Though a key aspect of the al-Qaeda statement released earlier today was confirmation of the death of Osama bin Laden, its actual goal was to threaten revenge attacks. A number of other militant factions, even those traditionally at odds with al-Qaeda, saw the death as a chance to threaten revenge strikes of their own.
The Taliban was also quick to issue a statement promising that bin Laden’s death would not change their policy at all. Though bin Laden was in Afghanistan as a guest of the Taliban government before the US invasion, the two factions have been seen as operating mostly independently in recent years, with the Taliban more concerned about reclaiming Afghanistan from the NATO-backed Karzai government.
Police across the West are on high alert over the prospect of a high profile revenge attack. Officials say they have no specific evidence of that, but there is growing “chatter” being collected by surveillance networks about massive numbers of small-scale attacks.
With officials exultant over having slain bin Laden, the sense is that retaliation is virtually inevitable. Likewise, those officials insist that the killing is not a major change to the disastrous policies of ever-escalating war, but rather a vindication of them. It seems whether the retaliation is major or not, little will change beyond the rhetoric.
Bin Laden was assassinated or murdered. That are the right expressions to describe his killing. It stands to reason that this is not the end of the story. Killing is never the answer. Like Che, Hitler, Mao and Jesus the man has become a legendary and may probably could well live on for many generation to come.
no one believes it.
So if they spent tens of millions ostensibly to kill Elvis, threw the evidence to the fishes, called feeding the fishes with the evidence 'sensitivity,' refused to release evidence (better photoshops?) that would come under more sustained scrutiny than a body, and predicted Graceland would vow revenge… then the intent would seem to be to insult Muslims and provoke them to the greatest extent possible without waking the American GWoT-Sucker, and to get Rachel Maddow to fixate on the number of helicoptors while defending the establishment shills reporting this crap as 'fact.' It wouldn't be a wonder if it provided some encouragement to Graceland. Hey, were they a little late? Mz. Katz on vacation?