Bin Laden dead – world no safer

The US government has announced that their special forces assassinated Osama Bin Laden on 01 May in north Pakistan. The vain self-congratulation by the leaders of the Western governments has rapidly descended into a shameless media spectacle, with each representative of the ‘free world’ keen to claim Bin Laden’s death as a ‘victory for world liberty and justice'.

It wasn’t long before prime ministers and presidents put forward their own conclusions – that international terrorism had been dealt a serious blow, the military intervention in Afghanistan and Pakistan was justified, and once again the USA has saved the world from tyranny.

This from the leaders of imperialist butchery with the blood of tens of thousands of Afghans, Iraqis, and Pakistanis on their hands.

While it was clear that Bin Laden was used by the US and its allies as a face to brand the vague parameters of the War on Terror, his pursuit and capture was always secondary to the task of subduing the Afghan resistance and imposing western imperialist dominance over the region.

For 20 years, the United States and other western governments provided Bin Laden and his followers with the training, equipment, and funds that they eventually turned so successfully on their former benefactors.

In the ten years that the US has pursued Bin Laden across the Middle East, 2 countries have been invaded and torn apart by civil war, Pakistan has been subjected to an undeclared American air and ground campaign, and hundreds of thousands of civilians have been killed and ‘disappeared’ to US torture camps.

The assassination of Osama Bin Laden was not worth the legacy of destruction which Western bombers have imprinted on the region. The escalation of US military involvement to include special forces operating independently in Pakistan, alongside Libya proves the US is still determined to impose its will on the region.

The willingness of western governments to impose their imperialist agenda at any cost has turned the world into an increasingly volatile and dangerous place. Nowhere is this more true than the daily experience of the millions of workers and poor in revolt across the Middle East.

The death of Bin Laden has not made the world safer. It was not a victory for liberty, but a justification for imperialist arrogance and slaughter.

One thing is certain – his death will not bring an end to the ‘War on Terror’ or to the resistance by ordinary people at the sharp end of imperialist oppression and war.