So, let's see if I've got this right...... Back in 2001 we were told that the US and Britain were invading Afghanistan for the purpose of finding Osama bin Laden and bringing him to justice.

Notwithstanding the fact that he has been killed and, depending on your point of view, may not necessarily have been brought to any sort of justice except the rule of the gun, doesn't the fact that he has been eliminated and is no longer a part of the equation mean that the stated reason for allied troops being present in that country no longer applies..?

Of course it does, but the prospect of an early departure from the country that Kipling described as "The Graveyard of Empires" is not on the immediate horizon.

Earlier this week the Taliban launched a suicide mission in Pakistan which killed some 80+ people. This has been publicised as a revenge attack for the death of bin Laden, but that doesn't quite square in some quarters.

The Taliban is not a part of Al Qaeda... never was, never has been. They have not been fighting an Islamic Jihad for the last ten years, they have been trying to drive an invader out of their country. So why would they want to avenge the death of a man they didn't follow at much cost to themselves..?

Makes you wonder if we're being told the truth, doesn't it..?

For once, Iran spoke for millions of Arabs when they said "An excuse for alien countries to deploy troops in this region under the pretext of fighting terrorism has been eliminated". Arab newspapers across the region picked up the message: If this is such a great victory for the USA, it's time to go home... which, of course, the US and Britain have no intention whatsoever of doing.

The prospect that many Americans and Britons may think the same thing is irrelevant to Washington or Whitehall. In their immature minds they have not yet grasped that the revolutions which have occurred in Tunisia and Egypt, and are taking place in Libya, Syria and Lebanon are much more important than blowing away a nominal leader who had been ludicrously elevated to Hitler like status when he was nothing of the sort.

On the same day that the news about bin Laden broke, the Turkish foreign minister gave a much more statesmanlike speech calling for Gadaffi to leave and for Syria to stop killing its own people than the petty, boastful, Hollywood grandstanding of Obama and Clinton.

One thought occurred though........ If the world was really a safer place for the death of bin Laden, then why did the US feel it was necessary to raise their security level and warn the world that "revenge attacks" were imminent..?

Is this some sort of "Safer Place to Live" that I've been hitherto blissfully unaware of..?

The world has had to listen to various variations of what actually happened in that tatty compound.... first described as a "multi million dollar mansion" in some sections of the press.

I don't think anybody with an ounce of reason believes that this was anything other than a kill mission from the start, which should make us all laugh at the notion of "Justice having been served" and it should make us a lot uneasier about the attitude of Washington towards the national boundaries of our own countries, wherever in the world we live.

And so we can confidently disregard the claim that the world is a safer place. However, as the US flexes its military muscles ever more aggressively around the world, there is one ray of hope:

The winds of freedom blowing through the Middle East. The Arab Spring.

If the West could only treat the mood for freedom in those countries with genuine justice rather than military firepower then Al Qaeda would become irrelevant in the minds of the people of the region. The flow of recruits to terrorism would dry up and AQ would simply wither and die on the vine.

We should encourage and support the arab revolutions with diplomatic pressure, popular public encouragement and financial and humanitarian aid, but not military action. Missions to kill Gadaffi or bludgeon despotic regimes into submission only serve to stiffen the resolve and resistance of these tyrants, and commit us even more than we already are in the region and get us more bogged down than ever.

It is true that the people of these countries may suffer - that is not in dispute - but if they are to succeed, then they should do so by their own desire for freedom and their own efforts, because that is the only freedom worth having. Not one imposed by the west, which carries a price tag of White House installed puppet presidents working for Washington's interests rather than those of their own people.

Puppet regimes only serve to fuel terrorism by giving propaganda that is all too believable in the minds of those who hate.... with what they believe to be good reason.... the west.

If we help the people of the Middle East determine their own future, then leaders will emerge........ political parties will evolve.... the people can express their will...... That is when the people become part of, and proud of, their democracy. When they have that, they never want to let it go again.

Terrorism cannot gain a foothold in such societies.

I believe we should embrace support for the revolutions and do all we can, short of more war and killing, to help the green shoots of democracy take hold and eventually flourish. The road will be long, the struggle hard and difficult People will die and that is a horrible thing, but not in the vast numbers that Aghanistan and Iraq have suffered under the West's imposed military occupation. If a better, freer world evolves in these countries bought and paid for in struggle and sacrifice by the people, for the people then those who survive will treasure it. Nurture it. Give it their all.

I think we should give them the chance to do that.


The US has had its revenge. The bogeyman is dead. Their blood lust should now be satisfied.

It's time to pack up and go home.

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