News broke that today, Osama Bin Laden was killed and buried at sea. Celebrations commence around the world. Justice has been done to those who were killed on 11/9. (I’m British, the date comes before the month thank you very much.) Interestingly, this is becoming comparable to the date when Hitler was also pronounced dead. Coincidence? I’ll leave that to you to decide. These dates are becoming a little bit fishy for my likings.
Social networking news feeds have suddenly come alive in exam season (please see the previous blog post for more information), some of my favourite humorous statuses include, “Bin Laden’s twitter informs me he’s gone for a swim,” (Thank you Miss Mehzabeen Patel); ☑ “Saddam Hussein ☑ Osama Bin Laden ☐ Justin Bieber....” (Very grateful Mr Jhon Valencia); “Osama Bin Laden is dead!!!! The longest hide ‘n’ seek game comes to an end...” (Much obliged Miss Pari Tailor) and finally “Does this mean I can bring shampoo with me to the airport now?” (Appreciate it Mr Anish Vekaria). Groups such as “So, Osamba Bin Laden is finally dead. Shall we have another bank holiday?” and “A prince gets married, the bad guy is dead. It’s a real Disney weekend.” are quickly becoming highly popular.
On to the more serious concerns though, supposedly: "He was buried at sea according to Islamic traditions, US officials said, seemingly in a bid to prevent his grave becoming a shrine." Makes sense. Correct me if I’m wrong but my understanding of this is that in Islam you are to be buried in a place where you shan’t be dug up. But come on now, where’s the proof? They conveniently decided not to photograph/conduct any DNA tests/capture him for questioning. Where is the evidence I hear many people scream. Obama’s word simply will not suffice. When Saddam was captured there was a video, albeit a dark and bad quality video, of his execution made available for everyone to see for verification. Surely, you would want to question him? Make an example of him? Just show that you actually did capture him?
It seems likely that this event will support Obama’s pledge for a second term in presidency as his promises to transform the health care system aren’t as reliable. (In hindsight I found this quote: In February, 2004, an Iranian state radio claimed Osama Bin Laden had been captured in Pakistan’s border region with Afghanistan “a long time ago.” Pentagon and Pakistani officials denied the report. “Osama bin Laden has been arrested a long time ago, but Bush is intending to use it for propaganda manoeuvring in the presidential election,” the radio report said.)
While we’re on that point. How can the American government justify spending almost HALF their discretionary spending on their department of defence?!
Interesting also note that the American expenditure on military comparatively to the rest of the world: (The diagram alone explains more than my words will be able to impact)
The USA is responsible for 46.5%, almost half, of the world total, on military spending. That’s INSANE.
I mean, you can kinda see what’s gonna happen next. Security on high alert, yet another terrorist attack to avenge Bin Laden’s death. Quickly followed by another man replacing him on the most wanted list and another excuse for the US to spend incredible amounts of money on wars despite being in so much debt from the recession... Conspiracy theories are already coming to surface, 11/9 is already considered to be an inside job, talks of the emergency number in the US, 911 and 9/11 being suspicious are resurfacing... (Thanks Farcel Rabess) Talks of Obama being the best option for America because he caught Osama, he can catch the next bad guy... But I don’t wanna get into all that or I’ll be here writing until Christmas.
Funnily enough, “your appendix is more likely to kill you than al-Qaida is.”Some 2752 people were killed on 11th September and people 52 on 7th July. Compare that to THREE MILLION PEOPLE dying from HIV/AIDS in 2003 alone. Can you imagine how much difference $663.7 billion a year could make to this?! Or alternatively even a fraction of this expense spent on the 513,000,000 people without safe drinking water could save millions of lives. The 1.2 billion people living off of $1 or less a day could have that budget increased by $1.5, more than doubled (664/365/1.2)! I ask you, is this spending really justified on the revenge of the lives of less than 3000 people that were taken...? Here are some more mind-boggling statements considering worldwide statistics for terrorist fatalities:
“More fatalities occur "each day" from auto accidents then occur from terrorism for the "whole year".
More fatalities occur worldwide each year from animal attacks then occur from terrorism.
More fatalities occur each year from falling down stairs (falling down) then occur from terrorism.
More fatalities occur "each day" from medical malpractice then occur from terrorism for the "whole year”.
430,000 Americans are killed by cigarettes EVERY YEAR. (The equivalent of 9/11 repeated every two days forever.)”
The figures are so out of proportion. Take a look at this chart detailing causes of deaths:
All I’m saying is that the largest cause of death in America is heart disease, more than six hundred thousand people died from it in 2004, surely suffers from it deserve a higher allocation of the budget. No doubt that discussions, rumours and talks will continue. Will we ever learn the truth?
-K
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