Alone

It is crowded

Millions of people moving about

Walking, Jogging, Running

There is no space between the people yet they never touch each other

They continue about their business

Without notice or care for what is around them

Eyes are focused on something that only they know and see

Ears listen to the sounds that are only in their heads

Skin feels only the fabric covering their body

In their midst stands a young boy

He has black hair and brown eyes

The young boy calls out but no one hears him

He then screams out, nothing

He tugs at the sleeves of those who walk by and around him

They don’t feel him

He cries and they take less notice of him, if that were even possible

The tears stream down his face but matter not for no one cares

He stands in the center of millions of people, from all walks of life

Yet he is alone, never seen, never heard, never felt

He reaches out and is never touched

His pain and his story is his alone

The path he walks is only walked by him

He is the loneliest boy in the world

(This is something I wrote a few years back, something I felt all people feel, the sense that we and we only understand our existence as individuals. What I feel or know is only know by me, even despite my ability to communicate my ideas, thoughts or feelings to others, does any of this vibe with you? I'd love to hear your thoughts about it)

Osama bin Gone

May 2, 2011 Osama bin Laden, the most hunted and hated man in the Western world was finally captured and killed by an elite Navy Seal team in the city of Abbottabad in Pakistan. Let me be clear about something, I think it was a death that he deserved and nothing better. Bin Laden was born into a wealthy Saudi family in 1957 and for most of his young age spent it learning and refining his ideology of Wahabbi Islam. In 1979, he went to Afghanistan and joined the anti-Soviet Union movement and revolution. It was during this time and against the Soviet Union that the United States through the CIA provided resources, weapons, training and aid to the Mujahideen to fight the Soviet Union. This CIA project was called Operation Cyclone and was done under the direction of President Reagan and his Reagan Doctrine. To be fair this started under the tenure of President Carter and was featured prominently in the movie Charlie Wilson's War with Tom Hanks. The Reagan Doctrine basically says that overt and covert military aid and financial aid was to be provided to "freedom fighters" and guerillas fighting against the Soviet Union.

It was during this period that Bin Laden became one of the founding members of Al-Quaeda and it is also during this period that he learned and honed his military tactics. America provided him and others like him the tools and money to fight the Soviet Union because any victory against the Soviet Union was a victory for America, its values and its power. America didn't train Bin Laden and the other mujahideen rather that was done by the greatest terrorist organization in the world the Inter-Services Intelligence also known as the ISI, the most powerful "branch" of the Pakistani government. ISI has long sought to control Afghanistan for its own purpose and to destroy India. During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, the ISI trained and fought alongside the Mujahideen eventually ousting the Soviet Union from Afghanistan in 1989. With the explusion of the Soviet Union, Bin Laden and his group turned their attention to the other Great Satan, the Western World.

He then began to orchestrate terrorist attacks across the western world for what he saw was a great evil, the entrance of foreign non-muslim troops (USA) in the land of the two mosques (Mecca and Medina), Saudi Arabia. From 1992-2000, Bin Laden financed, orchestrated or ordered numerous terrorists attacks in western countries or any Arabic/Islamic nation that was backed by western powers. Bin Laden even financed foreign mujahideen to fight and even tried himself to enter into the Balkan War, some of the work done through his funding was humanitarian in nature trying to help the Bosnian Muslim population during the ethnic cleansing that was perpetrated by the Serbians and Croatians. Then on 9/11/2001, a day that will live in infamy throughout United States and World History, Bin Laden orchestrated and executed the mass murder of over 3000 people in New York City and sealed his own demise.

After 2001, numerous other terrorists attacks happened in Spain, London, Indonesia and India all of which were inspired and maybe indirectly financed by Bin Laden but entirely from the shadows as he was now the most wanted man in the world and quickly went into hiding in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Until about 2005, he was assumed to have been in Afghanistan but no evidence of his presence was uncovered. In 2005, the intelligence agencies became aware that he was probably in hiding in Pakistan, originally thought in the caves near Waziristan region. Around 2009, intelligence was gathered that he might have lived much closer to the urban cities in Pakistan under the protection of the ISI.

On May 1, 2011, an elite SEAL team entered a compound in Abbottabad in Pakistan about 30 miles form Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan. The SEAL team killed Osama Bin Laden and 2 of his sons and his daughter in law. His wife was shot in the leg but was sent to a hospital. He died like a dog that he was and I celebrate it.

People say that its wrong to celebrate the death of a person no matter who, hate the sin not the sinner kind of talk. I don't buy into that. People are defined by their actions and how they behave throughout their life, a violent and harmful person can be redeem if he acts in a way to redeem his actions, he still needs to take responsibility and the consequences of his actions but he can be redeem. Bin Laden did no such thing, he killed thousands of people because of his ideology, not a wrong that the US did to him but his ideology. He killed people in Islamic and Non-Islamic nations just to make his demented vision come to life. He didn't value any life even of his own followers, everything and everyone was merely a means to an end, not an end in themselves. Should he deserve a trial? Yes if there was a doubt that he didn't commit any of these acts, the legal process is there to ensure that no innocent people are wrongly convicted. Bin Laden confessed numerous times not just confessed but joyous professed his killing of innocents. He lost his humanity and in doing so he lost his right to argue for his life and for any legal system to acknowledge it. Serial Killers have neurological problems, they can't control themselves but Bin Laden didn't he was just a fanatic who willfully and callously discarded his sense of morality and ideas of humanity. His death and killing was actually the only just result, not life in jail nor trial, just death. He got it and hopefully he now resides in Jahannam or Hell, burning for all eternity and then soon. I celebrate his death and mourn the loss of innocent people that he left in his wake, an eye for an eye may make the world blind but to allow a disease like him to live would destroy the entire body.