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The news of Osama Bin Ladens death is welcome in my household.  A trial would have likely only strengthened his place in the al-Qaida mythology, and while I hope that the idea was to raid the compound and take him alive but dead he is.  I hope that whatever afterlife judgment committee he has to face is unpleasant. 

I am very uncomfortable with all the images of people celebrating in the streets of our country.  I felt sick to my stomach after 9/11 at the images of young men dancing in the streets burning our flag and celebrating the horrific deaths of 3000 people who did nothing more egregious  than wake up on a lovely day and go to work.  I feel sick to my stomach when I see people (kids mostly) hoisting the same flag and celebrating the death of this monster.  Images of our celebrations will only fuel the fire of hate burning in the remaining al-Qaida wackos.  The death of Osama Bin Laden doesn't really end anything.   The talking heads on the telly have indicated a strong opinion that our bigger threat is the al-Qaida cells in Yemen and that OBL wasn't a driving influence for those folks.  I am saddened that for us, death commonly results in death.  I'm glad to live in a world without this person, but fireworks and dancing in the streets feels really wrong to me.

I also don't like how politics always seems to creep in.  "Obama didn't thank Bush", "Bush couldn't get him", "Obama seems to be taking credit", "Bush should be the hero."  Osama was a snaky, hard to find and VERY well protected individual.  It does not surprise me that it took this long to resolve the issue, I don't think which ever administration that was in place that sealed the deal should matter.  I'm not now nor never was a Bush fan (I think I was clear on that point) but I don't think on this topic that his administration failed - this resolution is an American one, not a democratic or republican one. The attacks on 9/11 certainly weren't targeted towards stupid liberal Democrats, better than everyone else Republicans, nor Christians, Muslims, Jewish or the fools who dare to not declare or feel a religious preference.  The attacks were on Americans, and the fact that we are all those things and more is what really pisses these crazy people off. 


So, Mr. bin Laden, I hope that your meeting with your maker brings to light how off the mark your life path was, but if there is no such resolution, I'm happy to have you out of our world.  I don't celebrate it, I am saddened that your actions triggered these actions.  Saddened because these actions will likely trigger something else down the road... there is no "win" in this scenario.

(As soon as I hit publish, someone sent this to me: http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/story/index.html?story=%2Fopinion%2Fgreenwald%2F2011%2F05%2F02%2Fbin_laden  nice to know I'm not alone in my opinions.)