The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
    David Seaton's picture

    "Geronimo"?... A Freudian slip?

    By David Seaton on Sat, 05/07/2011 - 7:36am |

    The code name the SEALs gave Osama bin Laden, "Geronimo", gives the game away... Freudian slip, I guess. This is a story that goes way way back... really it is just the dark side of the new technologies that makes it different. 

    As we hear all the time, these are tools which "empower" people. If the technologies had existed back then, Geronimo, Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse would probably have attacked New York and Washington and the Zulus might have trashed London. 

    Today we live 21st century imperialism and it reads a little bit like a cross between Arthur C. Clark and Rudyard Kipling... on LSD. The only thing that gives this all a special taste is America's endless hypocrisy... like Al Capone nattering on about "values" and "that's not who we are".... Yes, in fact, that is "who we are" and we must schepp the karma: Al Qaeda is just part of that karma.

    There are all sorts of "natives" that have resisted imperial oppression, we could as easily speak of Tipu Sultan as Crazy Horse, but Native-Americans like Sitting Bull and Geronimo are better known to Americans than the Fuzzy-Wuzzys. Most of them were killed or imprisoned and the people who did so were sure they deserved to be. Osama bin Laden was simply -- up till today -- the most wildly successful "native" in history in inflicting pain on his imperial adversaries and probably over time, that is how he will be seen. He showed it could be done... he could be called the Wright Brother's of anti-imperial terrorism.

    What will the future bring?

    If we keep sticking our noses into other people's affairs, economies, religious practices and local arguments, you can be sure that sooner than later, much, much, worse things than 9/11 will occur on American soil.

    Crossposted from: http://seaton-newslinks.blogspot.com/

    Comments

    Looking at the picture of Geronimo you provided

    It makes me wonder what was he thinking.

    "Hey you European shysters; having seen how you Americans gloat about how you screwed my friends out of Manhattan by giving them cheap trinkets"

    "Go home hypocrites, who can have peace, when your in the neighborhood"

     


    by Resistance on Sat, 05/07/2011 - 9:55am

    Today's Multiple Choice Quiz By David:

     A.   Poor choice of name for operation by Navy Seals means that it was wrong for the United States to kill Osama bin Laden. 

    B. America's four centuries of oppression of Native Americans gives the United States no standing to kill  Osama bin Laden.

    C. Geronimo's honor and integrity, and that of other great Native American leaders should be preserved by analogizing him and them to Osama bi Laden.

    Is it A, B, C or all or none of the above.  You be the judge.  

     


    by Bruce Levine on Sat, 05/07/2011 - 10:25am

    Today's Multiple Choice Quiz By Bruce: Do you still beat your wife?

    There are all sorts of "natives" that have resisted imperial oppression, we could as easily speak of Tipu Sultan as Crazy Horse, but Native-Americans like Sitting Bull and Geronimo are better known to Americans than the Fuzzy-Wuzzys. Most of them were killed or imprisoned and the people who did so were sure they deserved to be. Osama bin Laden was simply -- up till today -- the most wildly successful "native" in history in inflicting pain on his imperial adversaries and probably over time, that is how he will be seen. He showed it could be done... he could be called the Wright Brother's of anti-imperial terrorism.

    What will the future bring?

    If we keep sticking our noses into other people's affairs, economies, religious practices and local arguments, you can be sure that sooner than later, much, much, worse things than 9/11 will occur on American soil.


    by David Seaton on Sat, 05/07/2011 - 10:57am

    David asks:

    "Today's Multiple Choice Quiz By Bruce: Do you still beat your wife?"

    David, you can criticize my politics but please keep my cross examination strategy out of this.  That really is hitting below the belt!  Wink


    by Bruce Levine on Sat, 05/07/2011 - 11:05am

    Point taken.


    by David Seaton on Sat, 05/07/2011 - 11:29am

    What country best fits your ideal society?


    by rmrd0000 on Sat, 05/07/2011 - 1:17pm

    That is a really interesting question. What pisses me off is that with a bit of effort and imagination, it might be the USA. But to do that America would have to do some very difficult things.

    • Reform its political system so that its lawmakers were not in the pay of the lobbies, which might be difficult to do, because the people who make the laws wouldn't cooperate.

      •  

    • Having reformed the political system, take back the country from the special interest and corporate groups and have it serve the interests of the majority of its citizens and not just the super-rich. This would mean creating a social net capable of giving first class health and education to the children of even its poorest families.

      •  

    • Cut back overseas military commitments. America is so strong, with its huge population, natural and human resources, so un-threatened by its neighbors, that it could do very well without trying to rule and control the world to benefit a small minority of its citizens.

      •  

    The list could go on, but you get the idea. Since it was discovered, America has been considered a candidate for paradise-hood... due to greed, pride and a few other deadly sins, the USA is in the sorry-assed state we now find it... So the "ideal country" for me is the America of my dreams.


    by David Seaton on Sat, 05/07/2011 - 2:10pm

    C. would be rather unfortunate. I'd think David would be greatful that you pointed it out.

    Look at what happened to the Lakota Nation over 30 years due to the discovery of gold in the black hills, and perhaps the anology is not as off the mark as we think. Shouldn't the people of the middle east be prosperous given the raw materials we take freely out of their lands? I can't say that they are, particularly.

    I think one can expect that greedy and powerful interests will do their utmost to take what they want, as usual. Nor does the fact that they use good, ordinary people into achieving those wants, escape me.

    I don't really want to go there, like David did, but the implication is alarming. Still, I have little sympathy for Bin Laden, as no doubt those who have long settled the Dakotas have for those who slaughtered their forebearers.


    by bwakfat on Sat, 05/07/2011 - 1:59pm

    Shouldn't the people of the middle east be prosperous given the raw materials we take freely out of their lands? I can't say that they are, particularly.

    In those Middle East countries from which we continue to take raw materials--because many Middle Eastern states such as Syria and Jordan have few raw materials for export-- if anyone is screwing the little guy, it's their own entrenched and despotic leaders.  We don't control OPEC, although I wouldn't be surprised if some Big Oil interests play footsie with that group now and then or more than now and then.

    I think the real tragedy right now is that it appears that real democratic, bottoms-up movements are emerging throughout the Islamic world against these despots (whether hostile or friendly to the U.S.), and there doesn't appear to be much we can do about it to help.

    I don't think that Osama bin Laden had anything to do with helping the downtrodden.  I think, to the extent he was something more than a hideous human being, all he sought to do was impose a rigid, freedom-stifling form of politics on people of the Islamic faith, under the guise of Islam and the pretext of fomenting hatred of anything American/Western.  And I think for some of the folks who live in countries where information is fed to them and they either fear or have no chance of expressing themselves, he seemed to be an alternative to the daily oppression caused by internal, undemocratic forces.  Of course, he had followers in pockets of places like Pakistan too, but I think in terms of the Islamic world as a whole, that was an exception and not the rule.

    And, forgive me, but I get lost with the concern about killing bin Laden once it gets beyond my agreement that jumping up and down about killing this guy is not the reason why I love this country.  And I love this country not always for what it is, but I always love it for what it can be.  And that's where I have my most trouble with David, because I truly believe that he loathes America--which thank G-d is his absolute right.


    by Bruce Levine on Sun, 05/08/2011 - 12:40pm

    I agree with you Bruce, and the fact that Bin Laden did nothing for his own people is where the comparison with Native American Leaders like Sitting Bull fails utterly.

    What makes me uncomfortable, is the comparison to US forces going into soverign lands to execute people, is all.

    That people like David amplify such comparisons to the point of drowning out the truth is where I have an issue with David. Reminds me of David Barton, in that yes, what he says is true, but his conclusions leave much to be desired.

     


    by bwakfat on Sun, 05/08/2011 - 1:01pm

    My conclusion is that if we continue to interfere in other countries and other cultures that we don't understand, then new technologies being what they are, some future event will dwarf 9/11 in the same way that 9/11 dwarfs the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Of course if warning America of something so obvious is interpreted as "loathing America"... Then God save America from its "friends".


    by David Seaton on Sun, 05/08/2011 - 2:06pm

    You express clearly what is bothering me. The problem with the aspect of assassination is not the message it sends to those who we are already fighting; It is the example it gives to established nations to form their teams of killers and send them to openly do their business. The line between covert and overt policy may be a barely functional fig leaf in regards to a states' intentions but it does support the principle of sovereignty.


    by moat on Sun, 05/08/2011 - 2:22pm

    This is really a case of "First they came for the (fill in blank) but since I was not a (fill in blank) I did nothing and then they came for the (fill in blank) but since I was not a (fill in blank) I did nothing, and finally they came for me..." What it comes down to is that the USA does not stand for law and the respect for the rights of others, America is part of the problem and in no way the solution. And, never forget, that this lack of scruples could be turned on the American people themselves at the drop of a hat.


    by David Seaton on Sun, 05/08/2011 - 3:22pm

    What it comes down to is that the USA does not stand for law and the respect for the rights of others, America is part of the problem and in no way the solution.

    Sometimes. Damn it, David, sweeping statements like this are idiotic. Ask the French and British what the United States stood for in 1945, then ask the Japanese, then ask German jews. Same answer? No? Gee, how can that be?

    Intolerance and absolutist thinking that leaves no room for reality is the problem.


    by bwakfat on Sun, 05/08/2011 - 4:06pm

    1945 was 1945 and 2011 is 2011... a lot of water over the dam since then, n'est pas?


    by David Seaton on Mon, 05/09/2011 - 1:19am

    Res ipsa loquitor David.  You do loathe this country, for whatever reason, which is fine because that is your right, and  I'd defend you for free in court (heck, which is basically what I do anyway).
    . 

    On the other hand, I get the impression from reading you for so many years that you believe that somehow you know what people in the Islamic world believe (as if aggregating one billion plus people as such makes sense) and people in this country--principally good and decent working class people who would tell you to go f..k yourself--are just plain stupid.  Horsefeathers David, plain and simple horsefeathers.

    Osama bin Laden represents the worst of humanity, which is not to say we don't have some of his ilk dancing around these parts as well  But that's all he is David; he represents nothing good, and he is the product of a pampered existence and was a danger to all people, regardless of their politics.

    I respect folks who genuinely question whether intruding into the territory of another nation to kill a dangerous man was the right thing to do, and I can disagree with such folks.  But that's not where you're coming from David.  And to pretend that Osama is the product of an evil West and representative of the people of Islam conveys, at the most, ignorance on your part, polished ignorance indeed, but still ignorance.

     


    by Bruce Levine on Sun, 05/08/2011 - 10:47pm

    It still really riles me to think about what David said about Egyptians at the start of their revolution, basically along the lines of how they didn't really want liberty because they are poor starving dumb people who haven't a clue about what liberty is, they just want all the goodies they see on American teevee shows, just more dumb slobbering masses who want a fair wage and a beer at the end of the day. Wink You got the shtick pegged pretty good, everyone's a dummy except David and the conspirators (the latter change from day to day, and so do the conspiracies.) Oh and don't forget--for those reasons, the sky is falling, woe is us.


    by artappraiser on Mon, 05/09/2011 - 1:49am

    What is happening in Egypt is a result of all the ingredients coming together... just like in the French Revolution. You many remember that the " enlightenment" began long before the Revolution. You may recall that both Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Voltaire died old men in 1788... one year before the Revolution began. An important factor in causing the sans-culotte to revolt was a crop failure in Europe that sent the price of bread skyrocketing. "Let them eat cake", was Ayn Rand avant le lettre.

    So in Egypt what could have been another fizzling, student and intellectual-yuppy, blog and Facebook exhibition got mass muscle again because of the price of bread's recent dramatic rise, combined with the "let them eat cake", attitude of the Friedman-Hayek-Mubarak neo-elites. At this moment the most coherent force politically is the Muslim Brotherhood, and polls show that some 80% of Egyptians are in favor of stoning adulteresses to death. Therefore, I would hesitate in prematurely declaring this the "birth pains of democracy" in Condoleeza Rice fashion. It is really risky to try and shoehorn the life of a society we don't understand into our propaganda narrative. Laughing


    by David Seaton on Mon, 05/09/2011 - 2:36am

    Well David is correct about one thing, and that is that the Muslim Brotherhood is the only organized force in Egypt--other than the military--right now with the ability to take control of the government.  The democrats who accomplished Mubarek's overthrow do not have the ability to challenge MB.  But of course David would be wrong to the extent that he believes that that is a good thing and that the Egyptian people, given the opportunity to express themselves freely and to establish democratic institutions, will forever be satisfied living under the yoke of the real and purposeful oppression that the Brotherhood will bring.  

    And the sad thing is that we on the left--a term used loosely for convenience here--have been neutered to the point where we avoid consensus on what can be done about it.  We have forfeited a role in international affairs unless it comes to bashing the U.S., and sometimes Israel when the headlines indicate it.

    What a shame; we have come to convince ourselves that totalitarianism can only come in one color.  We have become enablers for the worst of humanity because, often rightly so, we are appalled at some of the things that have been done in our name.  What a cop-out I say--it's so easy to blame ourselves for all that is evil in the world.  And our heads are in the sand as deeply as GWB and his band of merry, self-righteous and clueless pranksters.


    by Bruce Levine on Mon, 05/09/2011 - 8:28am

    In the end what the Egyptian do with their country is their business.... we should wish them well and leave it at that.


    by David Seaton on Mon, 05/09/2011 - 8:33am

    I agree with you that it is ultimately their business, all things equal--but I'm not sure that it is wrong to support people who support democracy anywhere in the world, and I have to believe that supporting democracy is not necessarily incompatible with avoiding meddling where we don't belong.


    by Bruce Levine on Mon, 05/09/2011 - 9:15am

    I have to believe that supporting democracy is not necessarily incompatible with avoiding meddling where we don't belong.

    That is part of "wishing" them well, but funding it and supporting movements with CIA help is not "wishing".


    by David Seaton on Mon, 05/09/2011 - 9:49am

    Perhaps, then, we must focus on finding something in between CIA overthrows and wishing them well.  


    by Bruce Levine on Mon, 05/09/2011 - 10:01am

    That

    would

    be

    nice

    Innocent


    by David Seaton on Mon, 05/09/2011 - 10:05am

    Your reference to the quote suggesting the Shoah came about through a series of selfish decisions made by many people is an unexpected response to my comment about the system of sovereign states. To move toward thinking about a connection between the two ideas requires looking at the distinction between criminal acts and acts of war that got the ball rolling after the nine-eleven attacks.

    That issue is a different conversation from the question of whether Bin Laden represents people's desire to "stick it to the man" in the manner you have described.  

    The latter is a relatively more concrete question. Time will tell if you are correct or mistaken.

     


    by moat on Sun, 05/08/2011 - 8:25pm

    The Geronimo "Freudian slip", shows that Osama bin Laden was just somebody waiting to happen... along comes the technology it he happens. The natives are restless, they have been restless for several hundred years... Internet has been selling Whiskey and Winchesters to the injuns.


    by David Seaton on Mon, 05/09/2011 - 1:24am

    I doubt it was merely a Freudian slip.  More likely the name was deliberately chosen by people who have no compuntions about embracing the analogy.

    The opening chapter of Robert Kaplan's Imperial Grunts is called "Injun Country", and Kaplan says that is a refrain he heard a lot from America's imperial troops around the world.


    by Dan Kervick on Sat, 05/07/2011 - 1:28pm

    I remember the word SNAFU. Everyone used the term. It was embedded in the vernacular of the time. Hardly anyone remembered that the word was actually an acronym for Situation Normal, All F**cked Up. I doubt my mother or grandmother would have used the term had they known the meaning. Or maybe they would...considering it's different context.

    In the same vein, as long as we have had paratroopers jumping out of airplanes, there has been the exclamation "Ger-on-i-moe!!" I doubt today's soldiers attach much meaning to the word as well. They probably think it more a verb than an actual person of history. I am not saying that they did not know that the word is also a noted Native American, it is just that the context in which they are using it is wholly disconnected with it's original origins.

    There comes a time where certain words change meaning or have an additional meaning depending on the context. I wish people would lighten up. Jeez


    by Anonymous (not verified) on Sat, 05/07/2011 - 1:39pm

    This is not Mr. Stardust, Genghis.   Cool

    You might want to listen to Winona Laduke on Apaches, all Native Americans, NA veterans, the military fucking them over forever, and still now, then think if 'lightening up' should really be good advice, with all due respect.

    Buffy Sainte Marie says in The Priests of the Golden Bull:  "Third worlders feel it first, the dynamite, the dozers, the acid rain. " And "We're dying of their gravy spills..."

    This is not just history; it's the ongoing present, rolling over and over and over...


    by we are stardust on Sat, 05/07/2011 - 2:40pm

    I dunno, I'm still having whiplash with the Geronimo = Disgruntled Saudi Rich Kid Murder aspect of this post myself.

    I think the point of your original article on this topic was right-on. But there starts be be an element of picking your battles at some point. The real grievance isn't a casual use of an American icon's name (yeah, Geronimo was an American icon in addition to being a Native Human). Successfully banning the use Indian-based iconography from "white" culture doesn't really seem to improve much on the physical plane considering the actual goal is to interrupt the cycle and move to a more positive reality. I don't know how to move there ... but this just seems kind of  like a "fuck you" placeholder waiting for a constructive way forward.


    by kgb999 on Sun, 05/08/2011 - 1:41am

    On the other hand, having the discussion will help, IMO, if enough people allow themselves to be a bit more educated about what Native Americans still suffer by way of the military and the Federal government.  And I will say that every pow wow I've ever attended is chalk full of American flags, vets, and nods toward patriotism, a disconnect I've asked about.  All I hear that makes any sense is about their roots as warriors.

     


    by we are stardust on Sun, 05/08/2011 - 12:40pm

    "If we keep sticking our noses into other people's affairs, economies, religious practices and local arguments, you can be sure that sooner than later, much, much, worse things than 9/11 will occur on American soil."

    Wishing won't make it so, David.


    by CVille Dem on Sat, 05/07/2011 - 1:39pm

    Not a wish, just a sad statement of fact... one I think George Washington would have endorsed.


    by David Seaton on Sat, 05/07/2011 - 2:09pm

    Now you're sounding like a tea-bagger!  George Washington?  911?  From what I understand about George, I think he was not a misanthrope or a cynic.  He had faith in this country.  


    by CVille Dem on Sat, 05/07/2011 - 7:02pm

    George Washington was strongly against foreign "entanglements" and certainly wouldn't have approved of the USA getting involved in South-West Asia.


    by David Seaton on Sun, 05/08/2011 - 12:17pm

    Glenn Greenwald agrees, anyway.


    by kyle flynn on Sun, 05/08/2011 - 12:43pm

    Ben Franklin and Winston Churchill to boot. I've read that some scholars believe Christopher Columbus was a follower of Seatonism as well.


    by kgb999 on Sun, 05/08/2011 - 1:46am

    Cris? One of my biggest fans.


    by David Seaton on Sun, 05/08/2011 - 12:18pm

    How successful was OBL? Perhaps as successful as this estimate from a very establishment source, The National Journal: http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_exclusive/20110506/pl_yblog_exclusive/the-...


    by LarryH on Sat, 05/07/2011 - 2:43pm

    Here is a quote from that link:

    As we mark Osama bin Laden's death, what's striking is how much he cost our nation—and how little we've gained from our fight against him. By conservative estimates, bin Laden cost the United States at least $3 trillion over the past 15 years, counting the disruptions he wrought on the domestic economy, the wars and heightened security triggered by the terrorist attacks he engineered, and the direct efforts to hunt him down.

    What do we have to show for that tab? Two wars that continue to occupy 150,000 troops and tie up a quarter of our defense budget; a bloated homeland-security apparatus that has at times pushed the bounds of civil liberty; soaring oil prices partially attributable to the global war on bin Laden's terrorist network; and a chunk of our mounting national debt, which threatens to hobble the economy unless lawmakers compromise on an unprecedented deficit-reduction deal.

    So, in fact, he was the most successful and certainly the most cost effective enemy in America's history... This cost him his life... but in war thousands of soldiers die just to take a few yards of ground, just to have it lost the next day at the cost of thousands more dead... for nothing.

    Anybody who thinks "we won" by killing this guy is a fool... what more can one man do than he did?


    by David Seaton on Sat, 05/07/2011 - 2:53pm

    Whoa, Nelly.

    The overwhelming share of that cost was spent fighting people who had nothing to do with the nine-eleven attacks. Get the waiter over here because I did not order all these extra burritos.

    The neo-cons were the best thing to ever happen to Al Qaeda. Like all parties, the booze does finally run out and the people stumble home.


    by moat on Sat, 05/07/2011 - 8:23pm


    by cmaukonen on Sat, 05/07/2011 - 9:14pm

    That National Journal article is excellent, Larry. Great find, and it should be required reading.

    The death of bin Laden will be a positive development only if the U.S. treats it as an opportunity to rethink a ton of foreign-policy directions. If economic imperialism requires never-ending wars of conquest to sustain it, the very idea of empire has to be jettisoned. Get the troops out now!


    by acanuck on Sat, 05/07/2011 - 4:16pm

    I don't see the code name "Geronimo" as a Freudian slip, or an arbitrary choice. In fact, it appears way more carefully thought-out than Operation "New Improved Dawn (Now With Enzymes)."

    Leaving aside the justice of his cause, Geronimo was a ruthless, deadly and much-feared enemy. Where he earned mythical status, however, was in his skill at eluding capture. After years on the run, the U.S. military did finally "bring him to justice" -- and they did it through an illegal incursion into Mexico. That, I think, is the logic behind the code name.

    The parallel ends there, of course. After his surrender, Geronimo was not summarily executed. He was instead formally treated as a prisoner of war -- subject to military rule for the rest of his life, but not confined to a cell.

    The U.S. military's attitude toward native Americans is fascinating, almost as if trying to erase its brutal repression of their rights by showing respect for them as adversaries. Fighter planes have carried the Indian-head insignia on their tails since at least the 1930s (just a few decades after Geronimo died). Clearly, that was intended as a tribute to Indians' fighting spirit, not to their defeat.

    Seaton's right about how, with the passage of even a little time, perceptions of people and events change. But it will be a long, long time before many in the West view Osama bin Laden as a noble adversary. First, they would have to come to understand that it's legitimate to oppose American/western imperialism.

    I look at the muted response in the Muslim world to bin Laden's death, and I suspect a lot of people there have already passed historical judgment on him. He gets sympathy for his unwavering resistance to imperialism, but they are relieved he's gone because his terrorist tactics -- spectacular as they were -- brought disrepute to that resistance, weakening it. Most also saw the religious trappings of his movement (re-establishment of the caliphate) as irrelevant.

    Think of John Brown's revolt. Aside from his small band of followers, no slaves rose up to join his fight. Not that they thought slavery was OK, just that they realized his approach was a dead end. 

     


    by acanuck on Sat, 05/07/2011 - 3:53pm

    I don't see the code name "Geronimo" as a Freudian slip, or an arbitrary choice. In fact, it appears way more carefully thought-out than Operation "New Improved Dawn (Now With Enzymes)."

    I haven't been able to determine if anyone in the govt who knows why the codename was chosen has come clean with an explanation.  According to this article from the AP, it officially remains a mystery.  I, for one, would like to know more.  I hope an explanation, a retraction and an apology are forthcoming.  And I like your comment here, FWIW.  It strikes a reasonable tone and gives us something tangible to consider, like this part: 

    The U.S. military has a long tradition of naming weapons and helicopters after American Indian tribes, chiefs and artifacts, a policy that became official with a 1969 Army regulation.

    According to the same article, "the U.S. military has a long tradition of naming weapons and helicopters after American Indian tribes, chiefs and artifacts, a policy that became official with a 1969 Army regulation."  It was later rescinded, but it seems rather clear the U.S. is at least conflicted about it's own history towards American Indians.


    by kyle flynn on Sat, 05/07/2011 - 4:41pm

    Since you mention the naming of helicopters, the one destroyed on the ground in Abbottabad was a Blackhawk, apparently modified to include stealth technology developed for the canceled Comanche.

    Sort of off-topic, I think the winding-down of the bloody but futile Vietnam War opened a lot of American eyes to the idea that the long string of glorious victories told in the official narrative wasn't the whole story.

    Disillusioned with war in general, 1970 audiences were receptive to such anti-war films as MASH and Catch-22. And the same year produced Little Big Man, a retelling of Custer's Last Stand from the point of view of a firsthand observer with a foot in both camps.

    I think that movie doesn't get the credit it deserves for prompting a widespread reassessment of what the Injun wars were all about. The understated but powerful performance of Chief Dan George worked wonders, too. (Canada later put him on a stamp.)


    by acanuck on Sat, 05/07/2011 - 6:02pm

    I like the comparison to John Brown and I'm sure that if he were around today he could find something in the new technologies for himself too.

    The majority of Muslims are peaceful people, as the majority of people everywhere are and always have been,  violent ideological-driven struggle is the work of minorities... vanguards, they often call themselves.

    The true significance of bin Laden is how much he achieved with such a tiny expenditure of men and money... This is why I call him the "Wright Brothers" of modern anti-imperial terrorism. He proved that it could be done: that the superpower could be led to disaster by only a few men and chump change.

    He did 9/11 with 19 men and about 1/2 million bucks. According to The National Journal the USA has spent $3 trillion dollars trying to kill him. Don't think this lesson will be forgotten soon. There are plenty of younger men to take his place, now that he has shown the path.


    by David Seaton on Sat, 05/07/2011 - 4:57pm

    He gets sympathy for his unwavering resistance to imperialism, but they are relieved he's gone because his terrorist tactics -- spectacular as they were -- brought disrepute to that resistance, weakening it.

    I think you're understating their ambivalence here Ack. They loved the way he was able to hurt America, they loathed the way he directed the terrorist tactics at muslim civilians in Iraq and Pakistan. Many thousands more muslims have died in AQ bomb attacks than Americans or Europeans.


    by Obey on Sat, 05/07/2011 - 5:28pm

    Your description of Muslim ambivalence is at least as good as mine. Bin Laden's hatred of Shiite "apostates" was also out of step with mainstream thinking (although Zawhiri is said to be even more extreme on this). Most people saw that internecine fighting was counterproductive to battling the West. Not to mention that attacking worshippers in their mosques is haram.

    Bin Laden and his Saudi followers were too rigid even for many Taliban. One example I've read about is that the Wahhabis would get enraged when their Afghan allies put flowers on the graves of fallen martyrs. Al-Qa'ida insisted their graves be unmarked. So yeah, I think even the bulk of jihadis are content to move into the post-bin-Laden era.


    by acanuck on Sat, 05/07/2011 - 6:26pm

    This comment deserves a thumbs up, mho, for bringing a good understanding nuance to the topic. I might add that, as NCD brings up downthread about Geronimo's popularity among the American public while he was still alive, there was a bit of the "noble savage' myth attached to some Native American figures like him in pop culture of his time. I happen to think that some gungho military types, like Navy Seals, still get into that myth; certainly they are not trained to think that their adversaries are not worthy. In any case, they are not the types to make a Freudian slip on something like this; whatever the assigned meaning, it strikes me as laughable that it wasn't highly thought out.

    P.S. Clarence Paige wrote an op-ed on topic that was interesting.


    by artappraiser on Mon, 05/09/2011 - 1:37am

    Since Geronimo in his old age was so admired by Americans he was paid for autographs when he appeared in his Apache getup at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair, is Seaton upset the SEALS dispatched Bin Laden so he couldn't do an autograph tour also, perhaps around Seaton's stomping grounds in Spain? A Geronimo 1904 World's Fair signed postcard that is no longer for sale.


    by NCD on Sat, 05/07/2011 - 8:26pm

    Geronimo was under arrest Forever and could never go home to his actual and spiritual homeland in the Chiricaua Mountains; what was left?  Some menial pay to help his family by allowing himself to be caricatured?  You somehow imagine he thrilled to that, after a life of fighting the encroaching takeover of the land the he and other native Americans believed could never be bought and sold or owned?

    As to 'in his Apache getup'; I can't even imagine WTH you might have in your mind.  If you mean his clothes, perhaps embellished in honky ways by the folks who paraded him...

    Please remember: this is a stolen land.

    And here is a lighter look at the cartoon act Geronimo was encouraged to play:

    I know it may be hard to empathize with people who only seem like characters barely mentioned in your history books, but these were live people whose realtives still suffer the outrage and poverty brought to them by the Federal Government and military.  And the more can try to relate to all humans as our kin, the better, IMO.  Not only in this country, but around the globe.  The coming scarcities of food and water will require cooperation instead of the competition we see foreshadoed already. 

    (Stardust tries to climb down off her soapbox...)   ;o)


    by we are stardust on Sat, 05/07/2011 - 9:48pm

    Going to World's Fairs, and appearing in Presidential parades like Geronimo did, are radically different treatment than what Bin Laden got, which is my point, the comparison of the two is invalid. Native Americans and their struggles and history have no relation to Osama Bin Laden's ideology. I empathize with the historic injustices wrought on Native Americans, and do not appreciate any of them being compared with radical Islamic terrorists.

    There was respect for Geronimo and his fight for his land, he was not hung as a killer of Americans, which some called for after his capture. One of Geronimo's predecessors, Cochise, died and was buried on ancestral Chiricahua lands in the Dragoon Mts. of Arizona. When he died the Chiricahua were at peace and on their lands.  Cochise had the 'real politics' wisdom not to engage in a losing war, the war that Geronimo fought, and the Chirichua Apache people paid for those conflicts by being relocated to the White Mountain Apache lands north of their homeland, while Geronimo and his fighters went to Oklahoma.


    by NCD on Sat, 05/07/2011 - 11:19pm

    He must have suspected oil.

    More to the point, what kind of ride would G'mo drive if alive today?

    And I'm sure lots of grunts in Gitmo thinking Geronimo whith some MoJo about a MoFo.

    In short, our slogans are thought up by cultural morons with an over-exalted sense of self ("Operation Enduring Freedom"? WTF? Is there anything more Orwellian with an enduring occupation?)

    Still working on my t-shirt, "I spent $3 trillion on Bin Laden's capture and didn't even get a decent funeral". The reason we go to funerals, as Camus so wisely noted, is to howl with glee, so we can resolve it and put it behind us. Now we're stuck with some he said-she said between some SEALS and a 12-year-old girl. Did Lewis Carroll design this script?  

     (The sun was shining on the sea... and that was scarecely odd because they'd eaten every one)


    by Desider on Sun, 05/08/2011 - 4:07am

    I was responding to your mockery of Geronimo, actually.  I'll skip the rest; it doesn't add up to me.


    by we are stardust on Sun, 05/08/2011 - 12:43pm

    O/T

    For future denotation; the word 'getup' when referring to traditional and ceremonial Native American attire should be replaced with the word 'regalia'.  To call it a getup or a costume is somewhat disrespectful.


    by wabby on Sun, 05/08/2011 - 3:38pm

    Tisk...tisk...another Freudian Slip.


    by cmaukonen on Sun, 05/08/2011 - 9:10pm

    With all this talk of Osama bin Laden and what did they know and when did they know it.

    I would like to know.

    How come Wikileaks didn't know where he was ??? Huh ???

    I mean they are supposed to be the definitive source of all information, secret, top secret and cosmic.

    What the deal baby ???


    by cmaukonen on Sun, 05/08/2011 - 9:15pm

    Here the deal baby. http://www.counterpunch.org/shamir05042011.html

    by quinn esq on Mon, 05/09/2011 - 2:15am

    You mean they were scooped by Obama ? Wowozers.


    by cmaukonen on Mon, 05/09/2011 - 10:31am

    Looking at it now with 20/20 hindsight, I think it would have been brilliant to have killed or captured bin Laden and not have announced it. Waited around for a few day and let the Taliban or Al Qaeda announce it. Then to quiet all the rumors, release very detailed information in a very low key, quiet, no-drama Obama way... this would have been much more effective and damaging to Al Qaeda than the circus we have just lived through.


    by David Seaton on Mon, 05/09/2011 - 10:10am