The death of Osama bin Laden is a Pyrrhic victory for the West.

It's a victory because bin Laden's existence was a reminder of the impotence of the US and all its allies.

It was evidence that the superpower could be struck with impunity. For all its technology and firepower, the US and its satellite states, including Australia, proved unable to strike back against the architect of the September 11 terrorist attacks.

While he was alive, he was a standing taunt to Western power and a source of encouragement and satisfaction to his fans and followers.

And it's Pyrrhic because bin Laden's provocation to the US was immensely more successful than the terrorist had hoped. He said as much, and he was right.

Terrorism is a tool of the weak against the strong. Its potency is not in the harm it inflicts but in the reaction it provokes.

Terrorism is most damaging when it prods the strong into using its own strength against itself.

That is precisely what bin Laden achieved. Not in the initial US reaction of invading Afghanistan, which was a rational and globally-supported effort to deny terrorism a safe haven and to repair a failed state.

It was the US decision to invade Iraq, using September 11 and bin Laden as pretext, and supported by Britain and Australia, that proved so destructive.

from Chris Floyd...

The excuse for the War on Terror is gone; will the War on Terror now come to an end? The bipartisan high and mighty rushed to insist that it most certainly will not. Obama, Bush, Kerry, McCain, Boehner, Schumer -- all the great and good were quick to say that "the fight is not over," the "threat is still there" -- the profitable wars and fearmongering will go on. And on. And on.

(Besides, who needs bin Laden when we've got Gadafy back as the demon du jour? In any case, Great Satans are always thick on the ground when the War Machine needs greasing.)

I suppose there is a chance, however -- a chance -- that the elimination of this emblem might finally stir a few more people to oppose, or at least begin to question, the continuation of the wars that were supposedly launched in response to 9/11. Perhaps a few more people will look around and say, "Why is our nation going bankrupt fighting all these wars? Didn't they kill ole bin Laden already? Wasn't that what it was all about?"

Of course, that never was "what it is was all about." But as the elites push forward with their wars, perhaps we'll see a bit more pushback. A wan hope, perhaps -- or rather, certainly. By and large, the American people seem to have accepted permanent war as a natural state, just the way things are and will always be. But perhaps the removal of this all-obscuring symbol from the public consciousness will let a few more chinks of light into a few more minds.

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President Obama acknowledged that the post-9/11 unity of the people of the United States "has at times frayed." But he didn't mention that that unity had actually collapsed completely within 24 hours of the horrifying attacks on the twin towers. September 11, 2001 didn't "change the world;" the world was changed on September 12, when George W. Bush announced his intention to take the world to war in response. That was the moment that the actual events of 9/11, a crime against humanity that killed nearly 3,000 people, were left behind and the "global war on terror" began. That GWOT war has brought years of war, devastation and destruction to hundreds of thousands around the world, in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and beyond.

There was an unprecedented surge of unity, of human solidarity, in response to the crime of 9/11. In the United States much of that response immediately took on a jingoistic and xenophobic frame (some of which showed up again last night in the aggressive chants of "USA, USA!!" from flag-waving, cheering crowds outside the White House following President Obama's speech). Some of it was overtly militaristic, racist and Islamophobic. But some really did reflect a level of human unity unexpected and rare in U.S. history. Even internationally, solidarity with the U.S. people for a brief moment replaced the well-deserved global anger at U.S. arrogance, wars, and drive towards empire. In France, headlines proclaimed "nous sommes tous Américaines maintenant." We are all Americans now.

But that human solidarity was short-lived. It was destroyed by the illegal wars that shaped the U.S. response to the 9/11 crime. Those wars quickly created numbers of victims far surpassing the 3,000 killed on September 11. The lives of millions more around the world were transformed in the face of U.S. aggression - in Pakistan alone, where a U.S. military team assassinated bin Laden, thousands of people have been killed and maimed by U.S. drone strikes and the suicide bombs that are part of the continuing legacy of the U.S. war.

These wars have brought too much death and destruction. Too many people have died and too many children have been orphaned for the United States to claim, as President Obama's triumphantly did, that "justice has been done" because one man, however symbolically important, has been killed. However one calculates when and how "this fight" actually began, the U.S. government chose how to respond to 9/11. And that response, from the beginning, was one of war and vengeance - not of justice.

The president's speech last night could have aimed to put an end to the triumphalism of the "global war on terror" that George W. Bush began and Barack Obama claimed as his own. It could have announced a new U.S. foreign policy based on justice, equality, and respect for other nations. But it did not. It declared instead that the U.S. war in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, and beyond will continue.

In that reaffirmation of war, President Obama reasserted the American exceptionalism that has been a hallmark of his recent speeches, claiming that "America can do whatever we set our mind to." He equated the U.S. ability and willingness to continue waging ferocious wars, with earlier accomplishments of the U.S. - including, without any trace of irony, the "struggle for equality for all our citizens." In President Obama's iteration, the Global War on Terror apparently equals the anti-slavery and civil rights movements.

Justice or Vengeance?

The United States' most vilified terrorist foe has been dead only a week but China is already haunted by the phantom of the next big US enemy. Almost simultaneously with the spread of the news of Osama bin Laden's death in a covert US operation in Pakistan, Chinese analysts had begun the guessing game of where Washington will focus its attention next.

"Why didn't they catch him alive?" speculated military affairs analyst Guo Xuan. "Because he was no longer needed as an excuse for Washington to take the anti-terror war outside of the US borders. It is because of bin Laden that the US were allowed to increase their strategic presence in many places around the world as never before. But Libya and NATO's attack there have changed the game. They (the US) no longer need bin Laden to assert their authority."

Even before bin Laden's death, Beijing had expressed concern that the US strategists are diverting their attention from the war on terror to containing the rise of China and other emerging economies.

A long article on Libya stalemate published by the editor of Contemporary International Relations magazine, Lin Limin, argued that the US has been unwilling to take the lead role in the Libya conflict because it has "finally woken up to the fact that its main reason to worry are the emerging countries.

"If the US position on Libya is not only a tactical stance but a strategic one and they have really come to understand that they should not waste military power and energy in numerous directions 'spreading democracy' all over the world but should begin focusing their attention on the rise of emerging countries, then we do have a reason to worry," Lin argued.

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/05/201156132839140238.html

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So what took al-Qaeda so long to replace Osama bin Laden? It's been over six weeks since a U.S. Navy SEAL team killed the terrorist chief, and only now has al-Qaeda decided on his successor — Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, an acerbic Egyptian physician who was bin Laden's longtime deputy.

Even for the likes of al-Qaeda, an organization not known for its warm and fuzzy side, al-Zawahiri has a reputation for obnoxiousness. One ex-militant describes al-Zawahiri, 60, as "sharp-tongued" and "arrogant." His scraggly beard, prayer callous on his forehead and thick glasses make him look more like an unpleasant and pious schoolmaster than a terrorist mastermind. Nevertheless, al-Zawahiri remains a force to be reckoned with. The Egyptian fully intends to continue waging bin Laden's war against the U.S. and its allies, his hatred sharpened by the fact that his wife and two children were killed by a U.S. air strike in October 2001 while fleeing across Afghanistan.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2078207,00.html#ixzz1PXTP9pSH

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As its feared and fearsome leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi personifies the brutality, determination and ambition of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

Not since Osama bin Laden has a leader been held in such reverence among Sunni fighters, scored such stunning and shocking victories, and threatened so much of the established order.

But unlike Bin Laden, whose vast wealth aided his elevation to the "sheikh", Baghdadi has literally fought his way from ordinary beginnings in northern Iraq to lead what is perhaps the Middle East’s most feared irregular armed force.

So emboldened by his success on the battlefields of Syria and Iraq, Baghdadi has challenged the very leadership of al-Qaeda, denouncing them publicly as deviating from the cause and stating he is the true heir to Bin Laden's legacy.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/06/fierce-ambition-isil-baghdadi-2014612142242188464.html

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