My dissatisfaction that is. President Obama has accomplished what former President Bush and his army of chicken-hawks could never accomplish: they actually found bin Laden.
Now as a quick aside - all of you people here, all of us really, need to be prepared for what the Republicans are inevitably going to do: proclaim victory. Even though they had nothing to do with this moment, every good Republican knows that they are the ones truly responsible for everything and therefore must find a way to take ultimate credit. Their loss for words now is purely temporary.
Which is why I am so uninspired....
Osama is dead, but the war on terror will continue, and most likely this war will accelerate.
Since Osama's ultimate demise came from Gitmo, I expect that the National Security State will gain additional strength, and the erosion of our civil liberties will now occur at a quicker pace.
Bin Laden's death will only lead to his martyr. His death will do nothing to stem the tide of enmity and hate for the West by fundamentalists.
Bin Laden's death will not stop muslim-on-muslim violence. And lest any of you forget, Islamic terrorists kill more of their own kind by entire orders of magnitude more than Westerners and Americans.
No, my dissatisfaction comes from knowing that this victory is symbolic, it is political. Obama's national security credentials are now IRON CLAD; McCain, Palin, and the entire Republican field has to deal with the fact that now the Democratic party is the one responsible for bringing the mastermind of 9/11 to a quick end. Birth Certificate? Who fucking cares.
Unless I'm mistaken, Bin Laden and Al Qaeada have not been an effective fighting force for Islamic terrorism for quite some time. Their claim to fame is previous work and damaged American pride. This is not the fall of the Berlin Wall where a victory was both tangible and symbolic; Osama's death has changed nothing save the face of terrorism.
My dissatisfaction also comes from my conscience: it is easy to hate a living person, and the actions the perform, and the fetod, evil fruits falling from the trees their actions have planted and cultivated, but death and tragedy brings out the full bitterness of hate to our pallets. Osama's tragedy is that for all his wealth, cunning, emotional depth, and resolve for his mission, was a titanic waste of a man. How can I get 'closure', or 'cheer' for such a thing? Every murderer is a waste of human life; for their victim and for them. What things could Bin Laden have accomplished had he been a pacifist instead? How many children could a man have saved if he had not opted instead to viciously murder them?
Death is always a loss, and I will never celebrate a loss.
And Loss is truly, at the heart of my discontent.
Can we say that we have won? Osama claimed that this mission would outlive him, and I believe that it has.
Bin Laden's death will obscure the suffering and injustice done to Bradley Manning; our fear of others in our own society will heighten; our love for the future and hope for progress is darkened by the long shadow of terror and uncertainty; weakness has gripped the throats of men and stolen the hearts of women as we Americans search for a strong, courageous leader to VANQUISH and PUT AN END to our abusers, giving up all we hold dear in our hearts and in our arms so we can feel safe.
Truly, more than the towers fell that day, but few could know it. A nation, especially a great one, takes time to fall and crumble. In the media age, we can now live every moment as a lifetime in our minds, up till that last instant when it finally hits us:
America is dead, and I find no satisfaction in it.