Goldstein is dead

On Sunday, U.S. special forces stormed a compound in Pakistan where bin Laden was staying. Bin Laden and several of his cohorts went down fighting, and the body was washed and buried at sea, apparently Muslim custom for a corpse that cannot be received by family.

Celebrations erupted around America, as people crowded the front of the White House and set off fireworks. Where does this leave us?

Osama was obviously a rat fucker of the highest order. The terrorist attack on 9/11 killed 2,750 people, including his various bombings and the thousands of civilians massacred by the bin Laden headed 055 Brigade after the Taliban took power in Afghanistan, the total death toll for this one man's endeavours could approach 10,000.

The unfortunate part of his death is it won't change much. Al Queada was loosely organized, using a sort of franchise model. Bin Laden was largely a symbolic leader and his death is a symbolic victory only. His goal was to draw America into a larger world conflict, get new recruits and make us spend huge amounts of money to fight against hastily trained fanatics with old AK-47s.

Considering the tens of billions, if not hundreds of billions, spent in the war in Afghanistan, the 15-30,000 dead civilians and the ten years of growing terrorist activity it took to catch him, bin Laden may be having the last laugh in Hell. The US military complex and American Nationalists play right into the hands of bin Laden and the people like him.