On September 11, 2001, when the towers came crashing down and firefighters were working to put out the fire at the Pentagon, the news was full of images from various middle eastern countries showing people taking to the streets to celebrate the devastation in America. The images made me physically ill. I couldn’t imagine celebrating the death of other human beings. So when Americans took to the street on the night of May 1, 2011, after hearing that Bin Laden had been murdered. I was equally disturbed. I’ve heard many arguments for why it was ok to celebrate… this is war… he admitted to planning the 9/11 attacks… the casualties inflicted by Bin Laden are far worse than what we did… and worst of all that this was justice for what he had done.
I don’t support the war, so the war argument falls on deaf ears. Bin Laden did allegedly say that he was responsible for 9/11, but he also said he wasn’t. People choose to believe what they want. If he had said he did at first and then tried to take it back people would still choose to believe he did it, so that argument holds little weight with me at all. If you want to weigh the events of 9/11 with the events of 5/1, then yes, that’s thousands vs. 1. But that’s a reckless way to approach it. Especially with little to no consideration for what drove Bin Laden to “allegedly” attack the US in the first place. I need to make this as clear as possible. I am NOT and have not ever been a sympathizer. I do not in any way shape or form feel that the actions of 9/11 were justified, but to act like Bin Laden just woke up one day and said “I just feel like bombing the US” is ignorant. Years of US foreign policy led him to believe that these actions were somehow justified, and those policies led to several civilian casualties in countries many of us had never heard of before 9/11.
But even with all that, the thing that bothers me the most is hearing his execution referred to as “justice”. I don’t believe in the death penalty to begin with, but to call an execution with no trial “justice” upsets me more than anything.
I guess this is just a rant of sorts. The whole thing has left a bad taste in my mouth and I hope that people consider how those “celebrations” must have looked to the outside world… especially since we’re such a “civilized” country and all.
