AmericanAnDerTU

I was asked yesterday morning to write about my thoughts on bin Laden’s death. Originally I had never intended on doing so, I figured a short discourse about it on Twitter would have been enough, but after hearing that request I gave it some more thought.

How do I feel about bin Laden’s death? I personally do not know anyone that died in any of al Qaeda’s attacks, but I have not only an uncle and a brother but also many friends that have been to Afghanistan and Iraq (not that bin Laden and Iraq were ever connected, but you know what I mean) in combat roles because of his actions against the United States. I am not going to celebrate his death and dance around in the streets like many of my countrymen have done back home, but I’m certainly not going to lose any sleep or shed a tear over his death.

It would have been nice to capture bin Laden, but according to an anonymous official, that was never intended with this operation (search in Google “intended to capture bin Laden” but beware of malware sites). I suppose bin Laden never would have ever been able to stand in front of any court in the world with the exception of perhaps the ICC and receive a “fair” trial, but it still would have been nice to have him walked out of his house in handcuffs and paraded in front of the world. That’s not terribly humane or nice, perhaps, but neither is being directly responsible for the deaths of thousands of people.

I am happy that he’s gone, though. Whether or not his death will have the crippling effect that some theorize still has yet to be seen, but many experts say al Qaeda is already severely weakened and an internal power struggle will only weaken it further. Maybe it will galvanize a new Islamist movement. Who knows? I’m not an expert by any means and only read as much as I can about topics that interest me and try to read many opinions so I can form my own. Hopefully the death of bin Laden will cripple the global al Qaeda organization, but if there is one thing I have learned in my reading, Islamism is a hydra. If you cut off one head, there are only going to be many more to come forward and replace it. The same goes with any form of extremism. Military action isn’t going to solve the problem at all, however; it’s going to take a combination of efforts on all possible fronts to combat extremism.

To sum it up: I’m not overjoyed he’s dead, I’m not sad - I’m content.