Bin Laden's Death

Super late night and probably short post.

A celebratory reaction to a persons death is acceptable only in very rare cases. Not when a political opponent dies. Not when a rival athlete dies. However, when a mass murderer who has added nothing but fear and misery to the world dies, celebrations are appropriate.

Osama Bin Laden's death should cause jubilation to a lot of us; especially those who are roughly in my age range. The attacks of September 11th, 2001 is the dividing point of most of our lives. It was a childhood horror. A day where our security was shattered. It is a day we will tell our children about, but won't want them to know the true horror of it. Bin Laden was to blame for that. His plans created the world we were forced to grow up in; one where I'm forced to notice airplanes in the sky and have the thought of terrorist attacks in the back of my mind whenever I'm out of my house.

It's not that this really changes the world. Bin Laden is not really the head of Islamic Extremism or of all terrorists and never really was. He couldn't actually run his organization and remain hidden for almost 10 years. The terrorist threat is just as real and imminent* as it was before he died.

A lot of people are reacting to this news with fear though. They are afraid of the reaction of Bin Laden's followers. That feeling means you've allowed him to impact your life. We don't need to be afraid. If they were able to pull off an attack, they would've. They're already pissed off people and the images of Americans celebrating isn't going to drive them over a cliff, because they've already hit the bottom.


This hasn't changed my views on American troops staying in the Middle East. The question of 'why' they are still there remains. It's nice for the United States to have a party due to the death of an evil man, but this shouldn't be justification for our troops to remain deployed in Afghanistan any longer.

I also really doubt this will have a unifying on our politics either. The two sides are already posturing for credit. Any sign of giving the other side credit is viewed as weakness by partisans. So this weeks fight will be over whether Bush or Obama deserves the credit, but it's just a prequel to the Debt ceiling and budget fights yet to come.

Thanks for reading and please comment

-Michael
*Not that attacks are actually imminent as in happening soon.

P.S. I sincerely hope I got through this post without accidentally typing Obama Bin Laden. It's a lot easier to make that mistake than you might think. However, Fox News isn't forgiven, because they just happen to make that mistake every time they use Osama Bin Laden's name in a graphic.