In May 2011, the US organized an operation that led to the assassination of Osama bin Laden and several others. This execution-style murder—contemporaneous media accounts that portrayed bin Laden as armed and fighting to the death were later discredited—was followed by the removal of the body and secret burial at sea.
The circumstances of this killing underscored the murky relationship between Al Qaeda and US imperialism. The Saudi millionaire was first recruited as a militant in the CIA-controlled mujahedeen war in Afghanistan against the Soviet-backed government in the 1980s. He later allied himself with the Taliban, who ruled Afghanistan with the open support of the Pakistani military and the tacit backing of Washington. He was found, not in the proverbial cave, but living in an expensive compound in a town only 40 miles from the headquarters of the Pakistani army, “the equivalent of a fugitive hiding next to a police station.”
Bin Laden’s death illuminated the crisis of American democracy. A Perspective column by David North pointed out that the Obama administration’s attempts to manufacture public enthusiasm over the killing had fallen flat. The liberal media responded to any expressions of doubt over the assassination with furious denunciations. “I want memory, and justice, and revenge,” Maureen Dowd shouted on the pages of the New York Times. “The really insane assumption behind some of the second guessing is that killing Osama somehow makes us like Osama, as if all killing is the same.”
North replied:
Dowd has missed the irony of her remark. Assassination is, indeed, a very exceptional and illegal type of killing. Its practice by a state—and, in particular, the United States—has far-reaching political implications, since the act is recognized as the most extreme violation of democratic and legal norms. The involvement of the United States in political assassinations in the 1960s was part of a pattern of illegal actions that led to the wholesale criminality of the Nixon administration and its violations of democratic rights in the United States …
Unlimited violence, the repudiation of legality, and the suppression of democracy: this is the reactionary trajectory of contemporary American capitalism.
Following the pattern of the Bush administration’s torture memos, the Obama administration organized a secretive legal team to craft ad hoc loopholes enabling the White House to legitimize flagrantly illegal covert operations.
President Obama has begun his re-election campaign with a focus on his role in ordering the assassination of Osama bin Laden.
The Colombo establishment views the murder as a vindication of the Sri Lankan government’s war crimes and an opportunity to ingratiate itself with Washington.
Reports that the raid organized to kill Osama bin Laden included backup plans for a military confrontation with Pakistani forces underscore the highly reckless character of the entire operation.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister has warned that Pakistan reserves the right to “retaliate with full force” to any future violation of its national sovereignty.
In his first and so far only interview since the assassination of Osama bin Laden, US President Barack Obama spent half an hour on the CBS News program “60 Minutes” reveling in the details of the extra-judicial killing.
There has been little sign that Bin Laden’s killing has evoked among the broad mass of the American people anything approaching the wild enthusiasm of the media.
The media and corporate sponsors have gone after Pittsburgh Steeler running back Rashard Mendenhall for criticizing the jingoistic celebrations following the killing of Bin Laden.
Readers’ letters to the World Socialist Web Site on its analyses of the killing of Osama bin Laden.
Barely five days after the commando raid that killed Osama bin Laden, the US launched a Predator drone strike aimed at assassinating an American citizen in Yemen.
President Obama’s brief visit to New York City’s “Ground Zero” Thursday is part of an orchestrated campaign to exploit the killing of Osama bin Laden for the most reactionary political purposes.
It took less than two days for Washington’s official story of the commando raid that killed Osama bin Laden to unravel, revealing amidst the rubble of the initial lies a cold-blooded extra-legal execution.
A selection of recent letters to the World Socialist Web Site on its analyses of the killing of Osama bin Laden.
After Bin Laden had been liquidated, the White House and the media moved quickly to orchestrate the celebration of what was, in fact, an extra-legal state killing.
Washington and the corporate media have used the killing of Osama bin Laden to launch a strident celebration of US militarism. What is missing from speeches and commentary, however, is any serious assessment of the decade-old “global war on terror.”
Osama bin Laden was living in a palatial residence only a few hundred yards from a major Pakistani military facility.
President Obama’s statement late Sunday leaves many unanswered questions.
