Monday, May 02, 2011
Killing Osama
Can't help but think the vast majority of the people chanting "U.S.A.! U.S.A.!" last night have been no closer to a real battlefield than what they've seen on TV. The average age in front of the White House looked around 20. Party. What are you supposed to do, just recall the horror ten years ago, know the world is better off without him on it, & go to bed? That's what most Americans did. Also, every triumphant chant generates an echo with exactly the opposite sentiment. But it was a natural reaction. The workers toiling in the pit of Ground Zero, grim, hopeless work, literally inhaling bodies, personally earned their moment when President Bush visited with a bullhorn. But even there I felt something important was lost - the sense of a global tragedy.
Revenge tastes best served cold, the saying attributed to Sicilians. This would have had the taste of revenge served medium-hot, on Sept 11, 2002.
The war goes on. Osama was a symbol, not a commander, his organization fractured into independent cults. It's an ideology, not a nation. or a person.
Very mixed reactions all around.The usual partisan name-calling. in comments on Facebook last night President Obama was called a "jerkoff" & an "asshole." You have to grant the office some dignity even if you believe the person occupying it is a complete fool. Someone else will have the job & shouldn't have to wipe the shit people threw off the desk. Barack Obama is not a fool. An oligarch, yes. But so was George W. Bush. That's the kind of national government we now have. It may be the government we've always had. I don't enjoy thinking about it.
I despised George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq. We didn't catch Osama because we didn't know how to find Osama until we redirected our efforts to Afghanistan & Pakistan. But killing Osama sooner wouldn't have been like killing Hitler in, say, 1943.
Googling "Paterson NJ Muslim 9/11" returns not a single eyewitness account, police report, news story, or photographic evidence that anyone from the large Islamic community there celebrated in the streets after the attacks. Yet, like any urban legend, many accept it as fact. Apparently, no brave patriot from the 'burbs, some of whom regularly visit Paterson to obtain their stashes, ventured there on 9/11 to check out the rumors.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
Revenge tastes best served cold, the saying attributed to Sicilians. This would have had the taste of revenge served medium-hot, on Sept 11, 2002.
The war goes on. Osama was a symbol, not a commander, his organization fractured into independent cults. It's an ideology, not a nation. or a person.
Very mixed reactions all around.The usual partisan name-calling. in comments on Facebook last night President Obama was called a "jerkoff" & an "asshole." You have to grant the office some dignity even if you believe the person occupying it is a complete fool. Someone else will have the job & shouldn't have to wipe the shit people threw off the desk. Barack Obama is not a fool. An oligarch, yes. But so was George W. Bush. That's the kind of national government we now have. It may be the government we've always had. I don't enjoy thinking about it.
I despised George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq. We didn't catch Osama because we didn't know how to find Osama until we redirected our efforts to Afghanistan & Pakistan. But killing Osama sooner wouldn't have been like killing Hitler in, say, 1943.
Googling "Paterson NJ Muslim 9/11" returns not a single eyewitness account, police report, news story, or photographic evidence that anyone from the large Islamic community there celebrated in the streets after the attacks. Yet, like any urban legend, many accept it as fact. Apparently, no brave patriot from the 'burbs, some of whom regularly visit Paterson to obtain their stashes, ventured there on 9/11 to check out the rumors.
Labels: George W. Bush, in the news, Iraq
