Justice Done

Justice done is my opinion of the killing of Osama Bin Laden. No, I don’t celebrate his killing but I also will not wish any better on a monster that got less than he deserved in his end. I don’t begrudge those who do celebrate Bin Laden’s taking on sea-temperature and roll my eyes at those who climb up on soapboxes to proclaim that they are above it all because they refuse to celebrate Bin Laden’s death. I don’t care if they don’t, it’s a perfectly valid reaction but best held in private, the need to announce such thoughts belies a certain conceit.

I think that it is a mistake for the administration to not release photos and it was silly how long it took for them to make a decision. Speculation regarding backlash are impossible to predict one way or another and is a weak excuse. I am puzzled by the administration’s ever-changing story in regard to what happened. I don’t believe that Bin Laden pursued a firefight. He was an elderly man who had been on dialysis for many years, and anyone who is on it is typically very weak. The changing story is a political liability as it seems as though the administration is hiding something, even though it probably isn’t.

Like the President in his announcement I am using the word ‘I’ a lot in this post and the reason is that these are my opinions and mine alone. This subject like many others will illicit any number of reactions and opinions because depending on individual sensibilities it can be viewed in different ways. I think my opinion is more reasonable than NFL running back Rashard Mendenhall’s but the fact that Mendenhall seems to think that Bin Laden didn’t deserve what he got proves my point, however distastefully.

A particularly sophomoric posture is to claim a wide ranging and specific belief to be collectively “ours”, as in held by everyone in this country. I find the President has a grating tic in his incessant use of the term “our values” when referring to a personal belief. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and justice for all, national defense and freedom of expression are examples of collective beliefs that are easy to espouse because they are simple. Statements about hyper-specific notions of justice and individual welfare programs as being “our” values are absurd.