That’s The Way Things Are

Public Enemy #1

Posted

Osama bin Laden... UBL... Usama bin Laden...

No matter how you spell his name, it's true... we got him.

Finally.


It's about time, huh?

10 years later, we finally got him.

I was out with a bunch of friends watching a WWE Pay-Per View, of all things. Yes, I’m a pro wrestling fan… get over it.

I started getting a ton of emails saying that President Obama was going to make a last minute statement at 10:30 PM that night. But it didn’t say what his statement was going to be about.

Naturally, I started to wonder what Obama was going to speak about. I began to debate if it would be regarding Muammar Ghaddafi’s son and grandsons being killed in a NATO airstrike earlier that weekend. Or if there were a brand new development in the Middle East. Or if it was something completely different and something that hadn’t hit the news cycle quite yet.

Never in a million years did it even enter my thought process that Obama would be announcing that the United States had killed a major terrorist threat, much less the most wanted man on the planet, Osama bin Laden. But as the Pay-Per-View ended and we turned to CNN, I soon discovered that was precisely what had occurred (in addition to learning that Obama was already running late to making his statement).

When the news coverage confirmed that was, in fact, what had happened, feelings of shock, happiness, and sadness (yes, sadness as well) came over me. Shock, because it’s certainly not every day that the most wanted person on the planet gets taken out, not to mention that nothing at all was leaked to the public at any point in the months of intelligence gathering stages of the operation or its ultimate execution.

Happiness, since, of course, the mastermind behind the 9/11 plot, as well as other attacks on U.S. citizens, and citizens of many of our allies as well, had been taken out and brought to justice.

But yes, I felt sadness as well. Not a ton, but, a fair amount. Sadness because it’s upsetting to me that we live in a world where there is a man at large (or was, at large I should say) who’s responsible for the murder of thousands of helpless people — a man who was filled with hatred, to that degree, with no real basis. A man who, frighteningly so, truly believed that he was correct in his actions and beliefs.

Of course it’s terrific that we captured bin Laden. It’s a huge victory in our nation’s war on terror. One of the world’s most infamous terrorists and sadistic madmen is out of the picture and no longer a threat to America, or any other nation for that matter.

But is that really the ballgame? Sadly, I don’t think so…

Bin Laden was a huge coup, but unfortunately he’s not the only terrorist out there who wants to do harm to American citizens and has the means to do so. And with our recent killing of a man they looked up to in bin Laden, who was a leader to many of them, you can bet that now, they’re even more pissed at America.

Just last week a plot to derail trains was uncovered and taken care of. And you can bet that in the aftermath of our taking out bin Laden, more will surely be on the way in the upcoming months and years.

So, continue to be happy that an elite Navy Seal team was able to take care of business and eliminate bin Laden. And continue to be glad that now one of the biggest threats to our safety and security is no longer alive to pose that threat. But, we all must continue to be vigilant and realize that, unfortunately, this war is far from over.

“When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other kind of dogmas or goals, it’s always because these dogmas or goals are in doubt.” – Robert T. Pirsig

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