IAWM PRESS RELEASE ON KILLING OF OSAMA BIN LADEN – 02 MAY 2011

IAWM PRESS RELEASE ON KILLING OF OSAMA BIN LADEN –
02 MAY 2011
• Killing of Osama Bin Laden is not that significant
• It will not bring comfort to the relatives of the thousands killed, maimed or displaced by the two disastrous wars by the USA
• Celebrations in USA are bizarre and Obama’s comments disingenuous
• US foreign policy and its war mongering is the real threat to world peace
• People should seek hope from the brave mass actions of the ordinary Arab people.
In a statement released today the Irish Anti-war Movement said that the killing of Osama Bin Laden was not hugely significant and while it may give some temporary false sense of closure to some of the relatives of those killed in 9/11, the action will not ultimately bring them, or the victims of two disastrous brutal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, any real comfort. It is yet another false milestone in a doomed strategy of US foreign policy and is redolent of the capture of Saddam Hussein and the nonsense ‘mission accomplished’ announcement by George Bush. It will keep the media occupied for many weeks and divert attention from the momentous events in the Middle East.

IAWM PRESS RELEASE ON KILLING OF OSAMA BIN LADEN –
02 MAY 2011
• Killing of Osama Bin Laden is not that significant
• It will not bring comfort to the relatives of the thousands killed, maimed or displaced by the two disastrous wars by the USA
• Celebrations in USA are bizarre and Obama’s comments disingenuous
• US foreign policy and its war mongering is the real threat to world peace
• People should seek hope from the brave mass actions of the ordinary Arab people.
In a statement released today the Irish Anti-war Movement said that the killing of Osama Bin Laden was not hugely significant and while it may give some temporary false sense of closure to some of the relatives of those killed in 9/11, the action will not ultimately bring them, or the victims of two disastrous brutal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, any real comfort. It is yet another false milestone in a doomed strategy of US foreign policy and is redolent of the capture of Saddam Hussein and the nonsense ‘mission accomplished’ announcement by George Bush. It will keep the media occupied for many weeks and divert attention from the momentous events in the Middle East.
The statement noted that: “it has taken the US security forces almost ten years to find Osama Bin Laden and they have used the excuse of this search to invade two countries and kill and maim hundreds of thousands of people, including many women and children.”
The statement continued: “Al Qaeda, and particularly Osama Bin Laden, had become an insignificant force but now his killing, and the manner of its execution, by US special forces may create a martyr and lead to retaliatory attacks on civilian targets in the west – a concern evidenced by the travel alert issued today to all US citizens.”
The statement also noted that: “ the location where Osama Bin Laden was found is hugely significant. The compound in Abbotabad north of Islamabad is in the centre of a Pakistani Military Complex, know as Pakistan’s Sandhurst, which certainly exposes a huge rift between sections of the Pakistani Military and their US Military handlers. It has been known for a very long time by the US military that Bin Laden was in Pakistan and not Afghanistan but this was played down to justify the continued war in Afghanistan and to avoid problems in Pakistan”
Jim Roche, PRO of the IAWM noted:
“Barack Obama may present Bin Laden’s assassination as a foreign policy triumph and it may help his party’s election campaign – but his words of celebration and comfort ring hollow. In fact this ‘triumph’ may have been engineered to declare ‘victory’ in Afghanistan prior to actually quitting soon in defeat. He spoke evocatively about the relatives of those killed in 9/11 noting the “empty seat at the dinner of the table, children who grew up without knowing their father, parents who would never know the feeling of their child’s embrace.” But, what about the millions of relatives, mainly women and children, in Iraq and Afghanistan who have been directly effected by the wars unleashed by George Bush and now pursued vigorously by Obama? Whole families have been wiped out by horrific attacks from the air ordered directly by Barack Obama – some in recent weeks. His statement just reveals the awful duplicity and hypocrisy at the heart of US foreign policy.
He continued: “It was President Carters and Brzezinski’s foreign policy in the late 1970’s that sowed the seeds for Al Qaeda to flourish in the Mujahidin of Afghanistan and it was continued US foreign policy, which backed despotic regimes against the interests of ordinary people, that ultimately led to the awful attack of 9/11. Since then the war mongering by the US and Britain has led to hundreds of thousands of deaths, the spreading of the Al Qaeda network into countries where it never had any support and the continued oppression of the Palestinian people – the source of much anger towards the west among the Arab people. The military strategies pursued by the US just lead to awful suffering, the spreading of hatred and ultimately more violence. The only way to end terrorism is for the US to change the policies that create space for it to flourish in the first place. The US and NATO forces must now withdraw all military forces from Afghanistan and Iraq.”
He concluded by noting:
“People need to look for inspiration beyond both the fanatical outlook of Al Qaeda and the imperialist warmongering of the US. Both have failed to bring any kind of hope and peace to the world in the last ten years. America supported the dictatorships of the Middle East and Al Qaeda failed to have any impact on weakening their stranglehold despite all its threatening rhetoric. Yet the concerted peaceful efforts of the mass of the Arab people on the streets of the Middle East have exposed the hypocrisy of US foreign policy, have overthrown dictators and have given the people there and throughout the world hope for a better future. That’s the force we should look to and understand that US foreign policy and all the demons it creates along the way is the real problem against true democracy and lasting peace in the world.”
END
For further info contact:
Richard Boyd Barrett TD, Chair IAWM, Tel. 086 781 4520
Marnie Holborrow, Steering Committee IAWM, 087 988 9244
Jim Roche, PRO Steering Committee, IAWM, Tel. 087 6472737
www.irishantiwar.org