So today I was sitting at the dinner table and the discussion turned to Osama Bin Laden's Death, mostly because it had been on the news all day since late last night, but also because my aunt shoved the news paper in my face while I was cooking and asked, "Aren't you happy we finally killed him?" And my response was, "I'm still deciding how exactly I feel about his murder." Because that is what it was. We murdered Bin Laden. The United States has been spending billions upon trillions of dollars to search for this one man and murder him? And then I started to cry; not tears of joy but tears of sadness because we are just like them. We are murderers and killers, terrorists claiming to believe in god above all else.
Well, I don't know about you, but I grew up in a Christian church and MY god...whoever that may be now, would not be okay with the murder of Osama Bin Laden. I am not saying that it was okay for him to command the murder's of so many people on September 11th, 2001, nor any of the other acts of terrorism that have resulted in the death of anyone. I am simply saying that if locked in a room with him, I'm sure he would not offer me the same sense of peace that I would offer him, and with that knowledge I still do not celebrate his murder. Hatred and war and terrorism cannot be fought with it's likeness, but only with it's opposite. Peace.
It is not a celebration for another human being to have been murdered, no matter how awful and hateful that person may have been this life. I have 2 brothers who have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. I understand the need for dictatorships to be dismantled, but bombs against bombs, will just kill off everyone and the world with it. Why didn't we get to see his body? Was it because we were so ashamed of the brutality with which we inflicted upon such a man that we could not show the rest of the country that the man they blamed for our terror was now gone from this earth? I fear that is the case.
"Rot In Hell" was the New York Times's front page headline above his face this morning. Rot in hell....what a message to send to the world about the way NY feels. Tragedy struck them harder than just about anywhere in America on 911, yet "Rot in hell". Have we not risen above such unabashed hatred in ten years? Have we not found a sense of pride in the comings together AFTER 911, rather than a cold ocean of frozen hearts?
I am aware that this piece may make more than a few people mad. But you know what makes me mad? Humans have already begun their backlashes, yet they are aimed at the wrong people, just as Bin Laden's people blamed the United States for their problems. How DARE you write such hateful violent messages on the holy sanctum of a Muslim. Did we blame all Christians for the violent and disgusting acts of the KKK? No we did not, so why do we now STILL look upon an entire religion and group of human believers and see only fire? Those are the reason's these wars have yet to end. Because we refuse look at one another in love and peace; we can, and yet we choose not to. It is the most major flaw of the human creation and it saddens me to the point of exhaustion.
Osama Bin Laden. You were not a kind man by any means on this earth, but I do wish you peace and grace in your next life. May the next world be not as unkind as this. May your death bring peace to those who needed it and let them not ask for any more bloodshed in their lifetime.
Amen
(funny we BOTH Christians, and Muslims alike say that at the end of a prayer)
