Something for the Advocates of the “Osabama Theory” to Think About

Once upon a time dissidents from the Soviet regime were the ones who taught Western people a sense of reality. Now, freedom-loving Muslims have to take on this task.

Let’s just agree that this is how it is: The U.S. has behaved just like terrorists with their fatal command to execute Osama bin Laden. The number of people murdered and injured in the Western world’s war on terror has long been several times higher than the fatalities of Sept. 11. Barrack Obama has turned into Osama bin Laden. Torture in the name of the Quran is not worse than if it is carried out by the CIA, and the West has lost all entitlement to moral superiority due to the tortured people in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, the prisoners of Guantanamo and those murdered in countless drone operations.

So we are agreed. How is it then, that those Muslims who were actually sickened and had to turn away from this Western world are increasingly emulating their values? How is it that in Iraq and Afghanistan — countries liberated by the Western world — citizens risk their lives to vote; that in Tunisia and Egypt they are overthrowing tyrant leaders in the name of freedom and democracy; that in Libya they are allying themselves with NATO, the epitome of Western arrogance; that in Syria and in Yemen they hope for nothing more desirable than a military intervention by the satanic West?

Familiar Pattern

People filled with disdain want their peers to believe that Western society is corrupt, but many Muslims believe this not to be true. Perhaps these Muslims simply know — in contrast to our know-it-alls — that Guantanamo is a kind of Club Méditerranée in comparison to the torture chambers of the Iranian clergy, the Syrian dictator and the Libyan despot. Perhaps they understand that targeted drone operations are definitely more humane than, say, Saddam Hussein’s use of poison gas against his own people. Maybe they are furious about the evil deeds in Abu Ghraib, but they admire a society that is equally outraged by it and that is making those responsible accountable. In other words, perhaps the Muslims have retained those standards that continually get lost in the minds of the Westerners themselves.

This phenomenon is apparently not new. Even during the Cold War there were always willing Western intellectuals who saw the pros and cons on both sides of the then-popular comparison of East and West German societies, which, as a result, led to a moral stalemate. Every dissident from Eastern Europe who stumbled across these sorts of unsophisticated levels was amazed. Aleksandr Zinovyev, a Russian dissident writer, described this excellently in his essay “On the Eggshells and the Downfall of the West,” written in Munich in 1980. He wrote that the citizens of the Soviet Union met in dirty pubs or an overly-cramped flat. They would drink vodka “that makes one’s stomach turn,” and come to the conclusion: “Yes, comrades, we are living worse than pigs.” Curiously, when Zinovyev then came to the West, he found out that: “A few Westerners meet in a restaurant or an apartment beyond a citizen of the Soviet Union’s wildest dreams. They stuff themselves with foods and get drunk on wines that these citizens did not even know existed. Then they nod at each other knowingly and say with such an understandingly mocking smile: ‘Yes, ladies and gentlemen, there is nothing we can do, the West is in decline.’”

30 years ago there were dissidents on the other side of the Iron Curtain who tried to reintroduce a sense of morals and reality to many permanently remorseful Westerners who were putting values into perspective. Now, it is indeed the freedom-loving Muslims who have to take on this task. The question, of course, is whether they will be more successful, because just as it is considered offensive to compare Stalinism and National Socialism in progressive parts of the West, the tendency to consider Osama and Obama as two sides of the same coin will still exist for many years to come. In this instance, a forbidden comparison — Osama vs. Obama — has been made out of a historic German one — Hitler vs. Stalin. Pippi Longstocking says things are always straightforward: “I make the world, diddle diddle dee, how I like it.”

What could the freedom-loving Muslim now tell the despairing Westerner? Perhaps that when Obama dispatched the Navy SEALs, he chose the riskiest mission for moral reasons. It would have been easy to sling a few bombs on the compound in Abbottabad, but it would also have meant the death of civilians. Obama was risking American lives because it was necessary to avoid civilian casualties. As a result, bin Laden was laid to rest on board the U.S. Navy’s aircraft carrier U.S.S. Carl Vinson in the Arabian Sea, according to Islamic tradition. The body was washed, wrapped in a cloth and then a prayer for the dead was said in Arabic. The end of the prayer reads: “Our God forgives this dead person. God is great.” The body was lowered into the water at the end of the hour-long ceremony.

In Memory

“Stop,” roared the despairing Westerner. “It’s sacrilege! In Islam there is no burial at sea!” A high-ranking Muslim intellectual who was critical of the burial apparently told the Westerner this. Now, the freedom-loving Muslim already knows that the person he is talking to is enlivened by the wish to criticize the Western world. So he knowingly keeps quiet and clarifies the following points with him — as did, for example, Khalid Latif, Executive Director and Chaplain (Imam) for the Islamic Center at New York University: Burials on land may have priority, but a) in the short time — in Islamic tradition, the dead must be buried within 24 hours if possible — no country could allegedly be found that would take the body; b) no Muslim can be forced to tolerate the body of Osama bin Laden alongside the bodies of their relatives in the same earth; c) it would have been very likely that a grave on land would have turned into a target to be destroyed or a place of pilgrimage. So in this instance the best solution was found in accordance with Islamic commandments.

If you still believe that the U.S. military theoretically behaved no differently during the killing and burial of bin Laden than al-Qaida terrorists, then you should briefly recall the fate of the journalist Daniel Pearl. There is a video of his execution on Feb. 1, 2002, in Karachi, Pakistan. It takes less than three and a half minutes. First, his throat was cut, and then his head was cut off by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, third in command of al-Qaida. The rest of the body was divided into 10 pieces and buried to the north of Karachi.

Thus, most arguments against the killing and burial of Osama bin Laden are weakened without anger and fondness. If you believe that that is too decent a burial, you should instead get a copy of “Take No Prisoners,” one of Lou Reed’s old live LPs. One song is called “Sweet Jane” and it runs for about eight minutes. In it, Lou Reed sings: “Give me an issue, I give you a tissue and wipe my a** with it.” That is another way of putting it.