Purple Prose Watch
The world’s most wanted terrorist made the mistake of thinking that when the Americans are struck hard, they end up discouraged.
The thousands of Americans who gathered together spontaneously until the early hours of the morning in front of the White House in Washington, or at ground zero in New York, where the twin towers of the World Trade Center stood before Sept. 11, 2001, all had the same feeling. The stars and stripes that were waved proudly and the chants of “God Bless America†in unison all had the same meaning: After nine years and eight months of mourning and humiliation, the culprit behind one of the greatest tragedies and one of the biggest provocations in U.S. history was finally out of action and no longer able to harm. Americans retrieved old notions of vengeful and speedy justice that they had never completely lost since the conquest of the West. “We got him,†proclaimed banners, in response to Barack Obama’s own words announcing that U.S. commandos had killed Osama bin Laden. “Justice has been done,†the president said simply. […]
It was perhaps during this period that the idea originated in the perverse mind of the terrorist leader not only to attack U.S. interests in Islamic countries such as the bombings in Riyadh and Dhahran in Saudi Arabia, in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, but also to aim for the heart of the American “super Satan” — the place where its dazzling success was most outwardly visible — New York [City’s] business district.
Yet, bin Laden’s variant of the “paper tiger” theory proved to be false. America did not give up. And this is the very reason why it celebrated its victory with such fervor on May 2. Proud America was back. Despite the investigation taking a long time, and despite the manhunt beginning at the start of one president’s first term, and ending only two years and three months into his successor’s term, George Bush’s promise was not forgotten: We’ll get bin Laden “dead or alive,†he swore. Obama kept his word.
Assassination is illegal under international law. And the United States  of America claims to be above political assassination. But here it is. He’s cut down and millions of his devotees weep. Zealots and apprentices who would lay down their lives in his defence are now looking for a new leader.
In those moments at night when he lay sleepless, the moonlight playing on his ceiling and one of his wives snoring next to him while his scalp sweated and itched under his obligatory headwear, he must have known his enemies were closing in. He must have known he was on borrowed time. He must have felt the breath of Obama on his back. Sooner or later America would strike with all the injurious curios a Great Satan carries in the trunk of its Cadillac. Sooner or later the CIA would emerge from the miasma of its own paranoia, give up on making tourists remove their boots to board the Circle Line Ferry for a moment, and zero in and do what it does best.
And now some snitch, some stool-pigeon from the back streets of Abbotabad in Pakistan, has taken the CIA’s forty pieces of silver. And Donald Trump’s candidacy is over. A conceivably great leader is assassinated before he can walk his high hair into the Oval Office. Damn. It could have been fun.
Trump will rant and rave and demand to see Bin Laden’s Death Certificate and boast that anyone could’ve licked him. And what the hell took Obama so long anyway? But his rage won’t wash any gloss off the thing the forty-fourth President has done. Barack Obama has found and trounced his Argentina. In the nick of time. With debt mounting at home and the greenback looking spineless and Afghanistan entering another fighting season… Barack Obama has made himself into Maggie Thatcher and snatched back The Falklands. Go home, Donald. Nothing to see here. Except the smoking wreck of your political dream.
See the flag-waving thousands shimmying up and down Pennsylvania Avenue when the news broke? See the dudes climbing trees outside the White House? Those are American voters. Some of them newly-minted, never-been kissed-before voters. Americans who don’t come out to vote don’t come out to wave flags. And these voters were out waving flags for Obama. Churlish and off-colour not to give the man another term now, after this. Un-American.
A gifted conspiracy-theorist, a dark-thinker with a knack for joining dots, will be able to see an Islamist plot behind this. “That crazy fellow Trump just announced he was going to re-invade Iraq. Not even the usual spiel about doing it to help the people. Just said he’d take the oil.  ‘To the victor the spoils…’ Ohh, Mohammed, I don’t like the cut of this fellow’s jib. He comes off like a real hard-ass. I think Obama is our candidate now. I think we better give Osama to Obama.”
The gifted conspiracy-theorist I’m talking about will be a Republican. Probably from a lower state. Certainly a member of The Tea Party. And totally crestfallen that a free-wheeling, straight-up, hard-ass, take-no-pensioners American success story like Donald Trump is going to be cheated of his chance to send armies abroad to spread Right and Good and steal oil.
As I write this, in the first hours after the announcement of Osama Bin Laden’s death, the theories haven’t surfaced yet. But I’m writing fast, trying to beat them, knowing they’re on their way. The American Right erect a sinister postulation as fast as the Amish do a house.
Tomorrow, as the bacteria bloom in Bin Laden’s corpse, the Tea Party will smell something fishy.
Perhaps our answer is that because too much time had already passed and even the most disciplined, ascetic and stoic man — like it is said bin Laden was — can slip up. Ten years of successful escapes could have made anybody confident — even enough to abandon the most secure refuge in the caves high in the mountains and return to “civilization,†like this home in Abottabad, the “City of Schools,†in a valley where his followers had been defeated by the Pakistani army nearly two years before. Obama said last night that they had the first sign that bin Laden was very close by last August, and a week ago he was informed that bin Laden was surrounded. Evidently this time, the commandos did not want to commit the same error that had been made on other occasions. They took a long time to be very sure that he could not escape from them yet again. It was difficult for them to be able to capture bin Laden alive. He never let go of his Kalashnikov, his pistol or Uzi. Surely he was surrounded by a group of his best men, small in number but trained as well as or better than any Western commando. This is an enormous triumph for President Barack Obama. He made the announcement with the poise and bearing of a winner.
It was the moment George W. Bush always wanted but was never able to achieve. Last night he had to watch it on TV at home in Texas. Obama has something to show for himself in the re-election campaign after being unable to fulfill his campaign promise to close Guantánamo and with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq still continuing under his watch. While bin Laden has passed on into the dark history of terrorism, it is clear that his organization, al-Qaida, will be around for a long time. There are still radicalized men ready and willing to martyr themselves, and there is still a figure that could emerge as bin Laden’s real successor: the Libyan Abu Yahya al-Libi, one of his subordinates and the last chief of operations. It would not be a shock to anyone if al-Qaida or one of its affiliates now attempts to carry out some sort of attack to avenge the death of the man who led it for nearly two decades.