At the very beginning of May, the world was startled by the announcement that Osama Bin Laden had been killed during a covert operation by US military forces in Pakistan. Jubilation by the American people soon turned to doubt and cynicism as it emerged that they had buried his body out at sea. Despite repeated calls for proof, the US government refused to publish photographs of the corpse, leaving many wondering whether it was really true that this long-sought fugitive had indeed been caught and killed.
The general consensus is that Bin Laden was born on 10 March 1957, making him a sun sign Pisces. It is therefore interesting that the name of the mission to assassinate him was called Operation Neptune. Neptune is the modern-day ruler of Pisces, and significantly had only recently ingressed into its own sign for the first time in over 300 years. Was the person who coined the name aware of the astrological significance of this choice? In keeping with the name of the mission, the confusion and ambiguity continued to dog this particular announcement, whilst the Pakistani authorities expressed outrage with the US for keeping the mission secret, leading to accusations of deception – all characteristics associated with Neptune.
At the time of the raid, Mars, ruler of military activities, and extremely strong in its own sign of Aries, was making a conjunction to Jupiter, the ancient ruler of Pisces, suggesting that as far as the US government was concerned, they were fully justified in taking a ‘might is right’ approach – acting in accordance with their own beliefs and moral values, with complete lack of regard for the sovereignty of Pakistan or the human rights of Bin Laden and his family. Whether this will come back to haunt them in the form of future terrorist attacks or lack of diplomatic support in the Middle East remains to be seen…
Closer to home, May was also the month in which local elections were held in the UK, along with a key vote on electoral reform, for which support seemed to fizzle, along with the political popularity of the Liberal Democrats. These frustrated efforts at political change appeared to be symbolised by a T-square, active at the time, involving Pluto, Saturn and Uranus. Pluto, retrograde in Capricorn (establishment reform) – the same sign as Nick Clegg’s sun – formed the focus of two squares from Uranus and Saturn, resulting in a stalemate situation. Pluto (and thus, the Lib Dems) appeared to get caught in the cross-fire between the opposing energies of Uranus in Aries (radical revolution) embodied by many Labour MP’s, on one hand, and Saturn in Libra(maintaining the status quo) on the other – a view held by the Conservatives, led by Libran, David Cameron.
Astro-Insights Blog 