Talk about it: Osama bin Laden is dead

By now you’ve no doubt heard the news that Osama bin Laden was killed in a US operation in Pakistan yesterday. You’ll find all the details and plenty of commentary at your favorite national news source, so I won’t try to add to it here.

Use this post to talk about the news with your neighbors. What was your reaction when you heard bin Laden was dead? Do you see this as a turning point for peace? Do you fear reprisals? What, if anything, have you told your kids?

Talk about it here.

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John Kendall
12 years ago

The close of one chapter, the opening of the next. He was but one of many extremists. We should never let our guard down. To my daughter Kerry and all of those who defend our country….stay alert.

Al Hamilton
12 years ago

I think about the men and women who have served and are now serving, including my children. I especially think about those who are not coming back and those whose lives have been changed forever.

Thank you to all of them. Well Done!

Ann
12 years ago

John,
I said the same thing to Matthew this morning. Stay vigilant. I’m saying prayers for all our military.

Dick Snyder
12 years ago

I saw the replay of celebrations in Boston and New York. Most of the people looked like college students who would have been in middle school when 9/11 occurred. I will NEVER forget watching the Today show when the planes hit the World Trade Center and then we saw the Pentagon coverage and finally the reports from Pennsylvania. I am of two minds about all of this. I hoped for this day from the first time I heard of Tora Bora and yet I think this will go on probably for the rest of my life and maybe longer. I feel glad and sad today.

I am also wondering very hard about the aid we give to Pakistan…………………..

Dick Snyder
12 years ago
Reply to  Dick Snyder

I have to update my comments. While driving home today I listened to a podcast from Chicago Public Radio. They interviewed someone from Penn State about the wild celebrations there. Yes they WERE in middle school on 9/11/01 but for them at that age, Osama bin Laden was the bogey man. He made the person being interviewed afraid of flying. This never occurred to me when I made my comments about the people doing the celebrating having been in middle school. I guess they were wounded in a different way than I was but wounded just the same.

Pat Q
12 years ago
Reply to  Dick Snyder

Dear Dick,

My son attends Penn State and fully participated in the wild celebrations upon hearing the news of bin Laden’s death so…. when I read your above post I just
had to chime in! So funny that you should mention Penn State.

My son sent me youtube videos of the event and an event it was. He was studying with a group of classmates in a common area within his dorm (classes were over and they were preparing for finals). The study room just happens to be a corner room of the building and is all windows. He emailed me that around 11:30 to midnite they all started to get texts that Osama had been killed. Shortly after, they saw large groups of kids running through campus to get to the downtown area…..to Beaver Street (where most off campus apartments are and where most post game celebrations take place).

He said it was one of the most incredible things he had ever experienced. The
celebrating went on till 2:30 am. The local police decided to hang out to make sure things didn’t get out of control but decided not to disperse the crowds. They went on to say the kids were in the middle of finals study week and needed to
blow off some steam. The street, which is pretty long as it runs along the entire campus (over 42,000 students), had every inch covered with celebrating students singing the national anthem, chanting “USA” and also singing Bruce Springsteins
“Born in the USA”.

I really didn’t mind my son taking part in the celebration. He was 10 years old when the horrible events of 9/11 took place…..in fact it was on the very day of his 10th birthday so he remembers the day and the following months vividly. The poor kid never got a birthday cake as I was glued to the t.v. the entire day and forgot to bake it!

Although these kids were in middle school at the time I think you are right to say it
probably hit them but in different ways than adults. It seemed everyone had some sort of connection to someone who had been killed that day; my husbands second cousin’s wife was killled on that day, my husbands co-workers cousin had been killed on that day, a close college friend and golf buddy of my husbands was killed on that day. So even though it didn’t directly effect my son….he heard all the talk at home of people who had been killed and you certainly couldn’t get away from all the media coverage. In addition, my son has two older cousins serving in Iraq (one current and one getting ready to go for his third time) so it all remains real for him (and us) despite how old he was when it happened. Unfortunately, the reality lingers on.

As far as what are the celebrations for? I think the country needed to blow off some steam….just like the students at Penn State. I think it was a celebration of
only the event that bin Laden was killed and not that anyone thinks terrorism is over. Given the horrible events of 9/11, the approaching 10 year anniversay and perhaps given the crappy state of the economy over the past several years……….yes, maybe we indeed needed to blow off some steam.

Al Hamilton
12 years ago
Reply to  Pat Q

Very well said!

Neil Rossen
12 years ago

So “enhanced” interrogation works and Guantanamo works too. Maybe that ends the pipe dreams. Takes a long time to learn on the job.

Neil Rossen
12 years ago

I would add though that it was a gutsy decision. Never too late…

Kelly Roney
12 years ago

Good that bin Laden is dead, but torture didn’t get him, despite what the pro-torture talking heads on the right may say. This was the key lead:

Prisoners in American custody told stories of a trusted courier. When the Americans ran the man’s pseudonym past two top-level detainees — the chief planner of the Sept. 11 attacks, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed; and Al Qaeda’s operational chief, Abu Faraj al-Libi — the men claimed never to have heard his name. That raised suspicions among interrogators that the two detainees were lying and that the courier probably was an important figure.

Yet KSM and al-Libi never gave up the courier’s actual name, despite torture. This case is in fact a story of the failure of torture. The rest was simply good detective work.

I have no idea why people who are suspicious of state power, who often call themselves conservatives, remain so enamored of the unchecked state power to torture that George W. Bush asserted and that Barack Obama has stopped but failed to renounce as a matter of law and Presidential power.

John Kendall
12 years ago

Thank you Susan. I think we question too much, and some of the media puts out too much information. If everyone questioned everything during WWII, I wonder if it would have altered the outcome. My Dad had an old war poster that warned “Loose lips sink ships”. I think it still holds true today when we discuss security and the military.

Southside Gadsden Flyer
12 years ago

Am I glad he is gone? Sure! Will it change anything? Doubtful. I hear all this celebratory talk this week from my friends and coworkers and I just can’t join in it. I don’t expect that anything will be different now that Osama is gone. Will we leave Iraq? Afghanistan? Probably not. So then what’s all the celebration for?

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