Politics

President Obama announces that Osama bin Laden is dead

The strangest thing about Osama bin Laden’s death, apart from the fact it was live Tweeted by accident, is the revelation that bin Laden wasn’t roughing it all along, doing his “we hate death more than you love life” thing in a cave, but living in a fairly luxurious compound in a small Pakistani town. Abbottabad looks like quite a nice place to live, with great views of the mountains, and for just £600,000 you can buy a house spacious enough for three families and large enough to park a helicopter. A great… Read More

The Brighton hotel in which Lord and Lady Tebbit were nearly killed

The successful American operation to eradicate Osama bin Laden was announced as I was contemplating the causes of the multiple uprisings against authoritarian regimes in the Middle East and North Africa. I am not sure what effect it will have, if any, on any of those, but it certainly emphasises the extent to which the conventions which underlay the conduct of international relations even as recently as the last quarter of the 20th century have been cast aside in the last decade or so.

For me, and many other… Read More

It’s being reported here in Washington that Osama bin Laden has been buried at sea. This was done to avoid there ever being a shrine. Apparently, the body was treated according to Islamic custom, which would have meant it being washed and shrouded by Muslims.

The US armed forces has a number of Muslim chaplains (I remember interviewing one in Iraq in 2004) and there’s a good chance that one or more of them was involved in sending bin Laden’s remains to their watery grave.

Young people gather at the White House last night (Photo: AFP)

The most heart-rending images from September 11, 2001 were of men and women falling to their deaths as they tried to escape the burning, crumbling Twin Towers. The most sickening images were undoubtedly of Osama bin Laden’s Muslim sympathisers who danced triumphantly, whooping and gleefully holding up their rifles, chanting “death to the infidel”.

I never thought Osama bin Laden’s death would trigger a similar reaction in Christian America, but it has. The images of gloating young people at the White House and Ground Zero in New York are shameful: they… Read More

Ten years on, mission accomplished

We’ve done what we came to do. We – by which I mean the West and, more specifically, the Anglosphere – went into Afghanistan to depose the Taleban regime and capture or kill Osama bin Laden. The first goal was accomplished within six weeks; the second took a decade. Still, it’s achieved now. The monster has been brought down. As Mark Steyn wittily but prematurely announced in 2003, Osama’s bin Laden to rest.

Roger Kimball, one of the cleverest men in America, adapts the sublime PG Wodehouse:

A brief suspense, and then at last
The waiting’s o’er, the vigil past;
A careful aim. A… Read More

David Cameron speaks in Pakistan last year (Photo: AP)

David Cameron was informed two hours before Barack Obama made his announcement that Osama bin Laden had been killed, we are told by a single bullet to the head. The Prime Minister, in his statement from Chequers, expressed satisfaction that the mass murderer had met his fate, and congratulated both the President and American forces for taking the decision to act, and then completing the mission.

To judge by his tone jubilation is rightly being tempered by realism. For a start, we need to hear more about the circumstances of his demise. With the… Read More

The Stop the War Coalition - objectively pro-fascist?

Most of the Western world is delighted with the death of Osama bin Laden this morning. But there’s a little corner of despair – the Stop the War Coalition has no idea how to react. Just take a look at the statement they’ve put out this morning.
The killing of Osama bin Laden by US Special Forces in Pakistan has been hailed a turning point in the ‘war on terror’. The assassination, it is claimed, will draw a line nearly 10 years after 9/11. But if the US really wants to draws a line under… Read More

Eddie Izzard may be saying yes, but the bookies are already saying no

The collapse of the Yes to AV campaign has been a sight to behold. They started with a hefty lead in the polls yet this morning news reaches me that Paddy Power, the bookmaker, is already paying out those who had taken a punt on the No vote – and we are still three days away from voting. What went wrong? The fatal flaw in  the campaign was that the Yes campaigners have no real enthusiasm for AV. It’s an unsatisfactory halfway house to PR … Read More

Celebrations in Washington after the news broke

Rejoice! It’s taken ten long, hard years, but the Americans have finally got their man. Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the September 11 attacks, is dead. As Ronald Reagan once said of a former bunch of Islamist terrorists, you can run, but you can’t hide.

Perhaps the most remarkable feature of bin Laden’s death is that he was found hiding in a modern complex outside one of Pakistan’s most prestigious military colleges.

I have always maintained that bin Laden, who has suffered from a severe kidney condition for many years, could not have survived on the run… Read More

Wow. A momentous day. I was here in Washington on September 11th 2001 when Osama bin Laden declared, as the Telegraph’s headline put it the next day: “War on America”.

Then, it seemed scarcely conceivable that bin Laden would escape US retribution for more than a few months. By the same token, if anyone had said then that the US would go for nearly a decade without suffering a major terrorist attack on its soil they’d have been viewed as an idiot.

So what does bin Laden’s demise mean? Here are some initial thoughts:

1. In practical terms, it might not mean all that much. Bin Laden has been on the run for year… Read More