Ben Laden’s death has fed America’s appetite for blood, not for justice

President Obama’s “Justice has been done” is trending: on TV, in papers, on the web, even in casual conversations. Ossama Ben Laden’s arrest/death was wished by most of the Americans for now a decade. The outburst of joy depicted us an indecent at ease with itself thirst of blood within Americans.The American President was not the only one to see his approval rating jumping: following results of a poll held after Ben Laden’s death, 1/3 of the Americans are now in favor of detention of innocents in Guantanamo, more than half of Americans believe their mission in Afghanistan is not complete and about 44% think is winning its “War on Terror”.

The conclusion we can draw here is horrific in itself: we wrongly interpreted these last years’ growing opposition of Americans to the murderous wars in Iraq and in Afghanistan as ideological humanist positions of people becoming progressively aware of the fact that these wars are slaughtering civilians and unhappy they were fooled on the reality on the battlefield; now we see that they were disapproving them not because the wars were ethically wrong but only because they were losing them. In short: a dominating opportunistic point of view, not an ethical one.Those who wanted their “boys” back, were not asking for it in purpose of stopping this continuous rape of countries sovereignty and peoples lives: it was merely a “hunger strike” to protest against the fact that their thirst of blood was not adequately satisfied; consumers were unhappy to have been promised the finest beef tournedos and are brought only cheap industrial poultry. And now that they tasted Ben Laden’s blood, the appetite for destruction is just increasing. The lowest part of the being needs to be fed with revenge, humiliation inflicted to others.

America learnt nothing on why in the first place the rest of the World is so keen to be fed with anti-American feelings: their attitude consisting of making prevail their interests and profits over anything else, including any form of ethics, careless of the protests and opposition their acts might encounter, as long as they have enough weapons to crush them. After all, did Barack Obama mean anything else when he says during his announcement on Ben Laden’s death: “ tonight, we are once again reminded that America can do whatever we set our mind to. “.

And what comes next? I mean after Muslims paid with 900’000 lives the price of “justice”, will people of Afghanistan, Iraq or Pakistan be given the right to live a normal life, without US troops on their territories? Families of the World Trade Center had their “justice” when Al-Qaeda leader passed away, will the Muslims have right to relief (yes, just relief, since “justice” is affordable only for those who own drones), in seeing the end of the “War on Terror” that was imposed on them? The US have given their answer: no.

First because US officials notified it extremely clearly: Ben Laden’s death is not the end of the war. It is understood that it was much of a high psychological impact, but as this assassination does not disrupt the organizational scheme of Al-Qaeda, a lot has still to be done to fulfill the goals of the “War on Terror”.

Second, this “victory”, by justifying the massive investment of Bush and Obama into the wars, opens the door to a more aggressive global military policy. A first clear sign was given in this direction, when on May 7th a drone attack was launched in Yemen targetting the leader of Al-Qaeda in the Arabic Peninsula, the American-Yemeni Anwar Al-Awqali, failing in killing him but causing the death of two men. For now like for the last 10years, US is nor bothered nor concerned about this kind “collateral damages”. If it is to kill 5 or 10 millions Muslims around the world in addition just to reach their targets and pursue their agenda, so be it. People of Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan (and soon Iran?) are, for the US foreign policy, no more than insects they can crush without any apology, without any shame. Americans will slowly reconciliate with torture as now it was proven that “it works“, Obama promise to close Guantanamo Bay camp became secondary. Fundings will continue to be granted. Muslims will continue to be killed.

When looking back to the last decade, one has the bitter feeling that US did not understand anything during this war on terror: if efforts were engaged to suppress the roots of the hatred they inspire to Al-Qaeda as well as to the rest of Muslims, even the moderates (even the modern educated revolutionnary egyptian and tunisian youth praised by all worldwide medias have shown their rejection of US strategy in the Arab World in boycotting Hillary Clinton’s visit in Egypt and Tunisia), they would have won the war. If they had fought the aggressive imperialism they submit the world with, they would have gained the sympathy of all. We wanted to believe in a change. All throughout Africa and the Muslim world, we have seen people celebrating Barack Obama’s election in 2008 and Cairo speech in 2009, simply because somewhere, we all thought that a half-African man could be the perfect person to understand what it is to stand on the other side of the barrier, to understand the expressions of despair from populations starving, not accessing education or medication, living in unstable or tyrannic state… for the unique reason that most of the policies that rule our countries are not decided in our parliaments, but in the White House, following interests far from the local population wishes and needs. It didn’t take long for the optimists we all were  to be disappointed.

The truth is that since the end of the second World War, the United States won every battle but lost every war (Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan). Operations were always fulfilled, targets were always reached. But because their outrageous imperialism/neo-colonialism  inspired each day more new opponents than it could kill, making the distance to go to the finishing line of their quest increasing after each step instead of decreasing. Now in killing Ossama Ben Laden, they just added one more item on their list of shameful records during their lost War on Terror. Terror was not eliminated, it only changed its location: the crowds celebrating the death of one man are showing how much terrorized they are from the inside, to the point to “need” that blood to reassure themselves, to simulate their lost sense of justice, while the Muslim and Arab World experiencing the first days of the “Arab Spring” ousting the Oriental puppets of an Almighty West that lost track on the too numerous files they try to handle, the first and only targets in number of victims of the War on Terror, only increase in courage to claim their opposition to an unfair world, building nations where “justice has been done” won’t be just an empty statement.

Japan, a trendy cause

The Japan earthquake and tsunami’s news and videos shook all of us. I still cannot understand where do the Japanese people take all that courage to face this apocalyptic situation; I really admire them for looking at all this and… don’t give up. I think we all had this feeling looking at them endlessely trying to find their relatives walking through the gigantic fields of wood, steel and concrete in piles, where there previously was a village, made of pretty houses and beautiful streets.

The empathy with the strong and proud men and women is certainly one of the reasons that explains partly the worldwide  generosity towards the japanese victims. I always see positively international solidarity, that remains among the last things where one can watch its neighbour concerned about some natural disaster and say: “thank you for allowing me, sometimes, to keep faith in human beings.”. But this time, I cannot help to be somewhat irritated by something going wrong. It all started with reading something about Lady Gaga selling on her websites bracelets for Japan; then Sandra Bullock offered 1 million dollars while the Black Eyed Peas try to promote the cause. Britney Spears, Justin Bieber and Katy Perry will issue shortly a song. Why do these artists need to show themselves that much when they aren’t doing anything else than what others are doing? When a star earning millions of dollars gives half a million or so, it is not more remarkable than when a student who earns only a few hundreds send 30 dollars to the victims. So why do they need that their donations are given publicity in the media?

Let’s face the ugly truth: these artists know that the Japanese are good customers for their songs, movies, concerts, CDs, DVDs, etc. Given the high purchasing power in Japan and the high sum per inhabitant they dedicate to purchasing cultural goods, the marketing of international artists has always been careful to never forget to target the Land of the Rising Sun. A natural disaster affecting the Japanese economy equals to a decrease in the income of the Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, Britney Spears and others. So how to remedy the situation? Easy! By increasing their visbility and popularity in Japan, as well as in other parts of the wrld: for the Japanese, these donations confort them in the feeling those artists care about them, and for American, Europeans and others, itt gives them a positive image.

If it was business, we would call this a win-win situation, but since it’s not business but charity isn’t this but an unclean way to take advantage of a the suffering of hundreds of thousands of victims just to boost their approval ratings? One might object that I am judging them on mere intent… do I? I had the feeling for example that I haven’t seen that much compassion from the entertainment industry during the terrific floods in Pakistan in 2010. The number of victims were much greater (21 millions people directly affected). Pakistan as an emergent country couldn’t offer the technicalities and help the japanese government is able to help its citizen with. In almost one week, the Japanese disaster cause gathered almost as much donation than the Pakistani disaster in more than 6 months. It is not a matter here to compare between the two catastrophes, but just to face the truth: Japan is a trendy cause, Pakistan was not. Lady Gaga & friends try to increase their popularity among their most lucrative fans; states and companies want to save the business; and people… well I don’t know exactly what is their feeling about all this, why they don’t feel a Pakistani man, woman or child deserves help the same way a Japanese man, woman or child. As human beings, we all have to make our share for Japan, the same way they would do for us if we lived something that much tragic (or even if they wouldn’t), but as human beings we should also try to “train” ourselves to not treat differently the suffering, the pain, the anguish of the different victims. When confronted to disasters like this, my dream would be that the world stops to see the Japanese as no more than consumers to attract (for their money and not for the sincere concern about all the suffering they are currently going through), and the Pakistani like no more than “under human beings” that don’t deserve any compassion.