Osama bin Laden's revenge begins

The 'justice' of the Bin Laden brigade has just started, with 80 dead in Charsadda.

Huma Iqbal May 14, 2011
Osama bin Laden, the world’s most wanted terrorist and mastermind behind the September 11 attacks, was killed by US Special Forces in a predawn helicopter raid in Pakistan’s garrison city of Abbottabad on May 1, bringing an end to the decade-long terror that had gripped the entire world in its ugly clutches.

His death was declared the third biggest news of the 21st century; right below the rise of China to first-tier nation status and the election of Barack Obama as the US president.

However, even in his death, Osama has not seized to surprise us. If anything, he continues to be as creative and diverse for from the deep sea beds than he was from his various hideouts on land. Providing us with all the ruffled feathers to untangle and gathering as many sympathies as scorns across the globe, Bin Laden blares through the television screens day and night and seems to have all the right means to keep the analysts and strategists on their toes.

While Americans went crazy with joy in Washington and New York, at the report of Bin Laden's death, cheering and reverberating their president’s slogan: ‘justice is done,’ can we in Pakistan afford to indulge in such luxury?

In our case, I am afraid ‘justice’ has just started. Already fighting over fuel prices, loadshedding, ethnic killings and parliamentary stage shows, we know what is coming our way - another hornets’ nest to take care of.

In fact, the first egg of this nest hatched off this morning. In the first major strike to avenge the killing of Bin Laden, at least 80 people were reported dead and more than 100 wounded in the Charsadda blasts in Peshawar, on the paramilitary police.

Justice has just begun.

While our entire civilian and military leadership met today at the Parliament House to discuss United States unilateral raid into Pakistani territory, a few politicians earlier hijacked proceedings in the same parliament to offer prayers for the death of the ‘great martyr.’

Justice has just begun.

Similarly, while the country should be heading straight away into probing the failure of Pakistan’s military and intelligence agencies, who failed to identify Osama’s presence within a stone’s throw of the Pakistan Military Academy, the government and the opposition does not seem to be getting over their differences.

While the PPP denounced PML-N’s demand that a commission headed by a judge should investigate the Abbottabad operation as “absurd” and an “insult” to the democratic system, PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif boycotted Friday’s in-camera joint session of the parliament to protest against the increasing role of the ISI and army in politics. Which makes one think: isn’t justice delayed is justice denied?

No, but our justice has just begun.

And then there are the religious clerics and their massive followers who are trying to link Osama’s death as an open war against his declared opposition to “Dunya-e-Kufr.”

Justice has truly begun in this land of the pure.

In truth, Osama continues to haunt us Pakistanis in so many ways that justice cannot be done until we do not find plausible answers to all the drama that surround his death. Post Bin Laden operation, the big question as to why the world’s most wanted terrorist was found here in the first place has disappeared from the national radar.

While our premier shares the blame for the apparent failure to capture the world’s most wanted man, an average Pakistani can only hope that he is given justice before he becomes a docile victim of the insane version of justice that the Bin Laden brigade must be planning somewhere to infect upon us in near future.

Till then, please be safe dear fellows.
WRITTEN BY:
Huma Iqbal A blogger who writes on social development, socio-political and economic issues in the region.
The views expressed by the writer and the reader comments do not necassarily reflect the views and policies of the Express Tribune.

COMMENTS (16)

Asad | 12 years ago | Reply its a vicious circle....American drones kill families in NWFP..their young survivors join TTP and attack Pak army/civilian installations because they think the Pak govt/army are aiding the Americans who destroyed them. When these guys turn into terrorists and kill innocent people in Pakistan indiscriminately, then the US increases its resolve to fight terrorism and sends in more drones, which kill more families and it continues..a vicious circle. The simple soltion is US pulls out COMPLETELY out of Afghanistan and Pakistan. no drones, no NATO, no soldiers. Then the TTP will not get recruits so easily.
Khalid Rahim | 12 years ago | Reply @Hassan: I wonder if Fahad Raza is closely related to Raza Rumi or they are the same person?
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