No such victory exists.

With ter'rist mastermind Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (formerly of the Saudi bin Laden family), founder of jihadist organization al-Qaeda and all-around reprehensible character, dead at last, nothing fundamentally changes.

The war in Afghanistan simmers on. The jerryrigged Iraqi government still sways like a house of cards. End of operations in Pakistan? Not bloody likely. The quagmire of conflict yawns ever wider and deeper. It will not end just because this one ghost has been dragged out and exorcised.

And it looks like cowboy justice. Special operatives descend - not into a cave on the AfPak border as the Bush Admin led us to believe, but a compound in a city north of Islamabad. There was no tribunal, no Gitmo, just a firefight and what we can only assume was an inconspicuous burial at sea. Even Nazis, considered history's worst, got the Nuremberg trials.

Bin Laden fought like a dog and got put down like a dog. But, like a diseased animal - and what is an evil human but a diseased animal? - I have only pity - but not contempt. Contempt for anyone is a hypocritical emotion: it ignores our common condition.

You see, this was never about justice: justice calls for a rule of law, for methodical investigation ... in short, those trappings of civilizedness the United States government increasingly treats as a luxury and not just abroad but at home, as well.

And this was never about closure for the most wounded people of New York, those who lost loved ones. Not only does more death fail to resurrect those who have been lost, nor sooth the greatest sort of pain we're capable of feeling, but it co-opts that tragedy into the very cycle of international violence that perpetuates precisely that suffering on people everywhere. Those people can or could only find their own closure, and God help them if they feel it in this sad old man's death.

Nor is this about closure for that other East Coast pain: the wounded pride of New Yorkers (and sadly many other American residents as well), the terror giving way to self-righteousness and indignation. Truly as if the personal members of the American beast, with their diffusion of responsibility for the animal's sins, should by the rules of karma always escape inevitable reprisal made manifest. And what, exactly, should absolve these unwitting citizens from the same coincidental shackles of every other victim of birthplace who lives in the shadow of violence all across the globe? Innocent populations are mowed down all the time, but only the United States Government has the power and pull to wreak vengeance no matter who has wronged it or where the guilty parties hide ... and bust down every door it pleases along the way.

Just because the privilege is unique to this government, does that mean it should not persecute these rabid animals? Who else is going to hold them accountable? No one else has the resources, or is willing to destabilize nuclear-empowered regimes like that of Pakistan in singleminded determination to neutralize rogue actors and create new bogeymen.

The grave of one threat, and/or the cradle of the next?

Power eats its own foundations. Action sows the seeds of entropy and failure. Osama bin Laden is not the first nor will he be the last to be quashed under the weight of a collapsing empire, a slow landslide that buries friend and foe alike.

Anyone who rejoices in the destruction of even one fiend would be wise to note you, too, stand within range of this fallout, and you will not be judged by innocent nor guilt - if you will be judged at all.

Friedman clouds important issues ... as usual.

I know this is no surprise to my small audience, but Thomas Friedman - an incredibly influential economist and political commentator - has quite a flawed method of reasoning. Below I will respond to his article "B.E., Before Egypt. A.E., After Egypt," which was published February 1st in the NYT. But I would also like to point out that this is the man who wrote The World is Flat, a naive argument that technology resulting from capitalist globalization creates an "even playing field" for economic actors. While the world of communication has radically altered, creating with it a young global culture, the economics have not caught up and cannot catch up on the basis of capitalist production. Anyway, to the issue at hand.

POINT: Friedman's "retired Israeli general" tells him from the opening, "everything we thought for the last 30 years is no longer relevant.”

REFUTATION: All of the joint US-Israel strategy over the last 30 years was antagonistic to the Arab world. It is not merely "outdated," it was unsustainable, imperialistic, and unrealistic in the first place.

POINT: "The peace treaty with a stable Egypt was the unspoken foundation for every geopolitical and economic policy in Israel for the last 35 years, and now it’s gone. It’s as if Americans suddenly woke up and found both Mexico and Canada plunged into turmoil on the same day."

REFUTATION: This comparison is ridiculous. Israel's border with Egypt is tiny. The US borders with Mexico and Canada, two geographically and demographically huge countries, are likewise enormous. The United States is still able to dictate policy to much of the world (though in a decreasing capacity). Egypt is one neighbor; Canada and Mexico are two, and our only two, and the only two other countries on North America's mainland, at that. Israel and Egypt are both part of a complex overlapping geopolitical network that includes Europe, the Mediterranean, the "Middle East," North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, the "Arab World," the "Muslim World" ... the list goes on. The religious complexities of the region alone warrant in-depth analysis, not Friedman's platitudes.

POINT: Friedman hammers home Iranophobia in a not-so-crafty way by quoting a "Tel Aviv strategist" to paint a superficial Middle East backdrop for all of us paying superficial attention: "And it [the Egyptian Revolution] is happening right at a moment when nuclearization of the region hangs in the air."

REFUTATION: This region is "nuclearized." It's an open secret that Israel has WMDs, including nuclear capacities. Shame on Friedman for reinforcing American ignorance about the complexity - and the history - of the weapons situation.

POINT: Friedman says, "The best time to make any big, hard decision is when you are at your maximum strength. You’ll always think and act more clearly," and goes on to point out Mubarak had 30 years to introduce reforms to his country.

REFUTATION: Friedman apparently doesn't understand how a dictatorship works. Having a single strongman give the orders in a militarized security state isn't conducive to progressive developments. If democracy had been Mubarak's goal he would have pressed for changes to Egypt's constitution upon becoming President. A dictator "think[ing] and act[ing] more clearly" means only more thoroughly curtailing freedoms and curb-stomping public cries for liberty.

POINT: "Now he [Mubarak] is trying to reform in a panic with no leverage."

REFUTATION: Appointing new ministers and "promising" to step down in the fall are not reforms. They are executive window-dressing. "Reform" actually involved changes to the laws that keep the dictatorship in place, ending the curfews and the state of emergency. A tyrant will not make reforms; he stoops to grant "concessions." Nothing about what Mubarak has done changes the power of his office or sets a precedent of democracy.

POINT: "[I]t is virtually certain that the next Egyptian government will not have the patience or room that Mubarak did to maneuver with Israel."

REFUTATION: Friedman neglects to mention the U.S.'s vested interest in making sure the transitional government will play ball, and probably any government after that. Will they use force to prop it up? If necessary, you betcha. Friedman is propagating a naivete that harms the worldview of everyday Americans. It is the responsibility of writers, journalist, economists, political nerds, etc. etc. to dig down deep for the truth, not dumb down analysis until it whitewashes the importance of geopolitical strategy.

POINT: "With the big political changes in the region, 'if Israel remains paranoid and messianic and greedy it will lose all its Arab friends.'" Embedded quotation attributed to "Khalil Shikaki, a Palestinian pollster."

REFUTATION: Arab friends, huh? Israel has been paranoid and messianic and greedy for the almost 30 years I've been alive. It's astounding to me that they would have Arab friends even now, and any buddies they may have strike me as very good examples of the possible beauty of the human spirit. And also a bunch of people who are very, very scared of the U.S. military. Let's face it: Israel is never going to gain acceptance in the Middle East by siding with the U.S. and pursuing a policy of fear. That is one(?) country and two(?) populations that need to do some serious soul-searching now, as many pundits have pointed out. Let's hope for the sake of the Israeli people (and not necessarily its government....) that this soul-searching won't come too late.

POINT: "What the turmoil in Egypt also demonstrates is how much Israel is surrounded by a huge population of young Arabs and Muslims who have been living outside of history — insulated by oil and autocracy from the great global trends. But that’s over."

REFUTATION: Just the term "living outside of history" is enough to make my blood boil! No one lives "outside of history," no one, anywhere, ever. That is some kind of weird neoliberal fetish. "The end of history." "Stuck in the dark ages." No one is immune to history. Mubarak is falling prey to thinking he could insulate himself from the past. His clique thinks barbed wire can keep out thousands of young folks possessed by memory and empowered by hope. The U.S. thinks it can treat "backwards" - sorry, "developing," that's the word we use now - nations like puppets and pawns. The Middle East has not been "insulated" by the great global trends; it is a shaper of great global trends. Oil and autocracy are facts of the last 100 years. They are a part of our history and give form to our mode of transit, our cities, our foreign policy, our language, our unconscious anxieties and fears and expectations. Until we grapple (never to conquer) with the full dialectical extent of these issues we are victims of history rather than its inhabitants.

POINT: "It is vital for Israel’s future — at a time when there is already a global campaign to delegitimize the Jewish state — that it disentangle itself from the Arabs’ story as much as possible."

REFUTATION: You ever had someone you don't care for, say a family member, or a significant other's friend, come stay with you for a period of time? And at first you don't like them, you rail against their being there, you butt heads a lot? And then perhaps things settle down for a while, you find some common ground, etc. But maybe they don't get a job, or they don't earn their keep, and you get frustrated and tell them, "Shape up or ship out." Israel deserves to exist now partly by virtue of it having existed so long that it has integrated into the Middle East dynamic. It is impossible to "delegitimize" the "Jewish state" by any convincing force of narrative. But I do think it's completely reasonable that the Arabic narrative too take a dialectical change, that the people of Egypt want democracy and they want it to be safe from their militarized neighbors. It's only fair that these people have the opportunity to live in harmony. Good leaders would arrange more dialogue between the populaces of these countries, foster good feelings, talk about cultural values and common grounds. (What a hippy, Dresden!)

POINT: "There is a huge storm coming, Israel. Get out of the way."

REFUTATION: The storm is here. Friedman, you and your bad reasoning are about to get swept to sea.

And perhaps the entire notion, the paradigm even, of America as the City on the Hill, the light of freedom and opportunity for people all over the world, is on the wane, just as our own democracy is on the wane. This country has experienced a dialectical shift from the inspiration and model to the very barrier of the ideals it once pioneered. New models, global models, fueled by communication technology and ideas of participation and new, innovative solutions are in order. They have not yet been born; they have been struggling for form and articulation since the Tennis Court Oath. And there have been false blooms and flashes in the pan but now there are new challenges, new hopes, and America's ruling class paradigms and their dialectical opposites aren't going to cut it. We will be in doldrums for a long time yet.

radical hope, radical change, radical values

Following the crazy shooting now more than a week ago, I was directed to this particular post about a U.S. marine who is warning "those calling for a civil war," with the typical machismo you expect from a member of an "elite" fighting force. While his(?) words are directed, doubtlessly, at the right wing it is worth looking at from a Marxist perspective. In other countries and other times the "left" has made its own calls for "revolution." In places like the Russia of 1917, with starvation and deaths on the front lines of World War I, this sort of call is entirely justified. Perhaps even today in an authoritarian country like Tunisia, a radical left population is justified in kicking out its oppressors, that same government which fires on demonstrators with snipers. Or authorizes the use of lethal force on rock-chucking children. These are situations I am not intimately familiar with and cannot make an accurate comment, except with the caveat that I am getting second- or third-hand news.

The situation in America, however, I can speak to. And while we're pretty miserable for a "developed" nation, and we do some really miserable things to the rest of the world, things have to be a hell of a lot worse before the left here can even consider insurrection. The American right wants to throw a fuss up around taxes and welfare, gays and Mexicans, so that they can go on protecting privilege and wealth. They are talking about a right-wing populist coup. I don't support coups.

Regardless, this "marine's" tone does more than merely rub me the wrong way. It's downright infuriating. This country was founded on the idea that if government abuses its people, the people have a right to replace that government. This marine's attitude is completely contrary to that. In supporting the text of the Constitution, he violates its spirit, the spirit of this country, the infectious spirit of democracy stemming from the Declaration of Independence. This is the kind of guy who would support a coup to keep alive the perceived authority of a single, corrupted document.

The Right often complains that Marxists, and the Left in general, have no values or morals. But the truth is that the more scientific Left recognizes that the world can only be explained materially, and that material things are subject to the forces of entropy - even the United States Constitution. There seems to be some attempt in the media to connect Jared Loughner's rambling nihilism to Marxism. The argument as it exists right now seems to go "Loughner made some political statements. His perspective and the perspectives of his friends seems to indicate he was a nihilist, meaning his 'belief' is in nothingness. Marxism doesn't acknowledge God as the source of value, and it has a lot to do with politics, therefore Marxism must be nihilism. And Loughner must be a Marxist."

But actually Marxist "beliefs" are a lot more numerous than you might think, and flies in opposition to nihilism, and are in fact more concrete than contemporary mainstream "values." It certainly places a value on thoughtful analysis, rather than the knee-jerk reactions that masquerade in our media as "free speech." It values democracy, meaning thorough participation of ALL members in a given institution, not just incremental elections for figureheads who manage your exploitation. It values radical honesty and openness in human relationships and equality, something that would radically transform the nature of loving relationships - whereas mainstream society seems to cherish these abstract "family values." A far cry from any kind of critical look at human relations, "family values" is actually just code for censoring gay/lesbian/transgender/queer peoples, pretending monogamy is sacred, and making an excuse to psychologically torture people by binding them to the capitalist household.

Change is inevitable; that's common sense. Marxism is one of the only philosophies that actually engages change not just as an armchair observer, but as an active and progressive participant. The people of Tunisia have almost spontaneously realized their own agency. Even if not led by Marxists, they have been empowered through the legacy of common resistance. Our anonymous Marine refuses to recognize that when things change for the worse, the people have an obligation to sweep it away and replace it with new, fresh democracy. Loughner failed to see, or failed to find any teacher who could instruct him, that change does not indicate a lack of universal truth, but a higher, more sophisticated universal truth than he could wrap his mind around. Contemporary American values are hollow, obese with empty rhetoric, sweaty and pained at the strains of putting out global fires.

We need to rediscover democracy. We need to re-engage.