By Andrew Hagen
Needless to say, when my friend relayed the text she got from her brother to everyone at the dinner table last night that Osama bin Laden was dead, I was more then a little skeptical. My girlfriend astutely turned on the television and lo and behold there it was. Ten years after September 11th, we finally killed bin Laden. Much like my reactions to the attack on September 11th, my reactions ranged at this news. Initially I was happy, but then as I later lay in bed and thought about it, I decided that it wasn’t that great of a day.
I disagree with many of the talking heads on television telling me that I will always remember this day for the rest of my life. May 1, 2011 is not like September 11th, 2001. I can tell you the day of Pearl Harbor, Columbine, and the Oklahoma City bombing, but I can’t tell you V-Day (sometime in June I think) or the day that Timothy McVeigh was found guilty or the day that he was executed. The day that sets the wheels in the machinery of retaliation is generally more significant than the day the gears grind to a halt.
In this case though, killing bin Laden has ultimately changed nothing. We are still in Afghanistan. Bin Laden was no longer the sole brain behind Al Qaeda. He was a figurehead that has symbolic value but changes nothing in our operations. Am I glad he is dead? Absolutely. And I doubt that there are 72 virgins waiting for him. But was May 1 a monumental day? No.
Let me quickly offer a disclaimer. I am speaking as someone who was not directly affected by any of the events listed above. For those that were in New York on September 11 or had friends and relatives perish in the towers’ collapse, they will without a doubt remember May 1, just as the friends and families of the victims of Columbine or the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City will remember all the pertinent days regarding their experience. I do not mean to diminish what the day means for these people, only put it into perspective in the overall historical context.
The fact that it took us ten years to get bin Laden takes away from the impact. Al Qaeda has spread throughout the Middle East. We are now occupying Iraq as well as conducting military maneuvers in Libya. The big news would be if this was also the end of our engagement in Afghanistan. That would be much more significant.
I do think President Obama handled this situation well, though. He gave a good speech that gave credit appropriately to our military, and recognized the significance of the event, but was not smug or boastful about the situation. He addressed the Muslim world directly and once again said that the US is not at war with Islam, even though there are some of us that still don’t understand that. And that was it. I find it even more amusing now that Obama chuckled to himself at the Correspondent’s Dinner a day before when Seth Meyer made a joke about never catching Osama.
It’s also easy to imagine how Obama’s predecessor may have handled the situation by jumping into yet another fighter jet and flying to some random location with a banner declaring “We Got Him!” It is clear that Obama’s priority is Afghanistan and this is a political win for him that he handled gracefully and adeptly. Of course, certain “news” outlets will make sure that credit is given to their political party, but that is the way of the world that we come to live in.
Returning to my discomfort with the event, I realized somewhere around 2:37 AM what it was that made me uncomfortable with the whole situation, why it was awkward to see people cheering and partying as if a war had ended. We were celebrating a person’s death (who without a doubt had it coming) in a way that seemed very familiar to the way that we see footage of people in the Middle East celebrating deaths of Americans (who are innocent). The presence of innocence and guilt on the person(s) killed, however, still don’t seem to justify either celebratory response. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who felt this way and David Sirota makes the case much more eloquently than myself.
I am happy that I got to experience the news of bin Laden’s death in the way that I did – during dinner, with people that are important to me in a reflective, relieved, and balanced perspective. There were no chants of “USA!” in my living room, but rather amazement, and muted relief with the occasional brief discussion. Hopefully, bin Laden’s death signals the beginning of the American withdrawal from Afghanistan where we continue to lose innocent lives (both American and Muslim). To me, that would be something worth celebrating.
Needless to say, when my friend relayed the text she got from her brother to everyone at the dinner table last night that Osama bin Laden was dead, I was more then a little skeptical. My girlfriend astutely turned on the television and lo and behold there it was. Ten years after September 11th, we finally killed bin Laden. Much like my reactions to the attack on September 11th, my reactions ranged at this news. Initially I was happy, but then as I later lay in bed and thought about it, I decided that it wasn’t that great of a day.
I disagree with many of the talking heads on television telling me that I will always remember this day for the rest of my life. May 1, 2011 is not like September 11th, 2001. I can tell you the day of Pearl Harbor, Columbine, and the Oklahoma City bombing, but I can’t tell you V-Day (sometime in June I think) or the day that Timothy McVeigh was found guilty or the day that he was executed. The day that sets the wheels in the machinery of retaliation is generally more significant than the day the gears grind to a halt.
In this case though, killing bin Laden has ultimately changed nothing. We are still in Afghanistan. Bin Laden was no longer the sole brain behind Al Qaeda. He was a figurehead that has symbolic value but changes nothing in our operations. Am I glad he is dead? Absolutely. And I doubt that there are 72 virgins waiting for him. But was May 1 a monumental day? No.
Let me quickly offer a disclaimer. I am speaking as someone who was not directly affected by any of the events listed above. For those that were in New York on September 11 or had friends and relatives perish in the towers’ collapse, they will without a doubt remember May 1, just as the friends and families of the victims of Columbine or the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City will remember all the pertinent days regarding their experience. I do not mean to diminish what the day means for these people, only put it into perspective in the overall historical context.
The fact that it took us ten years to get bin Laden takes away from the impact. Al Qaeda has spread throughout the Middle East. We are now occupying Iraq as well as conducting military maneuvers in Libya. The big news would be if this was also the end of our engagement in Afghanistan. That would be much more significant.
I do think President Obama handled this situation well, though. He gave a good speech that gave credit appropriately to our military, and recognized the significance of the event, but was not smug or boastful about the situation. He addressed the Muslim world directly and once again said that the US is not at war with Islam, even though there are some of us that still don’t understand that. And that was it. I find it even more amusing now that Obama chuckled to himself at the Correspondent’s Dinner a day before when Seth Meyer made a joke about never catching Osama.
It’s also easy to imagine how Obama’s predecessor may have handled the situation by jumping into yet another fighter jet and flying to some random location with a banner declaring “We Got Him!” It is clear that Obama’s priority is Afghanistan and this is a political win for him that he handled gracefully and adeptly. Of course, certain “news” outlets will make sure that credit is given to their political party, but that is the way of the world that we come to live in.
Returning to my discomfort with the event, I realized somewhere around 2:37 AM what it was that made me uncomfortable with the whole situation, why it was awkward to see people cheering and partying as if a war had ended. We were celebrating a person’s death (who without a doubt had it coming) in a way that seemed very familiar to the way that we see footage of people in the Middle East celebrating deaths of Americans (who are innocent). The presence of innocence and guilt on the person(s) killed, however, still don’t seem to justify either celebratory response. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who felt this way and David Sirota makes the case much more eloquently than myself.
I am happy that I got to experience the news of bin Laden’s death in the way that I did – during dinner, with people that are important to me in a reflective, relieved, and balanced perspective. There were no chants of “USA!” in my living room, but rather amazement, and muted relief with the occasional brief discussion. Hopefully, bin Laden’s death signals the beginning of the American withdrawal from Afghanistan where we continue to lose innocent lives (both American and Muslim). To me, that would be something worth celebrating.
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