Well, Osama Bin Laden's dead and a lot of people are buzzing about what this will mean for the rest of the world, the Axis of Evil, War on Terror and numerous other institutions with punchy titles...
In spite of everything, the death of Osama will be a shot in the arm for the American psyche. For 10 years, the media and the government, both Democrats and Republicans, have painted the great evil of the "Osama". Every paranoia and fear and insecurity in the nation has been funnelled and fuelled into this one image - the great evil Osama sitting in his evil fortress thinking of his evil Muslim plots to destroy America. He is, for the average America, evil incarnate. And now he's dead - Obama has killed him. Suddenly, Americans can once again sleep safe in their beds knowing that Obama is watching safely over them, knowing that once again America has heroically triumphed over adversity and maintained it status as the greatest nation on Earth. Obama will of course now be basically anointed unto the heavens - ever since being elected as the second coming of Christ, his popularity has shrunk due to a lack of any grand Christ-like miracles. Killing Osama has rectified this - Christ has killed the Devil.
If we put this in psycho-sexual terms - oh yes I will - think of the World Trade Centre as two huge phalluses representing the huge metaphorical chauvanism that the USA has towards the rest of the world. Young, testosterone-fuelled country that it is, al-Qaeda basically went and made them go all flacid. Punctured that sense of over-whelming, arrogant pride. So, like many sexually-deprived psychopaths, the only way to relive the sexual inadequacy is to go and kill someone.
OK, that's a pretty extreme analogy, but it's not far from the truth. Osama's death will mean very little for al-Qaeda as a terrorist organisation - they're a decentralised group who are more likely to become more aggressive and vengeful after Osama is turned into a martyr, than to just kind of shrug and disband - this is not a case of "cut off the head and the tail will follow". The death of Osama, which provoked such riotous celebrations in Washington D.C. and elsewhere in the states, is a celebration of the repairing of the American psyche. Otherwise, how would you explain the decided lack of jubilation elsewhere in the world? America is a self-contained, introverted country, with a huge ego and threats to that ego are ten times more intimidating than in, say, Britain or France, both of whom have a history of terrorist attacks, occupations and wartime destruction which America is simply not used to.
What all this crazed Yankee jingoism means for the rest of us is that Obama has almost no chance of losing the next election. And, regardless of what Obama's critics may say - I'm looking at you, Noam Chomsky - we're better off with the Hawaiian Hercules than with the likes of the Trump card.
Still, with Osama dead, and that other great "enemy of America" dead Saddam Hussein, and with Gaddaffi pretty much on his way out (we'll see), it'll be interesting to see who becomes the next great Devil figure for the US...it's much easier than having to explain you're self if you just write the word's "EVIL, EVIL BASTARD!" above their heads in big glowing letters. America is a country founded on a very simplistic - and often dangerous - concept of Good vs. Evil and their government is well aware of this. Thus, if figures of hate cannot be simplified down into this easy dichotomy, then they barely get a mention.
Oh well, score one for the good guys, apparently...
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