This won't be a long post, full of hip-hip-hurrah or celebration. I just want to make a few observations.
I'm not cheering today. The way I feel about this event - the death of bin Laden - is amazing, but it's not about being glad. It's more... a sense of relief. Of peace. You see, my friend Liam was killed on 9/11. He worked for Bank of America. He managed to get several people out of his building after clearing his floor. He was inside the circle of total destruction when the towers came down - by about fifteen or twenty feet.
Fifteen or twenty feet. Maybe that many steps. Maybe less. Ten or eleven more running steps and he might have lived.
He left behind a wife, a girlfriend, and a six-year-old daughter whose Daddy would never be home for her seventh birthday that month or any birthday afterwards. He left behind a group of friends who mourn him every year. I never met him in person, but he was important to me. He and I were part of a large network of friends on an IRC channel and a newsgroup, both of which were organized on the principle "Shared pain is lessened; shared joy is increased." He was earthy, funny, and rock-solid.
Osama bin Laden killed him. Make no mistake about that. He was murdered by a madman from across the sea. And now he can rest, because justice has been done.
Even so, there's justice and then there's revenge. I see far too many people treating this as a revenge killing - as vengeance. And that bothers me.
I see a lot of friends right now celebrating Bin Laden's death. I'm not celebrating. I'm relieved. I'm glad he's dead, but I'm not cheering. I see him as a rabid dog. He kept biting, and biting, and biting, causing more and more damage and pain and death. And he reveled in it.
Now, I don't normally condone execution. I think that the United States drastically overuses execution when it should be an absolute last resort. But in this case, it was not only justified but necessary. We put down a rabid dog today.
But I'm still not cheering. He cheered when Liam died - more than that, he crowed about it and dared us to do anything about it. And I refuse to lower myself to his level. I refuse to go along with the crowd and sing Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead.
Why? Because somewhere, he's gloating. He counted on us making him a martyr. I refuse to rub it in and make that martyrdom mean anything more to his followers. I refuse to give them any more ammunition than they already have.
I just want to say this about martyrdom. We can't avoid it. When we kill an enemy, his martyrdom is almost inevitable. Every enemy has followers/worshipers/teammates/brothers in crime. And let's not kid ourselves; another Al-Quaidan will no doubt rise to become the new Bin Laden. That, too, is almost inevitable. None of that excuses us from putting down the rabid dogs who bite and bite and bite again. Martyrdom is inevitable; the damage done before it does not have to be.
Let there be no more damage from this source. Let the world finally heal. Let us settle our differences and beat our swords to ploughshares. Let it end here.