Friday, May 20, 2011

Late Thoughts On Osama Bin Laden's Death

I have intentionally stayed away from this topic since it happened so that I might approach it without falling prey to the hysteria that seemed to overtake a large percentage of the United States when it happened. That way I thought I might be able to look at it from various angles and perhaps gain some insight from it. Osama Bin Laden is dead. As pretty much everyone in the world knows Navy Seal Team Six launched an assault on a compound in Pakistan where Bin Laden had been living for quite some time and killed him even though he was unarmed.

Personally I have no problem with this. Hey, the guy was responsible for thousands of deaths and an untold amount of pain and suffering due to his leadership and masterminding of among other things, the attack on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. There is no question about this either. He didn't go around saying that we had the wrong guy or that he was not involved or any such nonsense as that. No, he took credit for it and as such I have no remorse at all for his having left the world in such a violent fashion. You reap what you sow.

I also did not feel the need to cheer about it either. My first impulse was not to run out into the street yelling and screaming that "We got him!" For one thing, WE didn't get him. I was not involved in the planning, intelligence gathering or execution of this mission. Even when such an evil person dies I don't feel the need to gloat about it. Of course, I didn't know anyone that died in the attacks that he orchestrated either so take that for what is is worth.

The complaints that have been leveled about how his death has affected his family and his subsequent burial at sea and how it wasn't performed within the standards of his religious beliefs, falls on deaf ears as well with me. We're not talking about a person with even a whiff of a possibility of innocence here. As I said earlier, he crowed about what he had done, he reveled in it. He made violence a part of his life and so when he received said violence it seemed apropos. I'm fairly certain that he knew fully well what would happen to him if and when he was caught. He understood the consequences of his actions.

One thing that I don't understand is the belief that has been circulating that God was on our side and that God was somehow happy that Osama was now dead. Personally I believe that God has a lot more to do than worry about things like this. I don't believe that God takes sides no matter how evil a person may be. One individual said that it was God's hand that protected the Seal team from injury. What complete and utter hogwash. If God chose to get involved and protect the team then why did he not protect the Twin Towers in the first place? Why let all of that destruction take place? Because he doesn't take sides and let's us use our agency to make our own decisions even though sometimes they affect others negatively? Sounds about right to me.

A last thought here as well about conspiracy theories that have inevitably cropped up. No, I don't believe that Bin Laden had been dead and his body frozen for some time only to be thawed out and used for political gain. However, what if he wasn't really killed and instead was being held captive somewhere private? This way he could be tortured into giving up information like plans for future acts of terrorism or names and locations of top Al-Qaeda officials. Just a thought to stir the pot.

To sum it all up, Osama Bin Laden is dead and the world is a better place now. There will be more attacks abroad and on our home soil more than likely and the game will change accordingly. It will never be the same and indeed can only get worse. I don't see an end in sight but we can only move on and adapt and maybe overcome.

Published by Don Leach

3 comments:

Gary Rivera said...

pues si la muerte de este individuo hace el planeta un lugar mejor donde vivir.

No es bueno alegrarse de la muerte de alguien, pero este tipo es el responsable de tantas muertes que su ausencia nos da un breve respiro.

jeric2469@yahoo.com said...

Don, you didn't feel the least bit of overpowering joy and relief when they told us bin laden was dead at American hands? You who put your boots on foreign soil in defense of our country? I didn't run into the streets waving old glory either, but I must admit I gave it my best jersey shore fist pump when I heard the news. As for God protecting America? Well, I believe America is a blessed country, at least we were. I believe as un-Godly as American has become, our relationship with and support of the nation of Israel has been our nation's saving grace. Religous beliefs aside, I really believe in the existence of good and evil. I believe that an evil as large and powerful as bin laden was bound to be overcome at some point by a goodness and/or love just as powerful, if not more so, than bin laden's hate and evil.

Don said...

honestly i did not feel that at all. as i said, was i glad he was dead? yes but i felt no joy over it. more like it's a shame that he hurt so many people, why did it come to this? i did put on my boots and was over there but i never saw combat nor did i know anybody who died in the twin towers. if either of those were different perhaps my view would be different. i don't think america is a blessed country but i think most americans think we are. ultimately we are no different than any other, we just have a higher opinion of ourselves and maybe that contributes to why so many people hate us. that and our governments backdealing.