Regarding the death of Osama bin Laden

[hani_backup]

and how he died - which I'm not really up to date about besides the fact that President Obama ordered it and it was due to American military (special forces?) - I don't know how I feel. On Facebook on Sunday my friends' statuses ranged from "How can people be so heartless as to celebrate any person's death, even someone who caused a lot of deaths himself?" to "I'm so glad Osama's dead!" I hope people aren't naive as to think the "war on terror" will shift drastically. Like suddenly we can travel with liquids. That'd be nice but I know the death of one man won't make aerial transportation policies change. I don't think Osama was such a spearhead prior to his death that his death will bring the collapse of Al Qaida. My first reaction to "let's see proof." Maybe President Obama wouldn't lie to his country as much as President Bush did regarding the Weapons of Mass Destruction, but reports can be exaggerated.

I also don't know how I feel about the refusal to release pictures of a dead Osama bin Laden. Some friends are going "Gee, we've seen pictures of 9/11 and people jumping out of buildings so I don't think seeing a dead man will be horrific" to "I'm glad the government's not touting them out as trophies." I mean, seeing proof would make it more...real, but also I don't know if having those pictures released will help in the big picture. *shrug*

I did find the following meme funny. It was courtesy of a classmate/FB friend. Hopefully people will get the reference to Trump's "let's see the President's birth certificate" rally and CSI: Miami...

Comments

[akai_senshi.livejournal.com]

*groans but also cannot help but smile*

[hani.livejournal.com]

:D

[suburbaknght.livejournal.com]

I hope people aren't naive as to think the "war on terror" will shift drastically. Like suddenly we can travel with liquids. That'd be nice but I know the death of one man won't make aerial transportation policies change.

I'm not naive enough to think it will but I believe it should. Leaving aside that I never supported the idea of a "war on terror," let's consider several things:

1) A protracted war is one of the worst things you can put your country through. If there's been one consistent piece of advice from military leaders throughout history, from Sun Tzu to Douglas MacArthur, it's been to avoid long campaigns.

2) You cannot win a war unless you have victory conditions. By definition. How else do you know when the war is over? How else do you know what to fight for? There is no better victory condition than Osama Bin Laden. What else are we going to do? Kill everyone that wants to kill us?

After September 11 there was a lot of talk about the "new normal." Now the world has changed. We had to acknowledge that the U.S. is vulnerable - the historical defensive barriers we've relied on known as the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans don't provide the same protection that they did in the 19th century when the main threat was invading armies and trans-oceanic passage was a great deal more burdensome - but the reforms you mention weren't done in response to a changed world, they were done to make it possible to conduct a "war." If they continue, that's a statement that we weren't enacting them because of the war, we were doing them because we changed.

I don't want to give Osama Bin Laden that much power over me, and I certainly don't want to do it posthumously.

Now when I say changes, I could really care less about the ones you mention. Taking your shoes off at airports isn't exactly a violation of civil liberties. Full body scans and accompanied groping is, but it's part of the cost to fly and I can accept that or choose other, less convenient transportation. But what about some of the more egregious civil rights violations?

How about the president's authority to assassinate American citizens without due process?

Can we get rid of that? You'd think that with the war being over (and if it's not over, I want to know when it will be or at least what the Hell we're doing to bring it to an end) we could restore our own Constitution. Things like Habeus Corpus. Closing Guantanamo. The entire fucking Patriot Act.

The world's changed and I need to throw away my half-bottle of Coke before boarding a plane? Fine. But we're not America without due process.