Mission Accomplished - Osama Bin Laden killed
Posted on Monday, May 02, 2011 at 09:26 AM
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Like most people, on hearing of the death of Osama Bin Laden last night I felt curiously lighter. I wasn't gloating at the news, it was something else - it felt like a spell the city had been laboring under had finally been broken.
Outside my New York window last night I heard fire trucks blaring their horns in celebration. I don't begrudge them their feelings, but I don't know if it's a time to celebrate. I understand the impulse though, God knows I do.
If you were in New York City on 9/11 2001 you'll vividly remember how beautiful the weather was that morning. It was a day of particular splendor, creating an unforgettable disconnect between the smoking rubble and the deep blue sky.
In a daze after the attacks, accompanied by many others, I had walked all the way to the Cloisters in Upper Manhattan by late afternoon. I found I couldn't stay indoors looking at those planes crashing on a loop on the breaking news reports.
So instead I walked and kept walking in search of some place soothing and shaded. They have a flower garden in the Cloisters grounds and soon I was watching bees floating from petal to petal in the late afternoon sunlight. The park benches were shaded by towering trees. We sat there for a long time. The silence was interrupted every few minutes by the roar of low flying military fighter jets and speeding helicopters.
I found I couldn't speak, or rather I didn't want to. Earlier I had lost contact with my partner for five hours as walked home. I embraced him when he reached my door.
In the days that followed Missing Persons posters starting going up all over town. They were decorated with flags, ribbons and little mementos, and they had already begun to look like memorials in fact.
'Have you seen this man? His name is -------. We miss him and we want him back. Please call if you have ANY information about his whereabouts.'
Soon we were hearing of hundreds killed; then thousands. The images of those twin towers falling are one of the most infamous acts of mass murder the world has ever seen.
You don't get over a day like that, you just carry it with you.
Last night, when I heard that the man responsible for that atrocity Osama BinLaden was dead, I remembered two contrasting things simultaneously: the beauty of that day and the horror he unleashed on it.
He was death in life. He was a fanatic and a bully. He was yet another one of histories despots who thought he could reshape the world through mass slaughter. I don't know where such men come from, or why there are so many of them, or why in their tragic madness they imagine they'll succeed where every other tyrant with a grudge has failed. Bin Laden lived by the gun and died by it. How could he have imagined it would end another way?
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PhlutiePhan | May 02, 2011, 05:46 PM EDT
Bin Laden was the "agent". However, there are plenty of unknowns about why! The NSA had plenty of info on the group that was not passed on to such as the FBI. Robert Hannsen of FBI fame may have been involved. There is also growing evidence of fronting for Iran and Russia. Oh my goodness, this is the same for the provisonal IRA.
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joanxis | May 02, 2011, 05:22 PM EDT
Well said, McNamara31. My feelings exactly.
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McNamara31 | May 02, 2011, 05:07 PM EDT
Skibberrean.... You’re remarks are a disgrace. Even today you choose to smear and denigrate the one who finally brought this murderer to justice..... President Obama from "us" Irish living in New York, on that day, and today....Thanks for a Job Well Done. Don't ever let the bigots get you down.
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Suivness10 | May 02, 2011, 03:51 PM EDT
Your comment is touching and says it all. I too feel a veil has been lifted. It's a great day, no matter what anybody says. I'm wearing red, white, and blue today, a tradition among American ex-pats, to wear on every anniversary of 9/11. I have to remember them too, first and foremost, and especially today.
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citizen69 | May 02, 2011, 02:14 PM EDT
Good to see that they cought up with him at last...but I would have thought people would have learned from the last time the phrase 'Mission Accomplished' was used, by one George Bush. As it turned out it was far from it.
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snakehips | May 02, 2011, 01:46 PM EDT
"He who lives by the sword, perishes by the sword"!
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moygannon | May 02, 2011, 01:26 PM EDT
Now that the body has been disposed of at sea proof of his demise cannot be exposed.
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Nicomax | May 02, 2011, 11:34 AM EDT
'Had his flaws"? One of the great understatements of this era. If Bush had the will to pursue OBL immediately instead of digging for oil in Iraq, the euphoria of last night would have come a lot sooner. This is historical fact and can't be purged.
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Skibberrean | May 02, 2011, 11:16 AM EDT
Maybe now the corruption that sits in OUR WHITE HOUSE will see what a GREAT NATION they live in. His late night speech disgusted me as did his recitation at the end. Just another campaign speech by a thug and a fraud! George Bush had his flaws, but the JOB GOT DONE. GOD BLESS OUR NAVY SEALS, and THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!!
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cillowen | May 02, 2011, 10:49 AM EDT
Obama's promise comes to fruition. Had the crazy
been targeted in a timely manner and not have the neo-con masking of an excuse for the offtrack Iraqi venture - a brilliant excuse to stop Sadam's 25K giving to ME freedom fighter familiess. As a consequence - imagine the thousands of American soldiers lost and the hundreds of thousand other lives lost .. not to mention the cost ,,,, into the billions ... and still counting .... in a deep hole.
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