Yes, U(O)SAma bin Laden met his grave in thr deep sea according to Obama's United States of America which flew its radar-invisible copters into his million-dollar modern-fortress-like high-walled, barbed hideout compound in a small town 40 miles off Pakistan's capital of Islamabad to ambush and capture inmates and shoot resistant bin Laden resisting in his bed room in the three-storied building a few hundred feet away from Pakistan's defence training establishment. The US Navy Seals arranged for Laden's burial in the deep seas where the Sea Seals live.
The first reaction to the news announced of the world's most wanted terrorist by the Peace Prize winning US President Barrack Obama was one of awe or complete disbelief. No one could get convinced that the USA could spread a lie of such huge proportions. Nor has anyone been prompt enough to release a bin laden video showing that he was still alive (one needs at least a week to find the original bin Laden speaking again). For most Westerns, there was a great sigh of relief with most Americans an additional sense of satisfying pleasure of having taking revenge on a fleeing coward terrorist leader. For a large part of the Islamic community, a sigh of relief from embarrassment and suspicion by others about their tacit support to terrorist killing of non-Muslims around the World. For a large section of the Islamic World, there could be complete sense of disbelief and suppressed agony of a fairy-tale icon, superior to Saddam Hussein, vanishing in water along with their sense of pride. For some leaders of the Muslim community, especially in India, there is an additional sense of grief, besides anger against the US arrogance reflected in hunting out Obama bin Laden to shoot him and bury him in the water: they had never imagined such a tragic end of their revolutionary hero.
Yes, ObL was indeed the first Translational Revolutionary: he was the first revolutionary with citizenship in the minds and hearts of Muslim and anti-American citizens of the World across nations and countries. He is the first revolutionary leader who caused a revolution that rocked various nations simultaneously. He was, of course, a jihadi but not one of those of the run-of-the mill variety - he revolted against the entire Western World with focused attention on humiliating the Super-power USA. He operated from outside his country of birth with followers all across the Globe and a commando force operating from mainly Afghanistan and Pakistan. He caused the great revolution that occurred in the Security and Intelligence Industry worldwide with scientists and technologists in the area of Internet, telecommunications, and hunting for a few needles in a worldwide haystack. He caused a revolution in the way that the nations look at security of borders, people and property all over the world. He has caused a great and painful transformation in the way air transport services are organised.
Yet, he lived the life of a fugitive billionaire, chased away by the army of lions whose tails he had chosen to play with. He had ultimately had to be operating in the captivity of those who would use him as an instrument for extracting monies from the Super-powers in the West and Super-rich in the Islamic World. He was a great preacher and inspiration for those who dreamt of an Islamic Globe shorn of all that is non-Islamic much the same way that Hitler dreamt of a World without any trace of anything that did not meet his test of purity. And, finally got simply killed in his own den that the beneficiaries of his clever captors could no longer hide from the lions committed to avenging his thrust for human lives. He breathed his last with bullets in the chest and head leaving six wives, 19 children and billions of followers and sympathisers to mourn for him and one of his sons who also got killed in the attack of the lions flying out oft he sea. Despite whatever good and bad he has done to the World at large, he is still regarded as an iconic religious person among the Muslim community ( just as the Emperor Aurangzeb was a great religious man as compared with his ancestor, Emperor Akbar both of whom ruled the major part of the Indian sub-Continent in the last millennium. If one is religious enough, the World still respects you irrespective of the sign and the magnitude of contribution that you make to the society.
ObL is no more. Does this create a vacum? Yes, it does in four ways. The al Qaida needs a supremo. Can his lieutenant, second in command really replace him? Will the new leader be able to enjoy the same halo / charisma required of an iconic figure like ObL? Or, will al Qaida be led by the unseen, felt in blood soul and spirit of the idea that ObL meant for the al Queda? Time will tell how al Qaida will work its life through.
Second, the dream of the planet of only Muslims would need a living human icon? Will a replacement of ObL emerge? And, where - in Afghanistan, Pakistan or Iran or somewhere else? Within al Qaida or within Taliban or within Mujahudeen? How would such a icon emerge when the revolutions continue in some form or other in Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Tunisia and other places where there is resentment against monarchies? We have to wait for a while: for most of these revolutions are still contrary to a transnational Islamic revolution that Obl personified.
Third, Pakistan has lost a treasure with ObL's departure. Collaborating with US counter-terrorism focused on the hunt for ObL could bring in billions of dollars so long as ObL could be hidden and not found by the US. That period is over. Pakistan needs another such treasure. Can Pakistan create one new treasure that would make the US consider as the new most wanted and make it play hid and seek game in the wide terrain from Pakistan to Afghanistan, from Arab kingdoms to Arab lands afflicted by mass revolutions, from Syria to Iran to Myanmar, and from Kashmir to Iran? How would the clever and intelligent Pak military junta create another billions-spinning trap for the high-brow US?
Fourth, the US needs a replacement for ObL that gave them a decade and multi-billion dollar opportunity to prove their mettle and win. What about the future? Part one of George Bush's theory has been proved by Obama: the US would find out and kill the Evil that caused her any harm however much time that may take. Will be interested in proving that again and again every decade? Or. will Obama proceed to prove part two of Bush's theory that those who harbour the Evil would be punished? US now knows who harboured the Evil. What is its program now on punishing the country that sheltered ObL within its territories for years together, embarrassing the US special agencies again and again with ObL's video-tapes shown to the whole world? Will the intelligently clever Pak military men be able to fool the gusty American intelligence again?
There are. of course, a few theories available. First, the Obama Pledge and The Economist Health Prescription. Obama promised pull out of American forces from Iraq and Afghanistan. With the celebrations over the gutsy, heroic feat of capturing and terminating the Numero Uno individual Enemy of the American Nation, the US should consider shifting to a more non-aggressive and inexpensive strategy of demonstrating international political and military supremacy of the US. This would be consistent with the economists' call for eliminating the key imbalances in the US economy to create conditions for sustainability of economic supremacy of the US and in the process be able to pursue international political-military supremacy from a position of economic strength rather than allow China to get economic strength enough to beat the US both economically and politically. The economists are calling for radical redeployment of resources from military and international political projects to projects for eliminating high burden of debt, chronic budget deficits and current account deficits, fund pension liability deficits and health care benefit-cost deficiency and at the same time lift domestic investment and employment growth. Will the US heed to this advice?
Or, will the US fall prey to the Chinese-Pakistani laid trap of continuing with low and slow yielding international poliical supremacy strategy at the cost of draining out the US economic might. The more the Us deploys its resources in international political, military supremacy policy, the weaker her economy becomes with greater gains to Pakistan' s military Junta and the Chinese Communist dictatorship. Pakistan would continue to create irresistible attraction of its falling prey to China or Iran which the US would not be able to resist and handover dollars to Pakistani military junta and China would be happy to see the US remaining entangled in the Pakistani love-hate relationship that would guarantee sustainability to both terrorism and bleeding of US economy. Or, will the US leave Pakistan to its own fate allowing Pakistanis to muster courage to build democracy, leave Afghanistan to fend for itself- restricting US to only Drone driving along the Afghan- Pakistan border and Taliban-concentration belts?
We could wait and see if Pakistani tail wags the US body as in the past.
Meanwhile, the mystery of US Navy Seal Six Operation will continue to haunt millions of intelligent minds in the media. The Chinese theory would be that the Pakistanis were forced to allow US helicopters fly in and destroy ObL once the US became 60%-80% sure of ObL hiding in Pakistani- arranged shelter and thereby roving to be a great ally to the US in exchange of billion dollars of future flows to Pakistan. Obama struck a good deal to improve his popularity. Pakistanis may feign ignorance as per the deal. The alternative theory is that Pakistan has signed into yet another deal with the US to allow Pakistan to be another US base to deter China. Beyond these theories, people would be anxiously waiting for another Hollywood film to rationalise the Navy Seal Copper Adventure and fictions that starts from the early morning horror in Obl Den and traces what happened to the inmates of the ObL Den and ObL's wives and children. Good entertainment business out of a great revolution ushered in by Osama bin Laden,
