Last week’s commentary on the demise of Osama bin Laden inspired numerous responses from readers with a variety of perspectives. The thought-provoking excerpts below are just a sampling of the email feedback the essay elicited:
Ӣ Why should morality be applied only here? A mass murderer gleefully takes credit for destroying thousands of innocent American lives, yet when he is finally killed for the crime, his followers are outraged and declare he must be avenged.
Ӣ The assassination of bin Laden let us sink to his level. What we do says far more about us than what we say. And I fear that what we are doing is knocking us off the high road and exposing us as being no better than your average terrorist state.
”¢ The cheering and celebrating of some are as acceptable as the celebrations after the great wars. But this time the wars are still in progress and will never end ”“ because there are people in our world who have not been taught the meaning of morality, true justice or charity ”“ and unfortunately there are many of them in America.
We are assassins.
Ӣ Do you take issue with the idea Osama deserved to be hunted down for the mass murder of thousands of Americans? Or, if not the hunting, the immediate execution? Was it right to find him but wrong to kill him? If wrong to kill him, what should have happened? Or, is the greater offense that his death was publicly celebrated? Or, were killing him and celebrating his death equally offensive? Would it have made any difference if he had been found and executed within weeks, as distinct from almost a decade later? Was it wrong for Americans to cheer news of bombings (Nagasaki and Hiroshima) beyond their comprehension (no atomic experience, so to speak) as payback for Pearl Harbor and the thousands of American deaths that followed for four years? Should America not have declared war on Japan? Never go to war? Never live by the sword? Should the atom bomb solution, when applied to thousands of innocents, have been avoided so that conventional warfare would have continued for untold months and untold additional fatalities?
Was it wrong for Americans to cheer news of the death of Hitler given the genocide of Jews for being Jews and millions of others for not being Germans? How should news of his death, after four years of war, have been received by Americans? After all, news of his death surely meant the end of the war was imminent.
Is it ever morally OK to find joy in the death of someone who deserves to die both for the innocent deaths they have caused and for the innocent deaths they will cause? Or are our proper feelings limited to relief? Or perhaps joy inside our homes but not in public view?
Ӣ The media sack dance that spilled way beyond Fox News was disturbing. Not quite up there with watching films of Germans on Krystalnacht, but along those lines.
”¢ Remember the people celebrating after the towers collapsed? Did we sink to their level? Maybe. But dammit, we always take the high ground and people walk on us. I was glad we took him out. I don’t need pictures, but I would not have batted an eye if we had made that SOB suffer a cruel and inhumane death. That is what they have done so many times to others. Eye for an eye? We are battling brutal savages. Treat them like brutal savages! We can’t fight this war with white gloves, stopping for tea and crumpets at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Sure ”¦ an act of vengeance. I love it.
Ӣ We thought we were the only ones who felt this way. It was courageous of you to write this column in the face of what can only be called virulent patriotism.
”¢ I didn’t agree with the jingoistic celebrations either, but I do think that kidnapping him would have just enabled him to become a martyr. Sorry, I still think justice was done ”“ and except for the Pakistanis who were more upset with the failure of their military to even detect an intrusion of their airspace ”“ I don’t think there are too many people who don’t think justice was done to a self-confessed mass murderer.
”¢ Well said! Even Jon Stewart, one of the few public figures I actually admire, was gleeful ”“ something that surprised me. On the other hand, Rosie O’Donnell was skewered for the mere mention of due process.
”¢ Your essay reminded me of the numerous times in Shakespeare’s plays that we are warned against taking revenge. That was the main point of “The Tempest,” I believe. In the four centuries since, humanity still doesn’t seem to have learned that lesson.
— A sincere thanks to Jaime Hylton, Miles Wolff, Steve Reed, Janice Garvey, Peter Spaine, Barbara Babcock, Tom Simmons, Keith Bance, Brian Engelhardt, and Dave Baldwin, and everyone else who responded thoughtfully to last week’s column, for taking the time to share your reaction(s)”¦. And for helping me to prepare this week’s column.
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