A time for vigilance, not relief

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

“Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” – Winston Churchill

Osama Bin Laden was killed overnight by US special forces. Not for him the cavernous tombs of Tora Bora, but a home north of Pakistan’s capital, where David Cameron visited just a few weeks ago. In the public consciousness he had been living a life if squalor, yet the reality may have been somewhat more comfortable.

It’s easy to feel discomfort about what appears – on the surface at least – to be an extra-judicial killing. But this was a man who planned the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians. If he had been capable that number would have read hundreds of thousands. Or even millions.

It’s easy too to shy away from using the word “evil”. Yet how else can you describe such a cold-blooded murderer. If anything the word is too cartoonish. Too glib.

The most important thing to note this morning is that Bin laden’s death does not bring this chapter to a close. On the contrary it should usher in a time when we are extraordinarily vigilant. It seems inconceivable that someone capable of the planning that led to 9/11 would not plan retribution for his death. The “relief” that David Cameron spoke if this morning is real and palpable, but it should be tempered by the “vigilance” that Douglas Alexander urges.

War on an abstract concept like “terror” was always likely to fail. The War on Terror is unlikely to be remembered as a stunning foreign policy success. A war on one person though is easier to win. Bin Laden was the figurehead of terror. His place in the national psyche called to mind the character of Goldstein in 1984, at whom the national two minute hate was directed. Bin Laden was the very personification of evil, and his removal was the victory point.

Now that victory has been achieved – and a military and political victory it surely is – we must be aware that this fight is not over. There were many men working below Bin Laden. We have only severed one of the heads of this gargantuan beast. The remainder of the organisation will seek revenge for their “martyred” leader.

Now is not a time for relief, but for vigilance and the proper rememberance of the victims of his atrocities around the world. It is the only safe and right way to proceed.