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11 May 2011

Statement from the family of Sheikh Osama bin Laden

Click anywhere for image of Osama bin Laden,
just not here. Electrons and magnetic zones
cost money, which Agence-Vleeptron Presse
needs for more important things.

I doubt very seriously if the world was waiting on tenterhooks for Vleeptron to comment on Osama bin Laden's death.

I hope I don't say anything here to interest the world's media machinery in the slightest. They have an enormous amount of space and time to fill, an enormous amount of toaster strudel and hemorrhoid cream to sell, and Vleeptron's reaction to OBL's death could possibly be reprinted or paraphrased on a cable news show to sell some strudel.

Vleeptron authorizes nobody but Vleeptron to sell cheap crap from these comments.

Here's my conspiracy theory: Osama bin Laden was created by the media industry so they could have more than a decade of stuff to fill their airtime and newspaper column inches. If he actually ever existed, his death was arranged by a secret cabal of News Corp., The New York Times, The Washington Post, The London Times, The Guardian, Comcast and al-Jazeera, and scheduled at the beginning of summer, the slow news season.

And now my opinion: He was the Mother of All Creeps.

He was, of course, completely insane.

Did he deserve to be hunted down and killed? 

Oh yeah. He asked for it.

Am I happy he's dead?

Not particularly. After murdering 3000 innocent men, women and children on a single day, in the most gruesome abd horrifying ways imaginable, his final act was to drag us down to his level, to make us killers like him. In his final moments, he stole from us the choice not to respond to his homicidal madness with more killing.

Both we and he claim righteousness and good for our killing. He claimed the approval of his God for his murders. We have generously invoked the approval of our God for killing him.

For those who like this kind of crap wrapped in Holy Writ, here's some Holy Writ:

Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.

-- Epistle of Paul to the Romans, 12:19


It's just violence and killing. OBL's sudden death arguably makes the world a somewhat safer place. 

But not a better or finer place. 9/11, the West African USA embassy bombings, the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen, and now the raid on OBL's compound in Abbottabad just add murder, killing, hatred, outrage and violence to our human world. One crazy lunatic and one outraged, vengeful government have cooperated to drag the human race backwards into barbarism.

If the viewpoint of the 3rd-grade schoolyard has significance, let me emphasize: He started it.

I am glad he's dead. 

And I am disgusted that I am glad he's dead. I have never sought to rejoice in the death of any living creature.

Evil and violent acts and mass murder were surely not put on this Earth to inspire me to take pleasure in the violent deaths of those who committed these acts.

I am filching the statement of Omar bin Laden and posting it here for no particular reason. It's pretty meaningless. The children's father, and one of their brothers, are dead, and all the lawsuits and criminal complaints in the world won't bring them back. They are Beyond Justice and the Rule of Law.

If Omar bin Laden and his siblings had wanted to take this moment to say something important, they might have addressed the big picture: World peace, non-violence, some working semblence of co-existence between peoples, religions, civilizations, and nations. I wish these things, but am largely clueless about how we might achieve them.

But I know that murdering 3000 women, children and men in one day, and shooting one crazy old man in the head and dumping his corpse into the ocean, will not bring us closer to a better human world.

Griping that a guy who ordered the deaths of innocent thousands didn't get a fair trial with a competent defense attorney is not really going to get anybody to mourn with the Bin Laden family.

Well, here it is. Make what you can of it. Leave a Comment.
* * *

provided to and first published by
The New York Times
Tuesday 10 May 2011


The following statement, prepared at the direction of Omar bin Laden, who had publicly denounced his father’s terrorist acts, was provided to The New York Times by Jean Sasson, an American author who helped the younger Mr. Bin Laden write a 2009 memoir, “Growing Up bin Laden.” A shorter, slightly different statement was posted on jihadist Web sites.

Omar bin Laden, 30, lived with his father in Afghanistan until 1999, when he left with his mother, Najwa bin Laden, who co-wrote the memoir. In the book and other public statements, Omar bin Laden had denounced violence of all kinds.

Ms. Sasson told The New York Times that although their names are not on this statement, the other adult sons of Osama bin Laden approved of the statement. Omar bin Laden now lives in Qatar and Saudi Arabia.


================= 

Statement from the family 
of Sheikh Osama bin Laden

I Omar Ossama Binladin and my brothers the lawful children and heirs of the Ossama Binladin (OBL) have noted wide coverage of the news of the death of our father, but we are not convinced on the available evidence in the absence of dead body, photographs, and video evidence that our natural father is dead. Therefore, with this press statement, we seek such conclusive evidence to believe the stories published in relation to 2 May 2011 operation Geronimo as declared by the President of United States Barrack Hussein Obama in his speech that he authorized the said operation and killing of OBL and later confirmed his death.

If OBL has been killed in that operation as President of United States has claimed then we are just in questioning as per media reports that why an unarmed man was not arrested and tried in a court of law so that truth is revealed to the people of the world. If he has been summarily executed then, we question the propriety of such assassination where not only international law has been blatantly violated but USA has set a very different example whereby right to have a fair trial, and presumption of innocence until proven guilty by a court of law has been sacrificed on which western society is built and is standing when a trial of OBL was possible for any wrongdoing as that of Iraqi President Sadam Hussein and Serbian President Slobodan Miloševic'. We maintain that arbitrary killing is not a solution to political problems and crime's adjudication as Justice must be seen to be done.

It is also unworthy of the special forces to shoot unarmed female family members of Binladen killing a female and that of one of his son.

Most importantly, when it is a common knowledge that OBL's family is residing at one place outside KSA, why they were not contacted to receive his dead body. His sudden and un witnessed burial at sea has deprived the family of performing religious rights of a Muslim man.

Finally, now that the operation is concluded we wish the Government of Pakistan to release and hand over all minors of the family and all the family members are reunited at one place and are repatriated to their country of origin, especially female members of the family to avoid further oppression and we seek international support to that effect.

Without agreeing to the ways of OBL as to how he professed, believed and operated, We Omar Ossama Binladin, and my brothers, the lawful children of the Ossama Binladin (OBL) herewith demand an inquiry under UNO to reach to the accuracy of the facts as stated by United States into the fundamental question as to why our father was not arrested and tried but summarily executed without a court of law. We are putting these questions to the United Nations, OIC, President of United States that a necessary evidence is presented to the family in private and or public to make us believe what they claim, and all the remaining family members are repatriated and united after necessary initial investigation.

In making this statement, we want to remind the world that Omar Ossam Binladin, the fourth-born son of our father, always disagreed with our father regarding any violence and always sent messages to our father, that he must change his ways and that no civilians should be attacked under any circumstances.  Despite the difficulty of publicly disagreeing with our father, he never hesitated to condemn any violent attacks made by anyone, and expressed sorrow for the victims of any and all attacks.  As he condemned our father, we now condemn the president of the United States for ordering the execution of unarmed men and women.

Failure to answer these questions will force us to go to International forum for justice such as International Criminal Court and International Court of Justice and UN must take notice of the violation of international law and assist us to have answers for which we are lawful in seeking them. A panel of eminent British and international lawyers is being constituted and a necessary action may be taken if no answers are furnished within 30 days of this statement.

4 comments:

abbas said...

how come the yanks need a villain always? the 80's had khomeini, the 90's had saddam, 2000's was obl. prior to them it was all the commie states one by one, russians, cubans, vietnamese, koreans etc.

i'm afraid now that obl is 'dead', they'll have to find a new bad guy, and i get a bad feeling he'll be pakistani unfortunately.

Vleeptron Dude said...

You know, I think this was touched on in sociology -- a body of knowledge I don't have enormous fondness for, but it did have insights.

Maybe cultural anthropology too.

The "default" of human groups is to define themselves by who they aren't -- to define themselves by their enemies. They get stronger in their identity by finding and emphasizing an enemy.

The Romans told their children that Hannibal (a black man, his mouth dripping in blood) was at the gates for centuries.

But USA politics does have a core fondness for an Evil Villain, for "the man you love to hate."

But then there's Pakistan and India, both of whose political lives since '48 seem to be founded on hatred of the other, always at the brink of war, often over the brink. Could India have some sort of political life without this national hatred of Pakistan? Could Pakistani politics live without enmity of India?

But as a Bogeyman, OBL was fantastic, better than any Hollywood villain. He made every James Bond villain look like a Boy Scout or a Presbyterian minister.

He was quite mad. What did he expect? The downfall and destruction of the USA? He caused us to shoot ourselves in the foot very seriously, sending us to doomed, hopeless and never-ending military adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But we're still rich, and we're still the world's only "projectile" superpower with the power to send violence and war anywhere in the world. China may eclipse us someday -- but not for a long while, if ever.

Like Ho Chih Minh, did OBL expect to liberate the Muslim world from the colonial hegemony of the Euro-US West? Ho Chih Minh succeeded ... but note the difference. HCM fought French, Japanese and American forces sent to Indochina. He never provoked violence on North American shores.

Canada, I have to say, has done a better job in my lifetime of defining itself decade after decade WITHOUT an evil, foreign bogeyman as the centerpiece of its political life. I wish we could learn how (and why) they seem to do things that way.

Abbas said...

The "default" of human groups is to define themselves by who they aren't -- to define themselves by their enemies. They get stronger in their identity by finding and emphasizing an enemy.

Canada, I have to say, has done a better job in my lifetime of defining itself decade after decade WITHOUT an evil, foreign bogeyman as the centerpiece of its political life. I wish we could learn how (and why) they seem to do things that way.

I think Canadians define themselves as everything America isn't. For the most part, they're trying too hard to not be American. Their army is two lesbians and a pistol, whaddya expect?

Vleeptron Dude said...

lol!

gtg! but stop rofling me, you know I'm recovering from surgery!