For What It's Worth...

Greetings.

Well, as you've no doubt heard by now, Osama bin Laden is dead at the hands of the United States government. I heard the news last night at around 8pm while I was out having dinner. When I first heard the news, I felt a flood of mixed emotions. That's why I've held off commenting online about it until now. I needed time to sort things out in my head.

I want to kind of run down all of the those thoughts and emotions for you now, no matter how embarrassing they might be for me. I am doing this because I think that this is a very complex occasion and this is the best way I can think of to illustrate that.

Upon hearing the news, I thought, "Wow! This will probably be really good for Obama." It's no secret that I'm an Obama fan, and I feel like he's had to put up with a lot of unfair shit (along with some well-deserved criticism -- I'm a fan of his, not a true believer). Then I thought, "Finally, when we put the focus of this war where it needed to be, we get some results." Then "Well, it has been 10 years, though. How much bloody difference is it really going to make?" Then my mood changed a bit, because, by this time, word had spread to some other people in the restaurant, and they were all saying how great it was that he was dead. I knew bin Laden has been public enemy #1 for a decade, but I still never feel quite right about rejoicing in someone's death. Even when Saddam Hussein was executed, I didn't feel right about the idea of celebrating. And I still don't.

I didn't think much more about it until I got home and looked at Facebook. What a wonderful exercise in diversity that is. I've got friends in all corners of the political spectrum and they all seemed to be chiming in. The crappy thing for me was that I was agreeing with just about all of them - at least for a minute or two after reading each post. I had one friend who made a comment about America rejoicing in the killing of another brown-skinned man. He's not completely wrong... we do that quite a lot, although this particular brown-skinned man is certainly an exceptional case. The next post I read talked about every human being having a mother and a father and that it was wrong to rejoice in anyone's death. Again, I kind of agree - although I am staunchly pro-capital punishment, and I wouldn't hesitate for a split second about killing anyone who threatened my life or the lives of my loved ones - rejoicing doesn't seem appropriate to me. Then I had another friend who said he was proud of our military, proud to be an American, and wanted to gloat about the fact that Obama got bin Laden instead of Bush.

Proud? Wow. There's a feeling that didn't come up for me at all when I heard the news. Then I examined that fact. Why wasn't I proud? Well, for one thing, I was not proud because all night I'd been looking at this through a big-picture sort of lens. Is the death of Osama bin Laden going to stop the "War on Terror?" Nope. Is it going to make any kind of dent in terrorists' morale or ability to wage war on us? Maybe it'll upset them for a moment, but these are true believers here. These people think that bin Laden is chillin' with Mohammed, Allah, and 72 celestial virgins right now! You can't reason with that. Also, I couldn't get over the fact that it took us, the most powerful nation on Earth, 10 years to find and kill this guy. I know revenge is a dish best served cold, but that's a little excessive.

I also couldn't help but think of Edgar Allen Poe's "The Casque of Amontillado" (Sorry, I'm an English major - I can't help myself). If you haven't read this story, it's a story about a man who takes revenge upon an enemy by leading him into a deep, dark wine cellar, chaining him to the wall, covering him up with bricks and mortar, and leaving him there to suffocate. There is a twist to the tale, though. The narrator makes it clear that "a wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redressor. It is equally unredressed when the avenger fails to make himself felt as such to him who has done the wrong." In other words, in order for his revenge to be successful, he cannot let the vengeance consume him, and his target must know that he is being punished for a wrongdoing. In the case of Poe's character, neither criteria are met, and, though he succeeds in killing his nemesis, he seems far from satisfied with the deed.

Now, let's measure the killing of Osama bin Laden against those criteria: 1.) "A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redressor." Hmmm. Let's see. Ten years. Two wars. Thousands more dead. How many trillions of dollars spent? 'Nuff said on that one. 2.) "It is equally unredressed when the avenger fails to make himself felt as such to him who has done the wrong." Well, on this we can only speculate. Here's what we've been told. Osama bin Laden went out fighting. I am going to assume that he knew it was US or allied forces who were attacking him. I am also going to assume that, because he was fighting back, he valued his life and did not willingly surrender it. This is good enough for me on the second criteria. First of all, the criteria did not say anything about requiring repentance from the target. Second, I think that anyone who truly believes in his own martyrdom will not go out fighting. I think if bin Laden truly, in his heart of hearts, thought that he had a 72-virgin harem waiting for him and an eternity with the god he claims to love so much, he would have given himself up to us long ago.

So I kind of put it out of my mind for the evening, still unsure about which emotion I wanted to settle on. When I woke up, it was on my mind, and I started thinking about the relativism vs. absolutism argument that I wrote about last week. This whole situation is a perfect example of why I hate absolutism. Osama bin Laden was NOT a monster. He was NOT evil. He was a human being with his mind bent on what he considered to be an ABSOLUTE TRUTH that made him do monstrous, evil things. When we ascribe these absolutist labels (monster, evil, etc.) on someone, we immediately place them in a different category than ourselves - as if none of us were capable of their behavior. Let's not forget that Hitler didn't kill 6 million Jews by himself. He had thousands upon thousands of otherwise completely ordinary Germans under his command who, with his extraordinarily persuasive ideas in mind, carried out some of the most unspeakable acts of the twentieth century. If you don't think you're just as capable, I invite you to study the Milgram experiments. Conformity is one of the most powerful phenomena mankind has ever seen. Which is why killing Osama bin Laden really does next to nothing for us where the big picture is concerned. He was but a symbol of an idea much too powerful to be taken out by a few strategically placed bullets. If you really want to stop the madness and bring peace - take God out of the equation. And I mean all of the monotheistic gods. YWYH, Allah, Christ - all of them. As long as we support belief systems that say "MY way is absolutely the one and only true way and ALL other ways are false" we will have terrorism, we will have war, we will have genocide. As I was thinking all of this, I had Bob Dylan's "With God On Our Side" running through my head. If you've never heard it, click that link and listen to it. And while you're at it, read the lyrics.

Then I got home from school today, and I decided to turn on the cable news. I was watching Chris Matthews, and as far as I can tell, even on the ultra left-wing news channel, this event is being celebrated. I just find that very interesting. I kind of felt like I was missing out on something. I mean, nobody wants to be left out - although, admittedly, cynical attitudes like the ones I often take can make one quite lonely. After a few minutes of all the political spin and other nonsense, however, Matthews did something that I wasn't really prepared for, and it helped me make up my mind. He interviewed two family members of people who died on September 11th, 2001 in the attacks on the World Trade Center. One man lost his son, a firefighter, who died trying to save the lives of the innocent. The other was a lady who lost her sister, an administrative assistant working on the 101st floor of the second tower. They each described in detail the circumstances of their loved ones' deaths. That brought me back to reality. This is what it was all about. The picture above.

I joined the Washington Air National Guard about two weeks after 9/11. I was never called upon to serve in the Middle East, but I spent most of my time in the military preparing to do so. While I was in my initial active duty training period, my flights would march all over Ft. Gordon, GA singing out choruses explaining how each of us wouldn't hesitate to put a bullet in bin Laden's brain if given the opportunity. It was all fresh back then, and, for me at least, it had nothing to do with celebrating. It was about justice. Not justice in the sense that killing bin Laden would magically bring back those three thousand Americans lost, but justice in the sense that, if you do something like that, we as a society have decided that you don't get to live anymore. This is the part of me that, as I said earlier, is a staunch supporter of capital punishment. If someone hits me, I hit them back. If someone were to willingly murder one of my loved ones, I would stop at nothing to see that person dead. I would demand it from my state, or I would do it myself if the state failed me - knowing full well the consequences. I don't have any long-winded philosophical explanation for this viewpoint, it's just who I am, and I'm not ashamed of that. I would not be happy about the execution. I would not rejoice in it. Hell, I might not even find peace in it, but I know damn well that it would make me feel at least a little bit better, and brothers and sisters, that's good enough for me.

So that's where I've ended up on the bin Laden killing. Am I happy about it? Not really. Will I rejoice in it? Nope. But I firmly believe that you don't get to kill three-thousand people and get away with it. So, in that respect, well done, Mr. President. Well done, Navy SEALs. I do feel somewhat better knowing that Osama bin Laden is no longer breathing.

Ok. Here are the comment rules: You are absolutely allowed to disagree with me. You are absolutely allowed to agree with me. I will not, however, retain any comments on this thread that deny the fact that bin Laden was killed, or that posit any other kind of "9/11 was an inside job" conspiracy bullshit. I don't have time for conspiracy theories. You can have all the "proof" you want. Until it's accepted by reputable sources, I'm not interested in entertaining it.

I am the Reverend Humpy and I have approved this message.