Death Of al-Zawahiri
Henry here. What a fuss is being made about the death of Al-Zawahiri. His family is already apparently saying he is a martyr, and the American networks are saying that his death is a victory for democracy and decent living.
He was obviously not a nice man, one you would like to have to your garden party. Some commentators talk as if this is the end of the awfulness in Iraq. Now we will all proceed as civilized people.
No we won’t. Al-Zawahiri was not the problem. He was just a symptom, a boil on the neck. The problem is that America has got itself into an impossible situation through a total lack of awareness of its shadow. It isn’t Iraq which had weapons of mass destruction, it is the U.S.A., the country with the greatest mass of nuclear arms.
The Bush administration talks bravely of planting democracy in the east and appears totally unaware of it’s hunger for power in the world. This is especially weird as, for now it is the most powerful nation on the earth. That is the way with our shadow. We project our conflicts onto others and blame them for things going wrong. We do this not only internationally, but also personally. If we will be more aware of our need for power we will have become somewhat more aware of our personal shadow.