I shared the article linked above with a couple of people who are very close to me and I received thoughtful replies, comments so worth considering that I feel it necessary to quote them here:
Like you, I would prefer to see the 'flag-waving' kept to a minimum. I realize there was an imperative to bring Bin Laden to 'justice' and therefore what was done needed to be done. But I can't look at this as anything to be exalted or celebrated. As I listened to POTUS recall the innocent lives lost on 9/11, I couldn't help but wonder about the other innocent lives lost over the course of the last 10 years as a result of U.S. operations in Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan. The unfortunate side effect of the "war on terror" is the idea that non-American lives somehow have less value than those of Americans. It is that kind of thinking that will continue to make American interests the target of terrorist campaigns.
I also find laughable the notion that this somehow sends a message to our enemies. If such a message were delivered, it would be lost on those for whom it was intended, especially 10 years after the fact. As 'victories' go, this one is hollow and probably short-lived. The fact that they supposedly found bin Laden in a fortified mansion (as opposed to some Afghan cave) suggests that he had already been marginalized as a terrorist threat. I don't believe for a second that the demise of bin Laden makes the world any safer and quite possibly could have the opposite effect in essentially making him a martyr for the 'cause'.
Indeed: Killing bin Laden is no more likely to end world terrorism than killing John Dillinger ended crime in America.
From a bit different perspective, another correspondent writes:
Certainly the element in Washington is a symptom of a larger attitude that finds satisfaction in revenge. But I think cheering for the destruction of state enemies is never something we have been immune from. Think of all the tyrants and dictators opposed to this country throughout the years- I doubt news of the death of Stalin, Hitler, or jung-Il at American hands would have been greeted with less schadenfreude.
What I do think is regrettable is that there was no way to bring to bear a more "civilized" form of judgment in a court setting.
I also think much of the reaction we are seeing comes from a disaffected public looking for some validation of this last lost decade. Certainly the Global War on Terror was conceived hastily and without much planning ... is the second most important event in the past ten years (after the financial crisis). Because of the haphazard and poorly conceived nature of that ongoing conflict, we have invested trillions of dollars, hundreds of thousands of lives, and an inconceivable amount political good will abroad, and for what? A democratic Iraq still suffering the aftershocks of civil war seems to be the only visible if not tangible sign of "progress" for the American public that saw its future mortgaged in costly global pursuit of an amorphous enemy. Even if we are honest and acknowledge that we destroyed only the face of that enemy without changing the larger nature of the conflict with the many who harbour disputes against the US, the tangibility of our "progress" makes the reaction from our citizenry very understandable. At least we have at long last, as Bush said days after 9/11, the "measurable progress" we wanted in reaction to the tragedies of that day. The problem is, as John Hall said, that when you allow your objective, your ends, to be progress itself you often find yourself fighting an incremental conflict that ends up pulling you deeper and deeper into irrational conflict.
As I reflect on these thoughts with Easter just past, it occurs to me that Christian teaching would contend that Jesus died on the cross for Osama bin Laden just the same way he died for Mother Teresa and Rev. King. That notion makes it exceedingly difficult for me to cheer ObL taking two to the face.
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