May 1st, 2011.

It was a remarkable day for a few reasons, a couple just mine, another for the whole world. When I was originally composing this post in my head yesterday it was much more lighthearted than the one that ended up here today, but thats ok.

I checked my Twitter around 10pm last night and its blowing up with PotUS is have a press conference at 10:30pm. My first thought - Fuck. This cant be good. So we wrapped up watching the Simpsons and flipped to CNN to see what was going on.

Aside: the talking heads on the news channels are sooooo fucking annoying. Obama didnt speak for about an hour after he was supposed to and for a portion of that hour of waiting I listened to every jackass on staff at CNN go from saying "we will not speculate" to "Osama is dead". Why is it so fucking difficult to shut the fuck up and let the President tell us what he has to? After about 20 minutes I turned off the audio & waited to turn it back on when the President started to speak. They all kept saying the exact same fucking thing over and over and over again. I dont know how people watch these jackasses all day every day. I would jump off a bridge.

So the end story - Osama Bin Laden was found and killed. Yes. This is tremendous news. We've hunted him so long there was definitely relief in my heart. I vividly remember 9/11. Who doesnt? It was terrifying to see that kind of destruction on our own soil and that overall sense of "holy shit we arent invincible and someone actually brought this to our front door". It felt like our worlds were collectively flipped upside down. I was insulted and offended to see them celebrating in the streets in the Middle East. I didnt then and dont now understand their hatred. I cant even imagine hating anyone so much that I would celebrate destroying that many lives and striking fear into the hearts of so many.

And I never would. I'm not wired the same way they are. I place a value on all life, I dont have the same kind of twisted faith that makes them think what they did was justified, I dont think that killing thousands solves anything ~ it just breeds more hate. I was disgusted with them, but at the same time pitied them. I would never understand the hate that motivated them to fly planes into our buildings and dance in the streets at our misery ~ and I'm ok with that. I dont ever WANT to understand that kind of hate & pity them because that encompasses their entire existence. 

I drew strength from the fact that we drew together and helped each other piece it all back together. I felt safer knowing that no matter what else happened we would stick together and fight for what we believed in. I felt stronger knowing that you may knock us down, but we will get back up.

Obama told us all last night that he paid. The man that led the AlQaeda to level that crippling blow to our nation was found and killed. I am proud of the men & women who fight for us, those who went in to get him and all the people that were involved in finding him. He deserved whatever he got and I am proud that we got to deliver it to him.

Then I start to watch our nation react. People take to the street, dancing, singing, hollering and waving flags. Chants of USA USA USA everywhere. Couches are being lit on fire at WVU, the Penn State campus erupted, outside the White House there is an atmosphere like New Years Eve. I shook my head. After all that we have been through all we learned was to hate the way they do? That wasnt the message I took away from 9/11. This felt like the celebration of our revenge. The death of one man makes up for the thousands we've lost in the last decade to this war?

One man. One man of thousands that still hate us to the core. He was a symbol of the terror we felt, he was a person to blame, he was the embodiment of all of the fear we have felt for the past decade.

But he was still only one man. One SYMBOL.

I was as ashamed of people celebrating his death as much as I was of them celebrating the destruction of the WTC. Death and war are not things to celebrate. His death doesnt mean we can walk away from the shit storm we have spearheaded in the Middle East. This is not a war we are ever going to win and we sure as hell didnt win it by killing Osama Bin Laden. There will be another extremist taking his place at the head of Al Qaeda. We killed a symptom, not the disease and I am not so naive to think that this is even the beginning of the end in that part of the world.

I guess I had hoped that we learned something from our brash confidence pre 9/11. That we learned how valuable our freedom is because of how quickly that value was shook to its core one day ten years ago. I had hoped that we learned that hate is never the answer. I dont think we did.