This news caused me to pause for a moment:
Osama Bin Laden is responsible for the deaths of thousands between the various operations under his leadership, inclusive of the worst terrorist attack in this country, and therefore, it is good news that he has been neutralized from effective leadership.
He was killed. I would have wished he could have been tried during a publicly-aired trial. I think it would be fair to say that it would be impossible to find an impartial jury, but that’d be okay. That being said, having people testify to the amount of damage he did and the pain he caused so many would most likely make him proud of his actions. In reality, could there be a way to bring him to justice that is fair (taking the high road, right?), that would give peace to those impacted by his truly evil acts without giving him pleasure and ensure he could not continue contributing to innocent death?
We are celebrating. Yes, I’m extremely pleased Bin Laden is out of the picture. While we won’t awake tomorrow with the world as it was on September 10th, 2001 and, in fact, we may be facing a greater series of threats since we did kill him, in the grand scheme, it is better for everyone that he is not in effective leadership of anyone. However, we are still celebrating his death. I’m willing to grant that his death was necessary; that there would be no way to neutralize his effective control (e.g. his means and desire to kill) without killing him. Even if granting that, celebrating death isn’t the answer.
I catch myself somewhat…happy…that he’s dead. “We killed the bastard!” But, is that what Jesus would have done? Would He mourn that we couldn’t help him see the Light? Or would He have played him the Judas card, “Better for you if you were never born”? My heart says one thing, my mind another.
Can we celebrate the victory without celebrating death? How?
Leave a Reply