After hearing the initial news I was nervous that his hatred has built up a following of people who will now want revenge and wish to continue their leader's evil cause.
More news coverage of people in the streets rejoicing and chanting made me very uncomfortable. The world is better with Osama bin Laden gone, but I don't like the joyous celebration either. I'm thinking it will only inflame the al Qaeda.
I heard a Jewish rabbi say something on NPR that echoed my feelings. When the Israelites started rejoicing and singing as the waters of the Red Sea drowned the enemy Egyptians who were trying to kill them, God rebuked them saying “My creatures are drowning in the sea, yet you have now decided to sing about it?” I read something in The Jerusalem Post along the same lines.
I'm sure some will say that al Qaeda has gloated and shown terrible photos of their victims. I hope that we as a people can be much better than that.
Another person said the chanting was done by young people to show their feelings of unity. Perhaps... but I don't have to approve of it. I've seen clips of comedians making fun of the killing. I don't like that either. I don't like to make fun or a joke of any killing.
I think this is a time to be grateful that an evil man has been stopped. We also need to prepare ourselves because he was not the only leader. There are many al Qaeda franchise cells in different countries operating independently. It's not over.Could we use this time to reflect and research how this kind of hatred came to be in order to prevent it in the future?
I agree with the Dalai Lama who said "it is necessary to take counter measures." However, let's do it soberly, respectfully and with dignity.
I hope that the death of Osama bin Laden brings some measure of closure for the survivors of all the innocent people who died by his hands. When the War on Terror is over, I will be the first one to loudly cheer, chant and celebrate with abandon!
Amen, Kay. You said it very well, reflects my own feelings exactly. The problem with the War on Terror is we will never have an Armistice Day associated with it; it's too amorphous a concept.
ReplyDeleteNever understood the jubilation, by some.
ReplyDeleteI think you have expressed what a lot of people feel, Kay. The rejoicing in the streets was very disturbing to me.
ReplyDeletehow true, i completely agree!
ReplyDeleteI am relieved bin Laden has been killed but there will be others to take over his leadership, despite reports of Al Qaeda being completely out of funds.
ReplyDeleteWhatever or whoever, a life is still a life and there is no cause for celebration in the taking of it.
I am glad the world is now without bin Laden but I worry about what the Al Qaeda will do next. I'm glad the families who have lost loved ones have closer now though. I'm annoyed at the media because they keep saying bin Laden was unarmed, guess what so were all those people in the Towers that horrible, horrible day!
ReplyDeleteI wonder if the SEALs celebrated and if so, how?
ReplyDeleteKilling bin Laden was a duty.
ReplyDeleteNot one to take pleasure in, but neither one to be shirked.
So ends history's greatest manhunt.
I'm glad he's dead, wasn't expecting the cheering, neither will I object to it. Had I spent 10 years humping bluey accross central asian wastelands hunting him, well I'm not sure how I'd feel.
The seals are entitled to feel proud of themselves, it would have been a high pressure operation (considering who the target was)
Don't worry about inflaming Al Qaeda, correct me if I'm wrong, but as I recall it they, without provocation, flew hijacked airliners into office buildings, killing thousands of people. They have taken any & every chance since to repeat the effect.
Making binny into fish food was a master stroke, sending a long overdue message to all terrorist masterminds.
The only distressing aspect to the operation is the hotchpotch of conflicting, inconsistent & plain incorrect information emitting from the White House.
Who is running the show, & why can't they manage a simple press release without making a complete dog's breakfast of it?
They'll have to show some snaps of the carcass though, otherwise they won't be believed. Especially since just about every other aspect of the initial White House version of events has been declared false.
Well said, Kay.
ReplyDeleteAs you know, I agree with you. I would have liked to believe Al Qaeda would dissolve into the mist without a leader, but there will always be terrorists of one sort or another.
Whether or not they require the deployment of Canadian, American, and international troops is my question now. Is war necessarily the answer to terrorist cells? I don't know.
— K
Kay, Alberta, Canada
An Unfittie's Guide to Adventurous Travel
Well, it's not my job to judge.. Jubilation over the death is not easy to understand. We have to hope for peace in the future.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your nice comment.
Wish you a blessed weekend:-)
Amen, Kay!
ReplyDeleteI so agree with you Kay.
ReplyDeleteA thoughtful post. I concur, Kay.
ReplyDeleteJolly Aloha from Waikiki
Comfort Spiral
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A very wise and wonderful post, Kay, and I do so agree with you! Thank you.
ReplyDeleteSylvia
I agree completely. I was listening to a programme on the radio this evening called Any Questions and one question was whether the panel considered the killing of Osama bin Laden as justice or revenge. There followed a very interesting debate, but the panel came down wholeheartedly that it should be seen as justice, though there was further discussion about whether it could be seen as justice if an unarmed man was killed. But I have really hated to see the amount of jubilation there has been; it seems rather demeaning to me.
ReplyDeleteThe reaction of many to the death of bin Laden has amazed me. I agree with you, Kay.
ReplyDeleteNo argument with your post here. I would much rather he had been put on trial and ended up rotting in jail but that will never happen. The chanting upset me also.
ReplyDeleteuh, ahem. There never was a War on Terror, sorry to have to correct you. In a nutshell, Americans have always raped and brutalized the countries we subjugated. Not a pleasant thought, but there it is. Take Okinawa and our military base there. They rape and beat up locals with astonishing regularity, but you won't read about it in mainstream US news or ever hear about it on TV. But the locals there have always known the truth. Check Ramstein in Germany, or any of our larger bases on subjugated soil and you'll find much the same. After the 1st Gulf war Bush I told the Saudis, then our friends, that we were going to leave a garrison of marines on the ground there. All the Saudis were against it, as they had already seen what we had done in other countries, not to mention they were paranoid about us taking their country over. We did it anyway. Bin laden split off from the royal family to pursue his fight against the US independently BECAUSE of the occupation force we forced onto Saudi soil. We started it. Eventually we lost the base (Prince Sultan in Riyadh). So that leaves the US with NO forward military base in an area that has what, 70% of the known oil reserves on the planet? That is intolerable. We MUST have a forward base there, having just lost the one in Riyadh. So, pick a country... preferably a small one, not well defended mind you, and go pick a fight with it. Then rush in and build your advanced forward military bases. And that's your War On Terror.
ReplyDeletewalt
Kay;
ReplyDeleteI so agree with your comments.
I just can't celebrate the death of OBL. I'm happy that he is not free to plan the murder of others and I know that he was a very Evil twisted man. Full of hate!
Sad to me, a waste of a life.
Thank you so much for the gift that came in the mail today.
I LOVE it!
Very nice post, Kay. It's very thought provoking. Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us.
ReplyDeleteHappy Mother's Day and have a wonderful time with the family. Happy Mother's Day to your mom also, hugs to her.
Celebrations of the death of OBL are not quite to my taste.
ReplyDeleteHowever the protest marches against his "murder" (particularly outside the US Embassy in London) with violent threats against police & western governmentts, now THAT is obscene.
Such display of support for OBL from western citizens offends my every sense.
I agree. I can't be sorry he's dead, but I don't rejoice.
ReplyDeleteBut sometimes it is necessary to take counter-measures.
Thanks for writing this, Kay.
ReplyDeleteThe comments section is strong as well.
Thankfully we had no one dancing in the streets in Israel on hearing the news. We were, however, technically interested in how your guys made the raid.
I could never imagine the types of celebrations in U.S. streets that I saw on TV happening in Japan.
ReplyDeleteI wrote a post about this too:
http://tokyo5.wordpress.com/2011/05/03/is-it-right-to-cheer/
While I can understand why some celebrate, it just never occurred to me to react that way, especially when i saw college kids acting like it was a victory at a sporting event.
ReplyDeleteI think most of us feel relief and gratification that he is gone, but it is not the end to terrorism. It's only the end of OBL.
Excellent post, Kay! While I cannot mourn for OBL, I cannot rejoice, either. Wasn't it the fact that OBL killed others and then rejoiced over their deaths what condemned him in our eyes in the first place?
ReplyDelete