It is great that we got him–and I guess we don’t have much choice but to believe what we are told, that we did get him. I am grateful that it’s over but I don’t find much joy in it–I am grateful that the victims’ families will feel justice has been done.
I find our national reaction to the news a little unnerving. If you change the flags and the backdrop, it looks just like a riot in the middle east, just add a burning effigy of President Bush or Obama vs one of bin Laden… We are really not so different. I realize that people get some sort of primal reaction to the death of one’s enemy, but it’s hard for me to see this as anything but another link in a chain that never really ends. Don’t get me wrong, he needed to be taken out, I just don’t like to see 1) rejoicing in the streets over it that will 2) play in a loop in a recruiting video…
I think the burial at sea under Muslim law was a nod to those who will try to demonize America–it may turn a few minds away from that path, but the true psychos won’t care. The ocean is a big place, so it’d be hard to make a pilgramage to his “grave” as part of an initiation rite. And, again, all we have is the word of our government that all this was actually done. Given the secretive nature of the mission and the actors, we’ll never have “proof.” This will fuel the nut jobs for years to come–waiting to see how they try to spin it.
I think we need to launch a propaganda campaign and show how bin Laden spent his last days. In a suburb of the capital of Pakistan, with his wives et al. Not suffering in a cave somewhere “for the cause.” Maybe that will dissuade a few more recruits?
I don’t have anything to base this on but I doubt bin Laden has been leading al Queda for a long time. Most likely that organization has evolved and has taken on some other form. But he is the figurehead, at least for the American efforts, of who our enemy was. The challenge now is to figure out what the new al Queda (or whatever it is) looks like, be vigilant and more persistent than the enemy to prevent any further events.
