We were at the Pentagon Memorial a few hours before the announcement of Bin Laden's death yesterday. This sort of eerie coincidence happens all too often, doesn't it? Two days earlier, I gave an aqua dragonfly broach to friend who turned out to be making a quilt with a dragonfly in aqua. Key in TWILIGHT ZONE music.I have very ambivalent feelings about celebrating Bin Laden's death today, although I have no ambivalence over my relief in the death itself. He was a monster and deserved his fate tenfold. The number of deaths that have emanated from that day's deeds is incalculable.
Standing at this memorial a few hours earlier in a gray drizzle: a place so quiet, moving and evocative of the airplane that crashed into the building, I was immediately taken back to that horrible day--one I will not forget, one that felt unreal, impossible. Not us! We do not get attacked, do we?
For those who have not seen this memorial, there is a bench for every victim that died on the Pentagon site on Sept. 11. 2001 (184), arranged by age of the person. Some of the benches, all which resemble airplane wings (to me), face in one direction (people on the flight), and the other benches (people inside the Pentagon) face the other. The Pentagon rising in front of the memorial has the same plain sad look. It is austere, quiet, pristine. It is concrete, gravel, gray.
But back to the news that came later, it is very hard for me to celebrate a death. It is easier for me to mourn a life so misspent, a life overtaken by the mistaken notion that killing innocent people could ever be just. That violence begets anything positive.
Does this make sense? Are you completely jubilant over the death of a man? Even this one?
25 comments:
Mark Twain said, "I have never wished a man dead, but I have read several obituaries with great joy."
I agree with you. I'm glad he's dead, but the celebrating crowds reminded me of the crowds firing into the air to celebrate some terrorist victory. We killed a guy. True, we had to look everywhere for him, but it was not guy. It's not VE Day.
I can't help remember how they cheered after 9/11 and how sick it made me feel. Twain can nail it, can't he?
I wouldn't run out in the streets and jump around, but I'm very glad he is no more.
(More thoughts and comments are on my blog today.)
Patti, I feel very much as you do. Violence begets more violence. That's one of the very few things I know with absolute certainty.
The death of another should never be taken lightly. This one I can live with. I'm sure extremists in the Muslim world will be outraged, but I remember dancing in the street a number of times over American deaths and can't get worked up over Bin Laden.
That Twain quote about covers it for me, too.
It may be small of me but I am celebrating the egg on the faces of various right-wing commentators who have been stating for months that Obama was too much of a wimp to do what he did.
And the end (even if he doesn't know it yet) of Trump's pretend Presidential run. The juxtaposition of his idiotic show and what was going on in the White House was priceless.
Other than that, no, I'm glad bin Laden is dead but I'm not celebrating, jumping for joy or yelling "U-S-A" in the streets.
Jeff M.
If the spin doesn't make it a success for those very commentators and zealots within hours. Fingers crossed.
Well, when Rush Limbaugh says (as he did) "Thank God for President Obama" you know the world has changed, at least in the short term.
Jeff M.
Or hasn't changed, Jeff. When it really could stand some changing.
Resenting, loathing OBL, sure. Chanting "USA, USA"...
No.
In the air all day so I didn't hear that. Need to find it on you tube.
Murrah Building. Koresh compound, Columbine, Virginia Tech. Matewan, Tulsa. Jackson State, Kent State, Chicago '68. We get attacked.
But mostly by ourselves.
Not any we I choose to be a part of. Not that any of us gets much choice.
Certainly, the 9/11 bombers aren't any more alien than the Murrah bombers. Nor than the rioting Chicago Police. Maybe even less so than the mercenaries of Tulsa and Matewan. Too human, all, and no credit to our race.
There is certainly enough terror to go around. And around.
I'm delighted the world is rid of that scum, but I'm not the type to dance in the streets.
The death is more symbolic than anything else--but, right now, I think it's a much-needed symbol of what American competence can accomplish.
I'm with Jeff--it's amazing what focused intelligence, a mission, and a long-term plan will eventually yield as opposed to the bombast, jingoism, and mindless platitudes of a previous administration that shall remain nameless.
My favorite aspect of this is that Pakistan has been accused of milking the bin Laden industry for a decade, gaining multimillions to "help" "find" the man.
Jeff M. must not actually listen to Rush. Here's the full quote from yesterday's show:
RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, we need to open the program today by congratulating President Obama. President Obama has done something extremely effective, and when he does, this needs to be pointed out. President Obama has continued the Bush policies of keeping a military presence in the Middle East. He did not scrub the mission to get Bin Laden.
To quote William A. Jacobsen: "Obama and his supporters, who opposed the secret intelligence operations and interrogations as illegal, now are reaping the political benefits of those operations and interrogations."
http://legalinsurrection.blogspot.com/2011/05/irony-grows-deeper-key-intel-came-from.
Jubilant? No. I feel about the same way I would if I'd cut the head of a rattlesnake I found in my back yard. Glad it's gone and can't threaten me any more. Doesn't mean lots of other snakes aren't out there, doesn't mean I should party it up and act pretty much like the Egyptians did after they ousted their leaders (and then raped a newswoman). Somehow for me 9/11 isn't the defining event for my generation or me personally.
Instead I'd say the cold war (from duck and cover to bay of pigs), man stepping on the moon, JFK's assassination, and Watergate were more affecting.
The Twain quote basically nails it. Yet, consider the following.
Hermann Göring stood trial.
Adolf Eichmann stood trial.
Kang Kek Iew (head of the Khmer Rouge special branch and chief of the Tuol Sleng prison camp) stood trial.
The butchers of Rwanda stood trial.
Slobodan Milosevic stood trial.
Consider also that all of these persons had track records way beyond Bin Ladin's. Maybe the circumstances really were such that capturing him alive was not an option, but there is something quite unsatisfactory about the kill. It's like the summary executions of Mussolini and Ceacescu.
I have very ambivalent feelings about celebrating Bin Laden's death today, although I have no ambivalence over my relief in the death itself.
Very well put! (And if you had asked Bin Laden, he would hardly have wanted to go to an American prison instead. I am sure that would have been a larger defeat to him).
I think people between 20-30 probably feel it is their JFK assassination or Watergate.
I think a trial would have just allowed it to turn into a three-ringed circus in this case.
Patti, I think the Nuremburg trial and Göring would have taught us how to handle cases like these.
Except that those wars were over when they came to trial. This one is ongoing. I believe in trials over shootouts too but maybe not in this case.
Post a Comment