Killing Yesterday's Man

Of course it’s great that Osama bin Laden is dead. It’s wonderful. People should be celebrating and dancing in the streets. Are Muslims dancing in the streets the way they were dancing when bin Laden took the Towers down? Crowds of cheering Americans gathered Sunday night outside the White House in Washington and at Ground Zero in New York, chanting “USA, USA.” Not a burka in the crowd. I think that’s very telling. But what is most significant about bin Laden’s death is what it reveals about Barack Obama and Pakistan.

When Obama spoke about the killing of bin Laden Sunday night, he was shameless. Every other word was “I.” I am really surprised that Obama didn’t insist that bin Laden be brought to Manhattan to stand trial. Seriously. Obama can puff himself up and shamelessly strut like peacock, claiming credit for the death of Osama bin Laden, but Gd bless our troops. Hats off to the US military that has been relentless, dogged and brave for ten years in their mission to kill that devout bastard.

In fact, it was intelligence gleaned from interrogating Gitmo detainees, specifically Khalid Sheik Muhammad, that led to capture and killing of Osama Bin Laden. These are the very techniques that Obama and Holder have stopped and fought to reverse. Obama railed against these interrogations and wanted to prosecute the CIA interrogators who led to this capture.

Obama’s chest pounding leads to some troubling conclusions. If he takes credit, that causes other problems. Remember: when Muslims were killing innocent people in Afghanistan because fringe pastor Terry Jones burned a Koran in Florida, Obama said that Jones should curtail his freedom of expression, implying that he would be responsible if Muslims killed anyone because he burned a Koran. But if we follow Obama’s line of thinking, if Muslims go jihad now and start killing people because of the death of bin Laden, who will be responsible for those deaths? Barack Obama.

How does he reconcile such crippled thinking?

Preserving freedom of speech and freedom of expression is just as precious and essential in this war on our civilization as avenging those who died for those very things (our very way of life) in the jihadist attack on America on September 11, 2001.

Besides taking credit, Obama said: “We must also reaffirm that the United States is not and never will be at war with Islam. Bin Laden was not a Muslim leader. He was a mass murderer of Muslims.”

Pure nonsense. Whether we like it or not, Osama bin Laden was a Muslim leader. Whether the Zuhdi Jassers of the world like it or not, Osama was a Muslim leader. Whether the violent Muslims of the world like it or not (and they do), he was a Muslim leader. Muslims in Indonesia were wearing Osama bin Laden t-shirts when we were over there helping them after the tsunami. He was a beloved figure to millions in the Muslim world because of his devotion and purity to the Islamic jihad.

And if he wasn’t a Muslim leader, why was he buried within twenty-four hours of his death “in keeping with Islamic tradition”? We washed and cleaned this monster? Outrageous. He should have been put behind a wall at the 911 Memorial and Museum, the very thing they are doing with the human remains of our loved ones who were killed there.

Also, the question must be raised: if Osama bin Laden was not a Muslim leader, but was instead a “mass murderer of Muslims,” why was the government of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan protecting him? And they were: Osama was not living in a cave. He was living in a mansion outside of the Pakistani capital of Islamabad, and that’s where the American forces found and killed him. Osama was living in a splendid complex, a fortress that was built specifically for him near Islamabad. If that is so, then clearly the ISI, Pakistan’s spy service, knew where he was all along. He has apparently been there since 2005. He was there with his son and his youngest wife. So there is no way that the Pakistani government didn’t know that he was there.

Why now? Why did Pakistan allow this to happen after years of sheltering bin Laden? What did Barack Obama have to give up to the Pakistanis in order to make this campaign-bolstering deal for Osama bin Laden? Amid all the celebrations, there is something worrisome about the death of Osama bin Laden – and that is what we don’t know about it.

Finally, insofar as the bigger picture goes, Osama bin Laden was yesterday’s man. The global jihad rages on. The Muslim Brotherhood is far more dangerous than al-Qaeda in its ability to impose Islamic law over the Middle East and to assert it in the West. It has infiltrated the senior levels of our government in ways that al-Qaeda never could. Obama’s exclusive focus on al-Qaeda ignores all the other Islamic supremacist groups that are working around the world, and in the United States, right now. Obama’s Department of Justice is scuttling the prosecutions of Islamic supremacist leaders such as Omar Ahmad of Hamas-tied CAIR. His Treasury Department has given seminars in Sharia finance.

Killing bin Laden won’t solve those problems. Nor will it make the global jihad go away.