was really unarmed, why did they kill him, when they could have arrested him and extracted valuable intelligence information?”
in the affluent hamlet of Abbottabad – as the US officials had stated earlier. Te Asso- ciated Press reported that the four original plots of land that were joined to create the compound were bought for only $48,000 in 2004 and 2005. More controversy was aroused by the
fact that no pictures of Osama’s dead body had been shown, because the pictures were allegedly “too gruesome” to show to the public. President Obama told CBS News that the pictures would not be shown be- cause they would make it appear that the US was exulting in the killing – something that could incite anti-US feelings. “Tat is not who we are,” Obama said. Yet, the gruesome pictures of the two
other men killed during the operation – al- legedly taken by a Pakistani intelligence of- ficer (unnamed) and “sold” to Reuters news agency – were published around the world. All this created an atmosphere in which
the US seemed to be hiding something. Was the alleged killing of Osama a hoax? Who could blame anyone for thinking it was a hoax, when no photo appeared, and the
body was so quickly dumped at sea? Another important question is: If the
man was really unarmed, why did they kill him, when they could have arrested him and extracted valuable intelligence information from him and his associates who were with him at the time of the raid? Or did they think he would not talk whatever they did to him under captivity? Again, the US claim that it didn’t want
to publish a gruesome picture of a dead Osama is difficult to credit, because the US did not have any scruples about showing the bodies of Saddam Hussein’s two sons – injuries and all – when they were killed during the Iraq war. Teir father was also shown in the proc-
ess of being hanged. Before that, his humili- ating capture – including the indignity of having his hair examined for lice and his dentures checked – was shown to all the world. Why was the “gruesome” end of the Husseins publicised, but not that of Osama? One explanation of why the image of a
dead Osama is being suppressed is that the American soldiers who killed him were so
“Another important question is: If Bin Laden
incensed when they set eyes on the “mass killer” who caused 9/11 that, in their hubris- tic hysteria, they shot him up so much that his body became badly mutilated, taking away the chance to show it to the public in any recognisable form. After the brutality American soldiers
have exhibited at Abu Ghraib prison and Guantanamo Bay, that is not such a fanci- ful idea. For the moment, though, what the Americans and their Western allies are worrying about is what Al Qaeda will do to avenge the alleged murder of its leader. In Ghana, however, the controversy
is only to be expected. Every child there knows that an Osaman (ghost) is not some- thing to be joked with. So why should an Osaman who could hide in plain sight in Pakistan, only a few hundred yards from that country’s most prestigious military academy, die without causing ripples? As the controversy about his death rages
on, the mystique about Osama will keep growing, and it is on the cards that he will become more dangerous dead than when he was alive. Tapes of his speeches; his books and pamphlets – these will gain renewed currency throughout the world. And the CIA will regret the day when it
thought that just because Osama was anti- Soviet, it should finance his campaigns in Afghanistan. It is as if the CIA took a stone to throw at the Soviets – only for the stone to drop on its own foot. Te Osaman saga has no end in sight, methinks.
New African June 2011 | 83
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