Bin Laden’s ghost continues to haunt

It's one year since Osama Bin Laden was killed in a Hollywood style operation in the picturesque town of Abbotabad. His shadow still hangs over Pakistan and Afghanistan and the West’s decade-long war though. The man is dead; his oppressive legacy lives on.
The first anniversary of Abbotabad this month saw much chest-thumping in Washington with the US media revisiting the Operation Geronimo and dutifully crowing about the deadly skills of America’s bravest against an aging, isolated figure living with his large retinue of wives, children and servants.
Questions have once again been raised about the implausibility of the ‘sheikh’ living right next door to the elite military academy in Abbotabad without catching the eye of Pakistani agencies all these years. Defense Minister Ahmed Mukhtar now claims that Pakistan played a “vital role” in the Abbotabad operation!
From beyond his watery grave, Bin Laden continues to cast his long shadow over the US presidential poll race as well. Barack Obama proudly flaunts the Bin Laden trophy as he burnishes his credentials as a war president who accomplished something that eluded his predecessor for eight years. The release of the carefully edited Osama letters last week was part of cashing the chips for the November vote.
On the first anniversary of Abbotabad, the commander-in-chief also paid a “surprise” visit to the troops in Afghanistan before making Hamid Karzai sign on the dotted line in the dead of the night. The “strategic partnership pact” that for the most Afghans including their Parliament remains the “unknown unknowns”—in Rumsfeld’s words—will perpetuate the US presence beyond 2014, when the coalition was supposed to end its military campaign in Afghanistan.
Washington is trying everything to entrench itself in the region, playing emerging players India and China against each other, on the one hand, and deepening the already yawning gulf between India and Pakistan on the other. Hillary Clinton began her India visit this week in Kolkata with an unusual meeting with West Bengal leader Mamata Banerjee where she waded dangerously deep into the India-Bangladesh water dispute.
In New Delhi, she chose her meeting with Indian counterpart S.M. Krishna to accuse Pakistan of hosting Bin Laden’s successor Ayman Al-Zawahri, besides lashing Islamabad for not doing “more to fight terror.” In fact, Krishna was much more measured and reasonable in his statement while she took apart America’s so-called ally and friend. With friends like these, who needs enemies?
The other issue on the agenda of course was persuading New Delhi to stop the import of Iranian oil. Although India has so far resisted the US pressure, the oil imports from Tehran are already down 33 percent.
I hate to go down the familiar road but it is precisely this overbearing attitude and divisive agenda that is at the heart of America’s issues with the world. This is what gave birth to the legend of Bin Laden.
Don’t forget Bin Laden wasn’t the founder of Al-Qaeda. It was the brainchild of the late Abdullah Azzam, a charismatic Palestinian revolutionary and teacher who inspired and led thousands of Arab and Muslim fighters in the resistance against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in 1980s. Bin Laden was one of those fighters.
Incidentally, the Arabs and Americans were all on the same side and fought alongside the Mujahideen. Indeed, the Americans trained the Afghan and Arab fighters, including Bin Laden, with the help of Pakistan of course, driving the Russians out and eventually bringing down the “evil empire.”
Bin Laden and the gang turned against their mentors and allies following the first Gulf war and US military interventions in the Middle East. Their anger over the Western interventionist policies, coupled with their ire over Israeli persecution of Palestinians with the blessings of Uncle Sam, turned into an all-consuming rage, ostensibly culminating in the 9/11 and other spectacular attacks attributed to Al-Qaeda and affiliated groups.
Even if Al-Qaeda struck an emotional chord initially with some, the global community that it played to was repelled and outraged by its indiscriminate targeting of innocents in the name of Islam. Indeed majority of its victims — and those of its fellow travelers — were ironically Muslims, from Afghanistan to Pakistan to Iraq.
It wasn’t just Bin Laden who had in the past few years become isolated and irrelevant, Al-Qaeda itself had become irrelevant and a spent force. Its ranks have fast depleted over the past few years.
According to Pentagon boss Leon Panettta himself, there are no more than 25 to 30 Al-Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan-Pakistan today. And the credit for this goes not to Washington’s war but largely to the Muslims who have firmly rejected the terror network and its evil ideology and methods.
Over the past year and half, the democratic multitudes across the Middle East have sent a loud and clear message, rejecting not just the tyranny of their elites but the ideology of groups like Al-Qaeda and their claim to speak on their behalf.
But the end of Bin Laden and the near rout of the organization that he headed isn’t the end of the cause that he championed. As Rami Khouri argued this week, Bin Laden may be dead; Bin Ladenism isn’t. For the causes or factors that gave birth to his cause continue to be around and thrive.
Western imperial games, occupation and militarism in Muslim lands have been the primary sources of the Muslim angst and were the powerful drivers behind the Al-Qaeda-style terror. Shameful and tragic as 9/11 was, many of us hoped it would serve as a wake-up call to America and its allies, leading to the much needed introspection and course correction.
However, it was not to be. Instead of healing the festering wounds of the past, new wars have inflicted fresh wounds, pouring fuel over an already inflamed world and providing ready recruits to Al-Qaeda and fellow travelers.
Double standards, old-fashioned hegemonic ambitions and Israeli lobbies continue to dictate the US policies no matter who’s in the White House. After a promising start, Obama has all but trashed his Mideast peace plan as he follows in the footsteps of his predecessor. No pretense of the peace process now. So much for the “change we can”!
So Osama or no Osama, this war will continue for a long time to come. As long as there is no real change in Washington, expect little to change around the world.

Aijaz Zaka Syed is a Gulf based writer. Write him at [email protected]