Bin Laden Made the First Public Mistake - And the Second by NOT Giving Up

Submitted by M. Tovey (United States), May 3, 2011 at 18:26

Honesty, integrity, impartiality, justice………all elements of a civil society's intent and hope for conduct in a civil setting: where was that on September 11, 2011 on a calm and otherwise beautiful day. All of that was lost to America that day. Not that America is absolved of the less than appropriate activities of many residing on these shores of liberties and freedoms; but where else in the world was there the best chance of humanity having certain abilities to live in relative safety. One cannot even draw a cartoon in the Baltic's without fear.

Too many were looking for American style justice for the crimes committed September 11, 2001. But the actions of the self styled Islamic martyrs were not street crimes, but war atrocities instead. While that may seem extreme from an American perspective, it was not greed, nor poverty, nor lustful passion that drove those hijacked airliners into American institutions, but a wanton hatred of all things American (even as there are certain unsavory things that are called American-even this public demonstration of American resolve-America represented more fully the dreams of freedom and liberties of her citizens and visitors) was on the minds of the perpetrators, all in obedience to the compounded hatred of the Islamic al-Qaeda leadership.

Let us be honest. Al-Qaeda made their hatred public. They are still making it public and it spreads to this day. What this event accomplished for Americans cannot be calculated in non-American terms. This was not about the termination of a viable suspect of a heinous crime as much as it is a continuation of the hostilities still being directed toward things American and how America will deal with it. For Americans, this means that while justice could never be accomplished by American jurisprudence, it further means that as long as America remains resolved to maintain whatever remaining elements of its sovereignty in its own quarters, let all know that America did what it had to do. The unresolved impunity with which America was struck is now resolved; judgment and payment now made. In other words, he can no longer say that he 'got away with it.'

As for his reputation, not even his own family would be able to take him back, not even to bury him. Let those who would make him a martyr follow their own course, to make a deity of a murderer. That is his reputation, his murderous legacy: the missing towers, the pentagon and a revered field in Pennsylvania are all monuments to that.

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