When President Obama, summing up the killing of Osama bin Laden, said, \u201cJustice has been done,\u201d the problem wasn\u2019t simply that he misspoke \u2014 justice, after all, can only emerge at the end of an impartial judicial proceeding \u2014 but that, in so misspeaking, he hit the emotional bull\u2019s-eye.<\/p>\n
\u201cJustice has been done.\u201d<\/p>\n
We got him, America! Oh yeah, sweet! Who can\u2019t feel the pop of satisfaction in those words? \u201cHe should have said, \u2018Retaliation has been accomplished,\u2019\u201d Marjorie Cohn pointed out recently at Common Dreams, and that\u2019s true, of course, but the president wasn\u2019t summoning the dry, sober rule of law. He was evoking, just as George W. Bush did before him, the Wild West, America\u2019s deepest font of mythology, where justice, you know, comes from the muzzle of a revolver. As with Geronimo, so with Osama: Wanted Dead or Alive.<\/p>\n
\u201c. . . it was the Indians who, by the ambush, the atrocity, and the capture of the white women . . . became the aggressors and so sealed their own fate,\u201d writes Tom Engelhardt in The End of Victory Culture<\/em>, describing the first mythological enemy we created as we carved a nation out of a continent.<\/p>\n \u201cFrom the seventeenth century on,\u201d Engelhardt continues, \u201cAmericans were repeatedly shown the slaughter of Indians as a form of reassurance and entertainment, and audiences almost invariably cheered.\u201d<\/p>\n In the post-9\/11 decade, myth and politics \u2014 myth and all phases of American culture \u2014 have converged with a certain ferocity that seems unprecedented in my lifetime, and coincides with our transition to a state of perpetual war and economic freefall. As real security for most people nosedives, appeal to myth, especially the myth of the Wild West, becomes the prime tool of governance.<\/p>\n \u201c. . . from this day on,\u201d said Mara Liasson a week ago on NPR, \u201chis Republican opponents will always have to deal with the new and enduring fact that Barack Obama is the president who got Osama bin Laden.\u201d<\/p>\n This says nothing and everything in one fell swoop. The \u201ceverything\u201d is mythological: This is a big, big victory for the prez and for America. The \u201cnothing\u201d is . . . everything else. Bin Laden\u2019s death doesn\u2019t end our wars or make us safer. Indeed, anything but. Talk of terrorist retaliation immediately began cycling through the 24\/7 media. If Sen. Charles Schumer has his way, the security bureaucracy will create a \u201cno ride\u201d list for Amtrak passengers because some evil, though sketchy, plans were found at bin Laden\u2019s compound targeting the U.S. rail system.<\/p>\n \u201cEven in death,\u201d writes Glenn Greenwald, \u201cbin Laden continues to serve the valuable role of justifying always-increasing curtailments of liberty and expansions of government power.\u201d<\/p>\n The raid and assassination have also led to a resurgence of torture justifications in the media, particularly from Bush-era officials neck deep in war-crime complicity, despite zero evidence that testimony obtained via \u201cenhanced interrogation\u201d or \u201cRumsfeld interview\u201d yielded any useful intelligence. Could it be, Carla Seaquist wondered in a piece on Huffington Post, that they\u2019re just trying to establish a protective buffer against eventual prosecution for war crimes?<\/p>\n The myth of the Wild West is the myth of necessary violence. It has no limits. It justifies the carpet bombing of civilians. It justifies political assassination, including assassination by drone aircraft (with unlimited civilian casualties allowed, especially if they can be labeled \u201csuspected insurgents\u201d). It justifies the spread of toxic pollutants. It justifies the use of nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n And all it asks of us is a state of endless fear.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a way in which terrorism is incredibly smart and savvy,\u201d said Suzanne Ross of the Raven Foundation. \u201cIf you make someone afraid, they will destroy themselves eventually.\u201d<\/p>\n In several video presentations, Ross and her colleague, Adam Ericksen, examined President Obama\u2019s attempts this past week to call forth a heightened sense of national unity around Osama bin Laden\u2019s assassination. It\u2019s a devil\u2019s bargain, they maintain, because the need for more violence will never end. However, this need \u2014 for the next war, the next political assassination \u2014 always seems so reasonable. And as part of the bargain, \u201cThe meaning you\u2019re making around violence is your own goodness,\u201d Ross said.<\/p>\n The Raven Foundation, along with innumerable organizations and, in all likelihood, a majority of the American populace, want this country to reorganize not around violence and exclusion \u2014 good guys vs. bad guys \u2014 but around a higher human standard: compassion, inclusion, real justice.<\/p>\n The only way this has any chance of happening is if enough people free themselves of the myth of the Wild West, which reduces these values to the status of the fair maiden rescued at gunpoint.<\/p>\n ___________________<\/p>\n Robert Koehler is an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist, contributor to One World, Many Peaces and nationally syndicated writer. His new book, <\/em>Courage Grows Strong at the Wound <\/strong>(Xenos Press) is now available. Contact him at koehlercw@gmail.com or visit his website at commonwonders.com. <\/em><\/p>\n \u00a9 2011 Tribune Media Services, Inc.<\/em> <\/em><\/p>\n