Osama bin Laden's Burial at Sea and the law of unintended consequences.

OK, good riddance! The most evil man in modern history has finally been killed. But the fact is you cannot kill an idea. Just as the Prophet Muhammad rallied his army 1400 years ago with his words of hatred to fight Christians and Jews and Hindus and every other religion, Osama bin Laden inspired his followers of al Qaida to carry on the battle with those same thoughts, selectively chosen from the Qur'an. The one good thing besides this victorious accomplishment  by our U.S. Navy Seals and CIA counter-terrorist teams was the fact that they disposed of bin Laden's corpse by dumping him in the ocean. Call it a burial at sea if you want to be diplomatic but the result was the same. Now it appears that there could be some good unintended consequences. Here is an excellent observation that bears careful consideration and a followup story, both from Jihad Watch.

U.S. ensures that bin Laden's body handled in accord with Islamic tradition

Here's a telling nugget from an AP story on the death of Osama (thanks to Bryan Preston):

    Officials said the U.S. would ensure that bin Laden's body was handled in accordance with Islamic tradition.

But why? After all, didn't Barack Obama say this tonight?

    "We must also reaffirm that the United States is not and never will be at war with Islam. Bin Laden was not a Muslim leader. He was a mass murderer of Muslims."

So why is the body of a mass murderer of Muslims being handled in accordance with Islamic tradition? Aren't U.S. officials thereby tacitly acknowledging that bin Laden was a Muslim leader, notwithstanding Barack Obama's protestations to the contrary?

And if Osama was indeed a Muslim leader, what are the implications of that for U.S. policy?

There's a question no one in official Washington will dare to answer.

Al-Azhar says sea burial of Osama bin Laden a "sin"

The most influential Islamic institution among Sunni Muslims condemns the sea burial of Osama bin Laden. Obama took pains to make sure that Osama would get a proper Islamic burial, but since he wanted to bury the body quickly (in accord with Islamic law) and couldn't find a country that would take the body (and probably also didn't want to create a place of pilgrimage and anti-American agitation), he buried him at sea. He was trying to show the Islamic world that the U.S. is not at war with Islam, but ended up enraging Muslims anyway -- demonstrating yet again that dhimmi pandering gets nowhere.

My only disagreement with this second story is the comment contained the the brackets: (and probably also didn't want to create a place of pilgrimage and anti-American agitation) because I love to think about the benefits of unintended consequences. Nothing better than a little humor to lighten the moment and the popular cartoonist Gary Larson summed it up perfectly on the Far Side with his depiction of some Lemmings jumping into the sea. I loved to look at Gary Larson's Far Side cartoons and really wish he would come out of retirement and make more of them.

 

Why not encourage the radical followers of Osama bin Laden to form a pilgrimage to his watery grave? The world would be a better place without them. And that little Lemming in the back wearing a swim float could well be any of the sympathetic dhimmies who want to cover their exit plans.