My first reaction to hearing Bin Laden was killed was sadness. My thoughts were of the three thousand people that died on 9/11. I thought of those forced to leap from the tower. I thought of those calling loved ones from planes. I thought of the firemen running into the WTC.
And then I thought, “Yesssssssssss!!!!!!!!!!! The bastard’s dead!!” If my mind could fist pump and do a dance mine did. I had to remind myself that a human being has died. A human being who had a lot of bad things on his soul. And I felt bad for dancing, if only metaphorically. But I’m having a hard time feeling too bad.
I am proud as heck of our armed forces doing their job better than anyone else in the world. I’m proud that Presidents Bush and Obama never stopped searching (even when I thought neither of them was really looking for him too hard.) And I’m glad that we got him. He needed getting. This sends a message to radical Muslims all around the globe. If you come after us we will come after you. And we won’t stop coming after you. Not in one year. Not in five. Not ever.
And then my mind went to issues like wondering if this would help Obama’s reelection chances. I really hope not. But that’s not what this day is for. This is a Lee Greenwood day. It’s an “I’m Proud to be an American” on the cd player sung at the top of your voice. Maybe even a little Toby Keith.
This video is kinda’ cool too as people at the Phillies/Mets game started hearing the news, chants of USA USA start popping up. Kinda’ cool.
The cadets at West Point react to the news here:
I’m interested in your guy’s thoughts and reactions to the news.
May 2, 2011 at 4:05 pm
It's not over. Islam breeds Bin Ladens like water generates rust. The real enemy is the demon, the great deceiver, whom Muslims worship, who deceived Eve at the garden and brought about emnity between her offspring and the creature's. The battle with that demon and his minions will last until Our Lady, the new Eve, crushes it's head with her feet.
May 2, 2011 at 4:59 pm
My immediate reaction: A man is dead, and the world has not changed overnight as a result.
My longer-term reaction: I am disgusted by the celebration of a man's death by the media and by Americans with no shame.
May 2, 2011 at 5:03 pm
Pope St. Pius V was a meanie. He was happy to hear we Christians defeated the Muslims at Lepanto and before he died he was trying to arrange another league of Italian cities and nations to go to war and kill those bastids in other places so as to liberate Christian Catholics being held hostage in dhimmitude.
The will to survive in the west has become so diluted that we mentally don sack cloths upon hearing that a savage was kilt and we rhetorically flog ourselves that we were happy to hear the news.
There is no need to keep our troops in foreign lands. We got the biggest baddest military that has ever existed on the planet and sending them overseas to deliver soccer balls to the catamites of The Taliban is a self-defeating scandal and a waste of men, women, money, and material.
And spending our tax dollars building-up the material assets of our objective enemies (Muslims) in Iran and Afghanistan rather than spending those tax dollars in America is flat-out crazy.
Cease all Muslim immigration into America, bring our troops back home and if we are again targeted for a terrorist attack by a bunch of Saudia Nationals, respond against Saudia Arabia not some hell-hole like Aghanistan.
May 2, 2011 at 5:14 pm
While the celebration of Bin Laden's death was distasteful, I don't think it can be compared to the Mohammedan celebrations of 9/11. In the former, it was the celebration of the execution of a malefactor and mass-murderer, in the later it was the celebrate of an act of mass-murder.
May 2, 2011 at 5:21 pm
Again, from your other post, if someone was breaking into my home, I would try words first (Get out, you #$%^!) but if he got in and went for one of my children, I would shoot twice to the center of mass and once to the head. Then I would gather my children around me, weeping for the horror and laughing with joy that we are alive and that an evil man is not. That is what America is doing today.
May 2, 2011 at 5:31 pm
Wayne,
Excellent point, re: the demonstrations in the Middle East on 9/11. Sometimes, our hardest spiritual battles are with temptations to hate (and to refuse to love and pray for) those who are (or have done) evil.
May 2, 2011 at 5:42 pm
Feel nothing. Soul? Perhaps. His actions spoke otherwise, if he even believed in such a concept. Joy? No. Proper justice was brought to him, in his wretched spider hole. He died as he lived, a coward, using others to shield him. There is no loss to the world, and much to gain. Good riddance, and I'm not sorry to say it, but I hope he was met at his particular judgment by the faces of the 3000+ that died as a result of his orders on 9/11.
May 2, 2011 at 5:44 pm
@Fr. Erik: Excellent distinction – imho. We are relieved because we stopped an evil doer from hurting us further; while back then, the Muslims enjoyed the fact that we got hurt. By the fruits, a tree is known.
May 2, 2011 at 5:48 pm
I'm going to join the conspiracy theorists out there. The evidence has not been presented. His body was apparently buried at sea? No proof, no death certificate, nothing. All we have is the word of the government which in this day and age means less and less.
May 2, 2011 at 5:56 pm
We should not be celebrating the death of a human being no matter how evil his acts. But we should pray for his eternal soul.
May 2, 2011 at 6:08 pm
I posted this on the other bin Laden thread, but I'll post it here as well:
Hopefully, the reaction to the news of bin Laden's death will become more reflective and the overexuberant reaction we've witnessed so far will be tempered.
But at the same time, I'd like to see those who are condemning the jubilation show a bit more understanding and compassion for why people are reacting the way they are. Especially the college-age students. Cut 'em some slack. They have grown up with bin Laden being the greatest menace the world faced (aside from George W. Bush). They've grown up with terror alerts, pat-down frisks in airports, and the horror of being children and watching the ultimate in man's inhumanity to man as those buildings came crashing down and turning living, breathing humanity into mere dust particles.
Think back to how we felt when the menace of our childhood ended as the Berlin Wall came tumbling down, and imagine how these young people feel. It's a catharsis for them to be able to experience SOME emotion over this monster other than the grief, anger, fear, and disappointment they've experienced for the last 10 years. Let 'em have it.
May 2, 2011 at 8:24 pm
Joy for me is only in Justice. Proverbs 24:17-22
Rejoice not when your enemy falls, and when he stumbles, let not your heart exult,
Lest the LORD see it, be displeased with you, and withdraw his wrath from your enemy.
Be not provoked with evildoers, nor envious of the wicked;
For the evil man has no future, the lamp of the wicked will be put out.
May 2, 2011 at 8:34 pm
We should pray for his soul, but also realize what Moses did. Exodus 15. We also must realize that most cultures don't get on to the next thing like we do. They will wait 1000 Years for Revenge and that is why we had to pursue that man who sought to impose the Caliphate and Islamic Law on the whole world.
May 2, 2011 at 11:02 pm
Well, my first thought was "what took them so durn long" and my second thought was "it proves that Pakistan is not and never has been our ally" and my third thought was "I hope there isn't too much dancing in the streets like the Palestineans and other Mohammedans who celebrate the murder of every CHristian because we are better than that." You asked.
May 2, 2011 at 11:06 pm
Oh, one more thing … after reading up on it, I am laughing at Obama for trying to take credit for it … as if OBL would ever have been caught if Gitmo weren't there, etc. … the president deserving of our thanks is NOT Obama, if you take my meaning.
May 3, 2011 at 12:04 am
Here's what I posted this morning after learning the news:
http://acts17verse28.blogspot.com/2011/05/few-thoughts-about-bin-ladens-death.html
May 3, 2011 at 12:34 am
My first reaction was too little too late, Bin Laden hasn't seemed all that relevant to me. Second thought was stuff the body full of pork and bury the SOB facing West!
May 3, 2011 at 1:30 am
It's finals week, so here are my thoughts
http://rantingcatholicmom.blogspot.com/2011/05/ranting-catholic-mom-doom-death.html
May 3, 2011 at 2:55 am
@Rick: Again you have given voice to what needs to be said. Bin Laden is brought to JUSTICE as each and every member of the human race will. There are many rooms in My Father's house. On Divine Mercy Sunday, the beatification of John Paul II, we will be free to worship God. "It is mercy I desire, not sacrifice". Bin Laden will no longer be able to sacrifice any other person, himself, having been brought to Infinite Justice.
May 3, 2011 at 3:08 am
@cathcandy: Obama blamed us for wanting his birth certificate. Something that Obama was supposed to have produced BEFORE his election. If this is a ploy to get him re-elected, it is working. In the halls of politics all stops are pulled out. If Bin Laden has not been brought to Justice,let us hope Obama is not re-elected, besides, he already took all of our money and freedom. There is only our lives and honor. It is possible Obama gave the 13 trillion dollars to Bin Laden to play dead. Let us pray for Justice.