Saturday, May 7, 2011

My Thoughts on Osama bin Laden's Death

I've been thinking a lot about Osama bin Laden. It's another of those world issues that I just can't ignore.  You see, after the attacks in the United States, I was afraid of what he might do if he was given another chance.  I watched the news on September 11th and I'm afraid I watched those towers come down fifty times or more. I watched the Pentagon smolder and the remains of the downed plane full of heroes.  I was just sick with the thoughts of what all of those families had lost.  There were children in those towers. I was afraid for myself too.  My husband was in Phoenix on a business trip and I had a small child I needed to take care of. What if there were more terrorist attacks planned? What if my husband couldn't get home?

Here's the thing - I have never understood the hatred for our people coming from radical Islam. (I don't understand the hatred coming from racists and religious extremists in my own country either.) I'll admit that I don't know as much about what my government has done in the Middle East as I should, but can you really blame a whole country, and its children, for what a government does? I thought we'd learned this with Russia and the Cold War. After our relations thawed, I met Russian citizens who came to our country and told me that they'd never hated us. As a kid, I'd been led to believe that any given Russian hated all Americans enough that I might not be safe around them.  As it turned out, it wasn't true at all.

I know there were shameful things my own government has done.  In 2002, Bush's attack on Iraq was a travesty. I didn't agree with Saddam Hussein's way of running his country, but they hadn't attacked us, so going to war with them was wrong. The man who called himself my president totally ignored me and tens of thousands of other citizens and initiated a war on another country for no reason. I hated that. I'm still proud that I marched in the anti-war rallies back in 2002. I know that my government isn't innocent and doesn't always represent its people.

So, when I heard that Osama bin Laden was dead after all these years, I admit that I felt relief at first. Then I wondered how much hate it would generate. It felt like we were fighting the Hydra. If you cut off the head of the Hydra, two will grow back.  I have a lot of respect for President Obama, so I'm sure he thought about all of this as he made his decision about what type of mission to send to Osama bin Laden once he was located. Will the people of Afghanistan hate us more, fear us more, now that we've done this? I guess that leads to a question to which I don't know the answer - who was Osama bin Laden to the people of Afghanistan? Does the average mother in Afghanistan fear him or revere him, or maybe it isn't either one? Would any other approach have worked with bin Laden? How do you negotiate with a man like that?

I had the same problem when my boy came home from school to tell me about a bully who was kicking him. Did he try to negotiate? Will it work to avoid this kid or try to make him laugh? Will my boy have to fight back even though he'll get in trouble in school? I still don't know where the right answer lies in that question. Is this question about Osama bin Laden any different? Wasn't bin Laden just a bully on a grand scale?

In the end, I'd like to know what we can do to reduce the hatred between cultures.  We, ordinary citizens of the United States, are not so different than people of other countries. We want the same things - to raise our children in peace, to practice our own simple religion, to be allowed to work at what we love, to be allowed to live where we feel at home, to travel, to laugh, to work hard to make our communities a healthy place to live, and to let other people do the same.

So, I have a hope for what President Obama might do next. I hope he ends the war quickly (both wars, actually) and asks the question, "What can we do to help your people?" I have a lot of confidence in President Obama to do the right thing.

Thank you for listening, jb

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