DEATH OF OSAMA

When I first heard that Navy SEALs had killed Osama bin Laden, I thought, big deal. So we broke into an old man's house and killed him. Who cares?

But after reading Nicholas Schmidle's story in the Aug. 8 New Yorker magazine, I changed my mind. Here is a link:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/08/08/110808fa_fact_schmidle

I don't believe many Americans have bothered to read Osama's own writing. He sent a long letter to then-President George W. Bush that I doubt if Bush even read. As I recall, Bush never answered Bin Laden, which I found strange.

The main thing Osama wanted was to get foreign troops out of the Arabian Peninsula, as I remember it. Does that seem so bad? If Arab troops were occupying Long Island, New York, or Florida, say, how would we feel about it? We'd want to kick their butts to kingdom-come, wouldn't we?

OK, so that seems understandable enough. But there was another side to Osama.

After the horrific attacks of 9/11, Osama talked about how "glorious" it was to see all those people die. To see the planes crash into the World Trade Center twin towers, instantly killing hundreds of people. To see people leaping to their deaths. To see body parts on the ground.  To see thousands die as the towers collapsed.

That's pretty sick. If Osama wanted to convince people that he was brutal, bloodthirsty, and unfeeling, he did a pretty good job.

I think Osama got what was coming to him.  

Yes, I think we in the good old USA have done things we shouldn't have. The invasion of Iraq, for one thing. Talk about sick. Estimates of the dead run higher than 100,000. Bush himself said some 30,000 people had died there.

But there has to be another way.

The noted Liberal activist Michael Moore has said, “Terrorists aren't trying to kill us because they hate our freedom. They're killing us because we're in their countries killing them.”

There is a lot of truth to that. Still and all, he who lives by the sword dies by the sword, to paraphrase Jesus.

Osama got what was coming to him. You shouldn't be able to get away with such brutal mass murder like that and live to tell the tale, live to brag about it, live to talk about how glorious it was. Live to plan more attacks, more killing. That's what he was doing.

All that killing on 9/11 wasn't glorious at all. Neither was Osama's death. But it couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

My hat is off to President Obama and to the Navy SEALs. I never thought I'd say that, but there it is.

-- Roger