Sunshine, rainbows and butterflies

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World looks good, say analysts.

Coming to a grocer near you: Osama cereal

Image: Jennifer Maiser

ISLAMABAD: The death of Osama bin Laden has brought peace and tranquillity to Earth, putting an end to the decade-long war against Islamist extremists and bringing America’s enemies to justice. At the news of the death, a number of terrorism analysts, to the delight of the Arab and Muslim world, predicted a return of normalcy to the world and an end to the ‘war on terror’. Sunshine, rainbows and butterflies have swept the planet, enveloping the Earth with eternal happiness and nirvana.

With bin Laden’s death, members of the Taliban and al-Qaeda have stated that they no longer feel the need to attack infidels. In a videotaped message sent to Himal, a senior Taliban spokesperson said that with the death of the organisation’s leader, any inspiration and desire to continue fighting has vanished. Reports across South and West Asia verify that extremists of all stripes have laid down their weapons, pledging their love for humanity and freedom. ‘America has won,’ said the spokesman in the videotape. ‘We now see the error of our evil ways, and promise not to interfere with any further advance by a crusading empire.’

Websites that in the past have promoted al-Qaeda and jihad have engaged in digital u-turns, urging their followers to embrace the fact that their leader is now in heaven with his virgins, and that suicide bombings are no longer fashionable. ‘What’s fashionable now is love for America,’ said an editorial on one of the websites, the formerly popular Kill Infidels, which was in the process of changing its name to Kiss Infidels.

Pakistan, though chided for being duplicitous, has reaped enormous benefits from the recent events. Newsweek has issued an official retraction of a recent story that claimed Pakistan to be the ‘most dangerous place on earth’. Fiery clerics and religious zealots have removed Hatred of America from the madrassa curricula, and have taken out Newsweek subscriptions to boot, which seems to be helping the magazine’s deteriorating readership numbers.

The Pakistani political and military establishment is no longer viewed as dishonest, as its members no longer have anything to lie about. As such, ties between Pakistan and the United States are said to have returned to normal, with normal being defined as ‘actually, far from normal’. Analysts say that Pakistan is no longer a mere US client state, but has been upgraded to client friend; some say it could soon be a ‘best friend with benefits’.

In a joint statement by Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gillani and ISI chief Ahmad Shuja Pasha, Pakistan officially declared that its bungling and incompetence has paid off, saying that without the government’s extraordinary negligence and mishandling of everything, bin Laden would have never been killed.

Pacifying bloggers

Within hours of the news of bin Laden’s death, thousands of US troops were already on their way out of both Afghanistan and Iraq. General David Petraeus has lauded the operation in Abbottabad, saying, ‘Our work here is done now. Even though it took ten years, billions of dollars and cost hundreds of thousands of lives, justice has finally been delivered. Sectarian and ethnic violence in Iraq has ground to a halt, with the democratic experiment blossoming into a beautiful beacon of nation-building.’ In response to a question of how things have changed on the ground in the hours since the al-Qaeda leader’s death, Gen Petraeus said, ‘In Afghanistan, women have traded in burkhas for bikinis, Islam for Christianity and guns for books.’ The general continued: ‘Don’t worry, though. Our army won’t be sitting idle for too long – I hear Libya recently invited us to repeat what we did in Iraq.’

Still, not everyone is pleased with the death of bin Laden. Dwayne Dodson, a resident of Gary, Indiana, told Himal that Arabs and Muslims are no longer being racially profiled. ‘Black people are again public-enemy number one,’ said Dodson, himself an African-American. ‘It was nice for a while, having the cops distracted with those wheat-coloured folk, but now I have to be paranoid again.’

In addition, the news has led to the dismantling of US Homeland Security, resulting in the elimination of thousands of jobs for security personnel. Additional jobs are being lost in translation units across US intelligence agencies. ‘I spent four years studying Arabic at college – what am I supposed to do now?’ asked Jennifer Kingsley, a laid-off employee of the CIA. In addition, thousands of armchair analysts, blogging experts, conspiracy theorists and tweeting policy junkies have expressed their disappointment that no one now cares what they think.

For the latter, though, a bright spot has been predictions by certain analysts that a new face of evil will undoubtedly appear very soon on the horizon. According to Steven Hershowitz, this next face of evil will probably be Donald Trump. ‘Hitler had the moustache, Osama had the beard, and Trump has the hair – it makes sense,’ said Hershowitz, shrugging.

~ Maila Times is a satirical website (www.mailatimes.com), run by an assortment of Pakistani larkis, larkas, and lafungoos striving for the revenge of literary brilliance through plagiarism.

Comments

0 #1 Ajay Raj 2011-06-27 21:07

We need more satire in Himal. It is good that there is an attempt to get out of the run-of-the-mill political analysis.

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Sunshine, rainbows and butterflies June 2011

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