America's Most Wanted

 

Oh great! Another opportunity for the U.S. to assault the rest of the world with their patriotism and paranoia. President Barack Obama proudly announced that the US had successfully killed Osama Bin Laden. In his speech he said:

“Last week I determined that we had enough intelligence to take action and authorised an operation to get Osama Bin Laden and bring him to justice. Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound in   Abbottabad Pakistan. A small team of Americans carried out the operation with extraordinary courage and capability. No American’s were harmed [- my favourite part!]. They took care to avoid civilian casualties. After a firefight, they killed Osama Bin Laden and took custody of his body…Justice has been done”.

Obama instantly lost his charm and for the first time looked more like Bush’s replacement than a man with a dream for all of humanity. Strange how the murder of an ailing Dr. Evil will most likely earn him another term in office. Bush must be seething with jealousy. America’s triumph has been imposed on the rest of the world as an international triumph. This is regardless of the fact that we will still be inappropriately patted down at airports and I might have a third pair of blunt scissors or tweezers confiscated.

I was ready to sympathise with Americans until I saw the images. They were no different to a New Years Eve street bash- American’s hysterically chanting and cheering. Buffoonery. For a moment I thought I was watching highlights from the royal wedding. As Mona Eltahawy writes in the Guardian, there was "No dignity at ground zero". This marks a second phase of opportunities to define the face of terrorism as misguided Muslims ‘living amongst us’. Carefully selected images and videos of Bin Laden and Al Qaeda have resurfaced against images of wholesome, democratic, American, saviours of the world.

A more humble reaction from the U.S. would have changed the tone of this blog post. My fear is: now that the common enemy has been eliminated, who is next on America's Most Wanted list? Who will the “hollering hoards of hicks and hill- billies” (T. Walker, 2011) pick as their next project ? On that note, I think each African Head of State should take the opportunity to congratulate the U.S. and perhaps add that there is no reason to view Sub- Saharan Africa as the next hub for ‘imminent threats’. God bless America.

Ps. I can't stop laughing at this: http://lockerz.com/s/99179680