My Reflections on the Death of Osama bin Laden

Warning: This is not a theologically or politically scrupulous reflection.  

Recently, retired FDNY firefighter Tim Brown, interviewed on Fox News, said that he had mixed emotions when he heard the news that Osama bin Laden was dead.

“One minute you want to jump up and cheer,” Brown said. “And then you remember what happened that day, and what was lost, and you want to cry,” he added.

Most of us don’t have Tim Brown’s close personal experience of 9/11, or the magnitude of experience. (He was in the World Trade Center just before it collapsed, and he lost 343 brother FDNY Firefighters, along with 37 Port Authority Police Officersand 23 NYPD Police Officers.) But somehow, even if we didn’t lose a family member or close friend, many of us still say that September 11, 2001 changed our lives. We took it very personally. I was at the Rayburn House Office Building that morning, when United Airlines Flight 93 was headed to Capitol Hill. I took it very personally. And I took the death of the brave Americans on that flight who overpowered the terrorists and diverted the plane very personally, as well.

Like Brown, I had mixed emotions when I heard (you can actually read on Facebook) the news that Bin Laden had been killed. I, too, wanted to jump and cheer. And I confess that in the privacy of my computer room I did pump my fist in an unrestrained manner, through my tears.  And I cried, both in sorrow for all that we lost on that sunny September day and in the days since then in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in pride over what our amazing U.S. military and intelligence services had accomplished while the rest of us were going about our daily lives. I thought of the words of President George W. Bush at a December 2001 memorial service for the NYPD Police Officers who died, “We remember how we felt that day – our sadness, the surge of love for our country, our anger, and our determination to right this huge wrong.”

Now a huge wrong had been righted. Some, rather than focusing on righting of this wrong, and the relief that the head of Al Qaeda was dead, the head of the snake had been cut off, were aghast at the announcement by the team that got bin Laden. Reportedly, the ground commander had declared, “For God and Country. Geronimo, Geronimo, Geronimo.” Oh no! One Huffington Post commentator huffed that this was “politically incorrect on so many levels.”  

Personally, I liked it. I’m glad he said “For God and Country,” considering how many innocent civilians as well as troops have been slaughtered in the name of “Allah.” And as an Irish American I can say that I would be proud if they had decided to use name “Seamus” rather than Geronimo. But the U.S. Army’s Parachute Battalion has a long and noble tradition with the name “Geronimo” that goes back to the first Army parachute jumpers of World War II. Twenty-four year-old Private Aubrey Eberhardt, chose to shout “Geronimo” at his first parachute jump, to indicate to his fellow soldiers at Fort Benning that he was not afraid. He had just been to see the film Geronimo and was inspired by the bravery of the Indian chief. Eventually, the name became the motto for the U.S. Army Airborne Division’s 501^st and 509^th Parachute Infantry Battalions.

Apart from all the other thoughts have been running through my mind following the death of Osama bin Laden, two things stand out to me. First, the pictures taken inside his “mansion” in Abbottabad, Pakistan truly drive home what criminologists and theologians call the “mundaneness of evil.” One ABC News photo shows petroleum jelly, eye drops, antiseptic, and nasal spray. Vodkapundit blogger Stephen Green displays another photo and comments “To those jihadis who might believe that in death, bin Laden’s power is somehow magnified, you should know that your leader seems to have spent the last six years sleeping on the same model of crappy waterbed that I bought used for $25 back in 1990.

Second, I hope and pray that one of the good things that might come out of bin Laden’s death will be the information that was found in the compound. We have heard numerous reports, some not too wise perhaps, of the “treasure trove” of information – laptops, thumb drives, journals, etc. – found in the bin Laden compound. My prayer is that there is information that shows beyond a shadow of a doubt, the terrorist leader’s ongoing connection to the Sudanese government. We may never know if anything has been found, but it would be helpful even if the regime in Khartoum fears that this is the case. The U.S. government should be able to no longer feel as if they have no leverage over the misbehavior of the Islamic regime. They should use this threat to the advantage of Sudan’s marginalized and oppressed people groups and to the newly independent South Sudan, whose status as a nation will be official in July.

We know of course that this one evil man’s death does not bring about the end of our battle to stop the spread of jihad terrorism (for those of us who are willing to identify it as such). And, as Tim Brown expressed so poignantly in his interview, this one evil man’s death does not bring back those who were killed and/or bring true comfort to their families and other loved ones. Some are confused or angered by the refusal to release the death photos of Osama bin Laden, and by the report of bin Laden’s Islamic funeral service – especially when we reflect on the mutilation and burning of the bodies of American soldiers and civilians at the hands of the Islamists. But nevertheless, the death of Osama bin Laden symbolizes America’s determination to retain its liberty, and to bring to justice those who try to destroy us as a free people.