A week of disquieting events and a week of disquieting jokes.
I have to confess at a sense of unease at the pictures of President Obama sittng with his senior staff watching the video images of the capture and death of bin Laden as though it was some form of video game called, perhaps, Gotcha.
Clearly there were boots on the ground and genuine engagement, but perhaps in the way children now play killing games as though the on screen deaths are not real, it seemed that with the exception of Hilary Clinton, most people in the room were watching emotionlessly as the drama reached its, some would say, inevitable conclusion.
Almost as bizarre was the claim in some newspapers that bin Laden's favourite food was Kentucky Fried Chicken, really? and his favourite drink, Coca Cola.
So bin Laden is no more and we wait for the almost inevitable reaction to his death.
Whilst I supported the invasion of Iraq and the strategy of regime change pursued by Blair and Bush I remain disquieted by the execution of Saddam Hussain.
It seemed to me that somewhere in the mix leading up to and after his capture, that Western values might have been invoked in dealing with his 'crimes' and that a trial in The Hague might have been a more appropriate response rather than public nature of his trial and execution broadcast on TV.
But then again maybe this is just a disquieted liberal conscience at work and the public trial and execution brought some form of closure for the thousands of victims of his atrocities against communities and individuals.
This notion of a big society must be called into question when dramatic events can be viewed in real time anywhere, anytime, as indeed those awful images of the Twin Towers burning and the replayed images of the planes crashing into the towers again and again, were themselves projected in real time into communities from Gaza to Greenland.
Terrorism is the strategy of striking terror into the hearts and minds of men and women so that they become paralysed with the fear that they personally will be caught up in the violence threatened by the terrorist.
bin Laden was a terrorist not so much because of what he did (terrible though that was) but because of what he threatened and the ideas he promoted and his death does not especially reduce the power of those threats or those ideas, terrible and misguided though they are.
The events of this week remind us that we no longer live in a big society, with hiding places where soft drinks and fried chicken are freely available, we live in a small, tight society, as Marshall McLuhan had it in the sixties, it is a 'Global Village'.
So who goes out onto the village green to announce the news?
Who shares the event and its consequences in the public square and who takes the debate forward.
Apparently the death of bin Laden will not be shown on TV and neither will there be photographs of his body published in the papers, conspiracy theories are beginning to run and who knows where this debate will end if it ever does.
Humour seems to be the way that we deal with what Donald Rumsfeld called the unknowns, either known or unknown it doesn't matter, what we do know is that the world just got smaller, that American influence and dominance continues to prevail and that there are few places which are much more than a helicopter flight or a video link from the reach of the US Marshall and that should make us feel more secure.
As Superman put it it's all about Truth, Justice and the American Way or as the Manchester band The Tunes replayed it: (and as in some ways I have to admit preferring) Truth, Justice and the Mancunian Way ..............
I have to confess at a sense of unease at the pictures of President Obama sittng with his senior staff watching the video images of the capture and death of bin Laden as though it was some form of video game called, perhaps, Gotcha.
Clearly there were boots on the ground and genuine engagement, but perhaps in the way children now play killing games as though the on screen deaths are not real, it seemed that with the exception of Hilary Clinton, most people in the room were watching emotionlessly as the drama reached its, some would say, inevitable conclusion.
Almost as bizarre was the claim in some newspapers that bin Laden's favourite food was Kentucky Fried Chicken, really? and his favourite drink, Coca Cola.
So bin Laden is no more and we wait for the almost inevitable reaction to his death.
Whilst I supported the invasion of Iraq and the strategy of regime change pursued by Blair and Bush I remain disquieted by the execution of Saddam Hussain.
It seemed to me that somewhere in the mix leading up to and after his capture, that Western values might have been invoked in dealing with his 'crimes' and that a trial in The Hague might have been a more appropriate response rather than public nature of his trial and execution broadcast on TV.
But then again maybe this is just a disquieted liberal conscience at work and the public trial and execution brought some form of closure for the thousands of victims of his atrocities against communities and individuals.
This notion of a big society must be called into question when dramatic events can be viewed in real time anywhere, anytime, as indeed those awful images of the Twin Towers burning and the replayed images of the planes crashing into the towers again and again, were themselves projected in real time into communities from Gaza to Greenland.
Terrorism is the strategy of striking terror into the hearts and minds of men and women so that they become paralysed with the fear that they personally will be caught up in the violence threatened by the terrorist.
bin Laden was a terrorist not so much because of what he did (terrible though that was) but because of what he threatened and the ideas he promoted and his death does not especially reduce the power of those threats or those ideas, terrible and misguided though they are.
The events of this week remind us that we no longer live in a big society, with hiding places where soft drinks and fried chicken are freely available, we live in a small, tight society, as Marshall McLuhan had it in the sixties, it is a 'Global Village'.
So who goes out onto the village green to announce the news?
Who shares the event and its consequences in the public square and who takes the debate forward.
Apparently the death of bin Laden will not be shown on TV and neither will there be photographs of his body published in the papers, conspiracy theories are beginning to run and who knows where this debate will end if it ever does.
Humour seems to be the way that we deal with what Donald Rumsfeld called the unknowns, either known or unknown it doesn't matter, what we do know is that the world just got smaller, that American influence and dominance continues to prevail and that there are few places which are much more than a helicopter flight or a video link from the reach of the US Marshall and that should make us feel more secure.
As Superman put it it's all about Truth, Justice and the American Way or as the Manchester band The Tunes replayed it: (and as in some ways I have to admit preferring) Truth, Justice and the Mancunian Way ..............
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