Osama's death: Beyond the spin and the jubilation

I look at comments posted on Facebook and notice the huge scepticism towards the death of Osama Bin Laden and the circumstances that surround it.

I listen to the women at the village hairdresser and they mirror the concerns of the connoisseurs. “Is he really dead?” “Didn’t we hear that he was killed some years ago?” “Why aren’t they providing evidence that it has actually happened?” “Is the world really a safer place?”

The questions and the mistrust that are being revealed by segments of public opinion are understandable.

Many of us have an inkling that we are not getting the whole picture. Moreover, our healthy mistrust of political discourse is backed by historic evidence, which shows that we are not merely a bunch of conspiracy theorists.

Let us look at some recent myths that were peddled to followers of international politics. A story engineered by leading PR agency Hill & Knowlton asserted that Iraqi soldiers murdered Kuwaiti babies in incubators and this helped garner Western support for Gulf War I.

Then we had western leaders swear we were being threatened by Saddam’s ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’ which was the main pretext for Gulf War II. Only this year, an Iraqi defector in Germany said he had invented the story and he was gobsmacked how the West was so fast and eager to believe him.

On a lighter note there was also the famous story known as ‘saving Private Jessica Lynch’ when US officials celebrated the fictitious rescue of a young beautiful American soldier from Iraqi hands. Less gullible segments of the public are now waiting.

In this current scenario only time will tell how far we are being led by the nose. The biggest misconception that is being peddled is that Bin Laden was the ‘leader’ of Al Qaeda. We are promised that the death of the leader will weaken the group. Yet, informed readers know that this is not the case.

Al Qaeda is made up of cell groups that do not fall under the control of a leader. Osama Bin Laden was an inspirational figure for radicalized followers in the West and in the Rest of the world.

Experience has shown that some inspirational figures may have more ideological impact after their death than during their own lifetime.

We still need to go beyond the spin and the jubilation. We need to put all the pieces together for a clearer picture. Only then should we have the audacity to assess whether the world has actually become a safer place.