prove a ghost for her, haunting it again and again. Osama in person is ‘finished’ but in finishing him the White House has, unwittingly, given a new lease of life to the Osama-doctrine. That is how “justice has been done”!
Hassan Zainagiree can be reached at : zainagiree@yahoo.co.in
