DeTomaso

What about a civil war in the USA with gazillion of dead civilians in the streets and trice as much on the run towards the closed Mexican and Canadian border - and nobody in the outerworld wants to be engaged in it, not even in humanitarian aid, saying "this is not our problem"? State courage is the collective, organized form of what? Yes - of civil courage. If we have no such civil courage, well then we'd better pray daily "Let this cup of wrath pass from me!"

Hitler’s journey through life hasn’t been caused by his childhood. It isn’t always that simple. Nevertheless Hitler’s journey is a good example to get an impression of at least one of those kinds of experience one probably has to make to end up in an abuse of power. Compare Hitler’s journey with the journey of one of his contemporaries who has shared precisely the same experience on site – J.R.R. Tolkien. The story begins in Flanders, on the battlefields of WW-I, stinking moon landscapes filled with bloated bodies in all colors on the ground and poison gas in the air, and above all, the dreaded drumm-drumm, the drums of the artillery - the dance of the Death in poisonous yellow mist. Trench warfare. Visions. These two men got dark visions, mad visions, visions of fantastic powers battling beyond the horizon, mental backdoors to flee the seemingly endless horror of powerlessness and subjection to the slaughter in Flanders. It's the survival of the third kind, the gas sickness. You remember the Hobbit village Bree in Lord of the Rings? That is where I was born, in Bree on the east side, the Belgian side of the Brandywine River (read: Channel), in Flanders. It’s very difficult to find another two that haven’t seen each other and that are that different and though that similar, connected by just one shared experience, a crucial experience though. The way they have actually handled the gas sickness they had to share with a gazillion of young men in Flanders should set the tone for their future approach to power, the own power, the own visions one can't get rid of, and thus with a coming to terms with the dreadful war experience as well. After the war their journey through life got parted as light and shadow, cos for a considerable time the one went freely in a psychiatric clinic in Britain and the other just as freely in the Munich beer garden. The mental fellowship of shared experience in Flanders thus had to break up and their individual fate as "Beren the Elven friend" and "Sauron the 2nd Dark Lord" should take its course. Drumm - drumm. Orc drums in the depth.

I'd like to see a far more intense engagement by the Arab League, up to now there is just a little up to nothing what they had to add to, a considerable engagement especially by those Arab countries that have already passed the Arab spring. It is revealing to see a Pan-Arabic solidarity, the spring feeling, among all the différent Arab people and the traditional oasis behavior of the Bedouines, the odd looking away on state level when the theme is an internal Arabic one. The new and imo positive self-awareness of the Arab people still has not yet influenced the appearance of the Arab governments, not even of the new ones. Thus the question is, what do we in the West get after the Libyan War that we haven't yet seen? I fear almost nothing new, no fundamental shift in the political structures and probably not even very new faces in a new Libyan government. The skilled deserteurs from the Gaddafi regime of today will again play an important role in the new regime or whatever. This is as frustrating as the role of the NAtO is confusing, to say the least.

We can handle only what we have already understood. The results of religious terrorism is one thing, good visible to all of us, the reason for religious terrorism is quite another. As long as it seems dark to us, as long as we are unable to answer the satanic phemomenon with its own literary tools, as long as we haven't understod the "Why", we won't get rid of it, unless chance comes and it fades away on its own. This could indeed happen with a view of the Arab spring. But already prognoses on the Arab summer are vague. Thus we have no guarantees. BTW I wonder what all these religious prisoners are doing in Guantanamo if the US jurisdiction would make no sense at all. It makes sense, at least for me. NB From the perspective of al-Qaeda my posting is indeed insulting, but that goes without saying. Goodbye.

By showing that the so-called fifth pillar of Islam, the Jihad as holy duty for all Muslims, is just an intrusion as is the Jihad against unarmed civilians in special, devices given by the Muslim brotherhood of my generation to answer the supremacy of Western modernism in the 20s century. These devices are not part and parcel of the Koran, not even part of the Hadiths, the regional additions to the Koran, to mention just one gap in the Jihadist theory that is directed against the Koran. To be fair - it is actually "blasphemy" to change the Koran, to give it a special direction, as it would be in the case of a rewritten Bible with an up to now unknown 11th commandment - Thou shalt kill them all - for example.

Not in my case sir, since I was born on the same day that a certain Colonel Gagarin became the first man in space, and hence celebrated a significant milestone birthday this year, and by all accounts made my first saying at the age of about nine months (and haven't shut up since.) Joking aside, and more pertinently to the argument, it also means that, like yourself and the other older hands on here, I am old enough to clearly remember the background events which led to Osama getting his comeuppance. Further back even than 9/11 and the Gulf Wars, back to the 70's and 80's and some ill fated meddling in...umm...Afghanistan. Right, I vividly remember the famous beep-beep of the Sputnik in late 1957, short before my first birthday. Since then I love to use it as an expression of disfavor, nowadays especially in the Microsoft office. The designers know already that this doesn't mean any good. Apart from that, do we already have any reaction by the bin Laden clan in Saudi Arabia?

Perhaps you get an idea now on why I personally would like to prefer the next to last killing of Osama bin Laden in late 2007. If not, well, then it doesn't matter. There is imo absolutely no logic in the story of late and thus no necessity to analyze it in detail - it would lead to nothing. More likely it seems to be the final diplomatic balancing act with good intent to end the big lies that were spread in the most recent past; and it is in any case the long hoped-for balm for the US soul after 9/11. The today US administration is thus everything but to be blamed for it, though the former actually might be. The man in question is eventually gone to the worms since long, thus any conspiracy theory (and we’ll see some) has to deal with the sea of sand or water he was buried in. As such it makes no difference at all which ending we believe in. It has ended, there is no doubt about it, we won’t get further mixed audio tapes from the grave anymore and that alone counts. Having finally ended the nightmare of a seemingly endless fight between the personified good and evil, quite officially, that is the trophy of Mr. Obama, the gift to all of us. From now on we don’t have to see certain things through the black & white glasses of former US president G.W. Bush anymore, that alone is much appreciated, in the West and perhaps even more, inside Islam. Good job, overall. BTW It is really no good idea to tell a man beyond the 50 that he is trying to say something! I guess I have made my first understandable saying already long before you were born, at least most of you. Got that? Fine. Be nice. Back to work.

At least it wasn't a Belgian. Now ask yourself why we have courts and trials. If they'd change nothing, if they'd be useless, why not kill every caught up bad guy directly? We dump them all at sea and call that a burial according to the holy traditions (of the pirates, I guess). Amen. You see - what goes for one guy goes for everybody or it goes for nobody. If we offer no fair trail we are not to be distinguished from the lawless barbarians that have caused 9/11. Now don't tell me that a Western country would actually want to relapse into barbarism. The reason of the assassination of bin Laden is more subtile. He simply shouldn't talk. His silence was by far more important than his operative knowledge of al-Qaeda could ever have been. And that is remarkable, for still innocent people have to die before the time because of al-Qaeda terror actions.

We might talk about certain Taliban commanders if you prefer what I'd prefer, SilverDNA from Germany. It is absolutely not our intention you harm the German culture or something alike. But I guess that our American friends instinctively feel the close relation between the Groefatz and Osama, they vividly smell it, even it is just a metaphorical relation that deals with the personified evil. They are not to be blamed for it, perhaps we are who we often smell almost nothing. isn't it?

You can't honestly believe that trying Osama would have had even close to the same result. I can. But tell me why you cannot. The main difference between the visions of Hitler and of bin Laden might be partly caused by the smoke they have breathed in; the one has breathed in too much toxic gas in Flanders during WW-I and the other too much opium in the upper class clubs of Saudi Arabia in the late 70s.

On Nurnberg one has to say that this trial has ended the terror regime of the German Nazis, not militarily but philosophically and juridically, and that was important. Consequently they didn't re-emerge like a phoenix from the ashes anymore. Their ideology was uncovered from that moment on and internationally doomed, the outcome of their deeds made known to all. A few escaped to South America, but only to be hunted down, predominantly by the Mossad, Those who were embedded by the US and the Soviets never played the Nazi again, instead they turned into good Americans and good Soviets. You remember Wernher von Braun, the father of the NASA Apollo program, right? Are these guys indeed to be blamed for their past? Hard to say, isn't it? I don't want to judge. However that be, I’m not that much interested in endless loops dealing with basic issues, you know. My position on the matter is known now, as is yours. Fine, we are not cloned. Beyond that I’m rather interested in new insights on still running events in the Hindukush than on the justification of the irreversible past there. We can't change it anymore. The question that bothers me most at the moment is the possible influence of bin Laden’s death on the upcoming spring offensive by the Taliban - the volunteers they might additionally recruit among the angry Pakistanis for that reason. BTW, Your arguments, Mrs ginnyfizz, don't even swim in salt water. Only those that have something to hide prefer the death of the delinquent already before he begins to talk. So it was already in the case of Saddam Hussein and his two sons. The dead don't talk anymore and in this way they hardly bring others under suspicion. Actually we could draw no advantages, not even the smallest tactical one, from their overhasty death. Brave new world. In the Medieval Age the officals have made a lot of mistakes caused by faith, but for sure not a triple rookie mistake.

I understand you. We just have a fundamentally different understanding of righteous justice and the equality of man in front of the law, that's all. Lynch law vs Nurnberg trial. Like the fathers and grandfathers of the today American youth I prefer the latter by good reasons - it ends the story, lynch law never did.

So close to Mexico you have still not the slightest idea how militarized the drug cartels of today are, Mr or Mrs Lisnpuppy? Not to mention the fact that legal wars are exclusively wars between states and they always pressupose an official declaration of war. Already civil wars open the abyss when it comes to the Geneva Convention. A war against a new international "category of its own" ultimately calls for an international juridical investigation first, and not for a creating of facts in Billy the Kid fashion. Who do you think the US is? Lifted up from international law? Don't even think of it. It's just a part of an international community that all-too often looks away for the time being when one of its permanent members of the Security Council is cooking his own soup. I repeat: Nobody stands above the law! Neither you nor me nor somebody else. Do we have a consensus on the matter? Having said that, we have a new international threat against Col. Gaddafi by the ICC. And that is indeed the legal way it goes. Once we give up our sense of justice, playing comics in reality, we will end up in anarchy, no doubt about it. Others may quickly learn from US tactics to get rid of their own opponents. You may thus go where you want, I don't follow. Too old I am for adventures of the third kind with own goal guarantee that are directed against all lessons learned. My prayers are with you, nonetheless.

The first diplomatic reaction by Islamabad was a somewhat wooly condemnation of the US action against Pakistan's sovereignty, a quite normal reaction btw, the USA wouldn't react much different, hopefully, but in Pakistan it is additionally fired by a public opinion which is clearly anti-American, anti-Western. This anti-attidude has directly led to the second official reaction which is directed against all or perhaps only selected foreign journalists in West-Pakistan - they have to apply for a new journalist visa now, unfortunately the offices don't make out a document in such a special, not to say strange case, alJazeera has lately reported. The possible consequences are obvious, for the broadcasting services as well as for us as interested viewers. The third reaction is that the Pakistani government right now reassesses the tacit predator drone agreement with the US, quite essential for US military operations on both sides of the Afghan Pakistani borderline. A cancellation of the agreement would mean a heavy set back not only for the US administration but for the coalition forces in Afghanistan as well. And this at the worst possible moment, in the forefront of the upcoming spring offensive by the Taliban. It is, however, just in the interest of the today Pakistani government to keep the US money line alive, to set up the new prize for the bilateral conspiracy of silence, once central part of former president Bush jr.'s War against Terror supported by Gen. Musharraf, the former Pakistani president. The interests of the Pakistani people lay in different things though, as there were food, jobs, less corruption, a better infrastructure, health care and, of course, the Islam. Unfortunately the Western aid packages have never reached the imo right addressee, the people, instead the bulk of the money was and is used to improve Pakistan's military position against the arch-rival India. That's why the pedestal on which the Pakistani government rests is everything but safe. The new blasphemy law to protect the Islam and its prophet against any verbal attack by non-believers, forbidden under penalty of death, is just a gift given to the public to dope them for any destabilizing Islamic revolution they may have in mind. Now, if the upcoming new money aid isn't high enough for the Pakistani general staff the officials have to react; and if the Pakistani people put up or shut up as their reaction it might result in a bloody take over by the Pakistani fundamentalists and the bin Laden patient sufferer Nawaz Sharif (the loser of the last parlamentary election) and of course the assassination of Bhutto widower Asif Ali Zardari, the today Pakistani president. Assassination is by no means a US invention, it's a kind of people's sport in the Hindukush since ages. Consequence of such a possible radicalization, with or without a change in the government, has to be the pro-Islamist threat to cut off NATO supply lines in Afghanistan. Many people in Pakistan would indeed love to be engaged in the Afghan War at their threshold, not unofficially as Taliban fighters or something that stands for terror in Pakistan, but officially as Pakistan's army. And that is a problem for us cos we'd lose Pakistan as an ally. And we need an ally between the Iran and China, don't we? I really don't share the strange idea of legalized combatants in illegal wars only to kill them on sight, cos this might end up in anarchy - the War against You and Me. Look, a War against Drugs doesn't give us the licence to assassinate by the way all known Columbian producents in Columbia, all merchants in Port Rotterdam and all the dealers in the Bronx or elsewhere, even if the annual death toll of drug- taking outnumbers by far the numbers of 9/11, how sad it may be for the next of skin. And the same goes for a War against the Mafia or her Slavonic clones and the hazy War against Terror as well. Nobody stands above the law! We simply have to put them on trial and here: on international trial by the ICC, the International Criminal Court in The Hague. And with law the modern societies don't mean a video-game like medieval drumhead trial in the dark with dispersed corpse so that nobody can ever argue for a fair trial as part of a righteous justice that is worth the name. The assassination of bin Laden has thus left more questions than anwers. And it doesn't end the terror, it just leads to a new stage in terror, I fear. That said, creating facts against the highly praised principles of justice is always a risky thing that all-too often has ended in the later political fall of the responsible creator. In so far I really don't see Mr. Obama in a second term of presidency. A temporary success at the political homefront, a long prayed-for jubilee for those who vividly remember the catastrophe of 9/11 and especially for all those who believe in nothing but words from above, words that have already betrayed us on alleged WMDs in the Iraq. That's all. Not enough to feel comfortable, I'd say.

"Western culture as a whole" is, when it comes by force, the background of naming us "crusaders" in certain areas, no matter if we're in fact religious or absolutely not. Actually our today understanding of right and wrong, freedom and justice, wealth and luck, our way of life, is exclusively founded in our Christian roots and traditions, we have no others. But these folks simply prefer to choose by themselves, and as the Arab spring might prove, to choose a quite similar way of life, finally. But it's their own way of life, unique for chosen from within. Every good man is free; we shouldn't change this early-Christian understanding of a human right of self-determination. Keep in mind that Western culture is just one culture of today among others and not even the largest one, a culture we were born into by chance and not by necessity. And there is no legit cultural supremacy, or we'd belong to a monoculture already since the days of Noah's flood. On covered military actions on foreign soils. This is still a crime according to international laws, the US have to realize this if they want to remain in the international community as an integral part. The only legit exception is an internal deal made between the states involved (here: the US and Pakistan) already in the forefront of such actions, or a defined UN mandate. Quite obviously this hadn't been the case during operation Geronimo by different reasons. This might explain the harsh diplomatic reaction by the Pakistanis in the aftermath of the killing of Osama bin Laden, reactions that, if things get worse, might end in a cut off of Nato supply lines in Afghanistan by the Pakistani army or at least in a Pakistani cancellation of the US drone agreement. Guess the US will avoid any risk by blowing up the money aid package for Pakistan.

What we'd like to possess and what we actually can afford are often two very different animals. The fact that I can't afford a private Learjet doesn't necessarily mean that I'd be allowed to capture one, right?

Our Western lifestyle, our culture, is patently Christian stamped, not only Greek, or we weren't baptized. If we think of ourselves as superior in special or in general, fine, cos that's what others that are different think of themselves too, in all or part of. With that said, from the very first moment of occupation on the export of lifestyle begins. That isn't new, for that's the way it goes, the only way, often successful, but sometimes a dead end. A workable solution, especially for Afghanistan, well, that is probably something else entirely. What would have made sense and what not we'll see within a few years if not already earlier, when the die is cast. In the meantime we might reconsider our good relations to the semi-medieval Saudi Arabia, the well of religious terrorism we are dealing with. I leave it at that. Perhaps others would like to drop in with new insights.

It's perhaps not up to us "non-believers" from abroad but up to the neighbours to keep an eye on them and to find a workable solution where we have failed. After ten years of fruitless actions on all possible fronts one simply has failed. We should realize this. On the lack of female rights within Muslim societies. Since how long do women in the Christian West have equal rights - in practice and not only in theory? A brief view to the "Arab Spring" shows that fundamental social shifts in Muslim countries presuppose an internal development first that calls for support more than our direct military intervention on the ground. Guess the US is the 1st Western military power involved in Libya that has understood. On terror bases in Afghanistan. The most recent CIA report speaks of 50 individuals in the max. That is by far less than the Germans host against their will and approximately 1/10 of the al-Qaeda fighters in Pakistan. On intervention. If there is something that unifies all Afghans then it is their abysmal hate of being occupied by foreigners. This has less to with us today in special, it is historically founded. A Chinese occupation force would have to face the same reaction. It is not only safer to pull out as the Dutch did already last year, followed by the Canadians this year, occupation is no longer to be justified after the death of bin Laden as the cause of war in 2001. But if bin Laden was just a cheap forwarded reason to intervene, to take over the strategic points at the borders predominatly to the Iran as an interception of the Pakistan-Iran axis to come, perhaps even to ravage the local resources (is there something beside opium?), to control the Russian gas pipelines, or to change the Afghan version of hardcore Islam, to export our Christian-orientated lifestyle, well, then an ongoing occupation has to fuel the war and finally our boys and girls there have to pay the prize for our political failure. Is that really what we want?

The rules of the game have to be changed in Afghanistan to stop permanent war. As long as it appears as an artificial British colony construct, centrally ruled by Kabul to the exclusion of almost a third of the Afghan people, nothing will ever turn to good account, no matter who may temporarily "rule" in Kabul or what skin and culture a foreign occupation actually may have. I believe it is far more illusionary to hope for an end of the not winnable Afghan Wars without changing anything systematically, especially those imperial structures that were grafted upon the Afghans by former colonialism, for example the central government. The Taliban are no people but an Islamist movement that is founded in a mixture of radical Deobandism and the Pashtunwali code of honor, an armed political faction as homogenous as any faction on the ground in Afghanistan, this includes the Western Alliance. They are communities of purpose as usual. The Taliban in charge for talks is thus, to this day, their chosen leader - Mullah Omar. US attempts to split the Taliban are most certainly doomed to fail. Now the US that has installed a chameleon named Hamid Karzai in Kabul rejects any talks with Mullah Omar due to his family connection to the bin Laden clan and some critical vetoes he has put in against the Taliban jirga (assembly) in favor of Osama bin Laden. And it goes both ways. These two opponents almost paralyze each other and are thus stumbling blocks on any road to peace in Afghanistan. Unfortunately the Afghan Northern Alliance has no token left since the astonishing assassination of the famous warlord Ahmad Shah Massoud just two days before 9/11. And after his fatwa against the US in 2001 and the closing of ranks with al-Qaeda the former Afghan Prime Minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar is doubtlessly by far more obstructive for a peace process in Afghanistan than Mullah Omar as the new bogeyman could ever be. On the contrary, the future role of "Gucci Mujaheddin" Karzai as the friend of literally everybody but especially of himself and his outfit is probably already sealed, we'll find him in the fashion exile again. I think the main difference between Russia and the US on the matter is that the former had to learn what the latter has already again forgotten, namely the fact that military superiority is everything but a garantor for political success, especially not on Afghan soils. Not by chance I have mentioned Russia, China, Pakistan and the Iran as possible parties to the Afghan deal, two political axes, a former and a future one that are directly related to Afghanistan. By means of geografical distance alone we, the West, have predominantly just imperial, that is strategic interests in Afghanistan and no big interest in the Afghans as such. But Afghanistan policy against or past the Afghan people doesn't work, it never did since the days of Alexander the Great.

A participation of the Taliban in exploratory talks on Afghanistan's future wouldn’t be just 'fine', it's mandatory, or the round table isn't worth its wood, I fear. Unfortunately the US has insisted to talk exclusively to low-ranking Taliban and the Taliban have cabled to talk to the other Afghan factions first after the withdrawal of all 'occupation forces', which would exclude the US from these talks. Well, in this way we can hardly speak of seriousness, neither on US nor on Taliban side. After the US announcement to withdraw all troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2015, the question which side might have the better cards on the long run is already again obsolete. The reason for the upcoming spring offensive by the Taliban might thus to be seen under strategic aspects as an intended upgrade of the own negotiating position in the forefront of such future internal exploratory talks in Kabul. It seems to me as if it'd be high time to bring the regional powers Pakistan, Russia, China and the Iran into the diplomatic play to solve the Afghanistan problem; the West has failed unfortunately, politically and probably culturally as well. The military status quo of the Western forces is still the status quo ante of late 2002 and this alone is a military success on Afghan soils, for it could have been much worse. That's apparently the quintessence of a fruitless ten-year war against the Taliban and the flourishing opium.

az-Zawahiri, the falcon, should be where the falcon nest, the main operational base, is. And the MOB of al-Qaeda is where the Arab mujaheddin are operating militarily and this already since a couple of years - in the Peshawar province, the Pakistani borderland to Afghanistan. There we'll find their training camps too, the ideological head as well as the bulk of terror directed to the promising Pakistani capital Islamabad and the Pakistan People's Party (Bhutto) in favor of the Pakistan Muslim League (Sharif), the vulnerable rear covered by the still allied Taliban at the Khyber Pass. That is the one-front cave-dwelling strategy or lion’s den strategy of al-Qaeda, to be linked to the one of the 80s and the Soviet–Afghan War, different to the internationalized one of the late 90s when “the taste of war will be brought to America” [Osama bin Laden]. Such being the case I have serious problems to understand the idea of al-Qaeda as being urbanized in the meantime. The Arabs stand out like a sore thumb among the Pashtuns, no matter how long their beard is and if they wear the customary pakol filt hat or not. A village or city quarter in the Peshawar province where everybody knows each other by birth is probably the worst place on earth for the still numerous Arab foreigners to hide away, the almost deserted hinterland is not. The interesting fact that the Arabs of al-Qaeda didn’t participate in Taliban offensives in Afghanistan since the fall of Kabul in 2001 is IMO a striking proof of their actual military capabilities as well as the great respect shown by the Taliban, or better: the absolute lack thereof. My hopes rest on a first careful peace talk between the US and the Taliban one day, still before the withdrawal of the last Western soldier from Afghan soils. This would be helpful not only for the future of a decentralized Afghanistan, a country that is simply not to be ruled centrally by Kabul, but likewise for a final isolation and consequently a final withering of al-Qaeda terrorism. If we don’t see such a peace talk within the next three or four years, well then our troops have probably fought and lost their lives for nothing cos after the withdrawal of the West the finally victorious Taliban in the war for Kabul will doubtlessly establish their strange Islamic republic of the third kind once again, and the civil war of the tribes goes on, then with Karzai back in the USA. Though a zero sum result is not what we're fighting for since a decade, right?

'War against Terror' is just a one-sided elastic concept, a phrase covered by the media and the Bush jr.administration. Not only doesn't al-Qaeda understand itself as in a 'War for Terror', it likewise has opened the general opportunity to justify any military actions against "everybody that is not with us", the "bandits", the "outlaws" of old we today prefer to name "terrorists", for example the separatist Kashmiri in North India. Actually we are not dealing with inter-country war but first and foremost with punitive action and reaction between the US empire and regional and/or worldwide operating rebels that are beyond the Geneva Convention. This is the key differentiator between the jihadists of al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The latter are legal combatants in the Afghan War. Technically seen the "execution of Osama bin Laden" by US military was a clear minding other states' business, namely that of Pakistan. This not only calls for a diplomatic Pakistani reaction but likewise for a political revaluation of the Pakistani by the US. Precisely this has happened. So the Pakistani question to the US "why did you do something on our soil without our permisson?" gets nullified by the US back answer "why have you consciously hidden the most wanted terrorist?" We'll see a cooling in the relation between the US and Pakistan (which automatically strenghtens the Pakistan-Iran axis), probably with consequences for the US troops and their allies in Afghanistan, caused by reinforced Taliban offensives. Needless to say that it would be absolutely impossible for the US to use the same jump and run tactics in the case of no. 2 of al-Qaeda's senior leaders, Aiman az-Zawahiri, without taking the risk of massive Pakistani reaction. The remarkable offical comment on bin Laden's (2nd) death by the former Taliban state secretary runs as follows: "Who cares? This group is operatively irrelevant already since a couple of years." In other words: The bearded mullahs don't tolerate the young leader with downy beards of al-Qaeda in the same way they once have tolerated his father, the 'Mahdi'. And this might go for the exiled Arab legion on Afghan and Pakistani soil as well. Whatever the case may be, the full-flavored statement lately given by the well-known journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner Bob Woodward on AlJazeera on bin Laden's death as "a decapitation of al-Qaeda" is naive, to say the least. "The group will continue with their actions on the 'limited level' of the last years." (Gilles Kepel, French al-Qaéda specialist).

How to end a big lie without the ultimate necessity to reason former behaviour? With another lie, and here with a more Hollywood-like one. I can live with it without believing in it. The man in question is indeed dead. That is the only truth. End of the story.

Not they, just a he, the British-Pakistani Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, former MI6, a professional killer. So imo the winner in the kill and run game without victory ceremony on site is: Great Britain, the country in the West with the best secret service connections to Pakistan. However, the recent killing of the already dead bogeyman by the US puts a formal end to the myth of the two men from Saudi Arabia and Midland, finally. That alone is much appreciated.

Cold news. Since 2007 the Pakistani secret service exlusively deals with Hamza bin Laden, the youngest son of Osama, as the head of al-Qaeda. The assassination of the bogeyman is first mentioned in a Frost-interview on AlJazeera with the former Pakistani president Mrs Benazir Bhutto, a few weeks before her own assassination in late 2007. Remarkable was that Sir David Frost surprisingly did not react on the all-important information of the death of Osama bin Laden, there was no closer examination of the breaking news during the interview. After the death of Benazir Bhutto the information got downplayed in the media, allegedly it was just a misspelling or confusion by the former Pakistani president that was known for her intelligence, coldness and beauty.