Na na na na, hey hey hey goood bye

As the news was coming across last night I began to grow increasingly uncomfortable with the idea of cheering and jubilation over the death of another human being. It just didn’t sit well despite the evil of the man and the number of people worldwide who were killed because of him.

Then as the night progressed, and pictures of various demonstrations started coming in, I discovered a different perspective. What I saw were Americans smiling, laughing, happy, waving American flags, placing signs and memorials at Ground Zero, at the spot where the fourth plane went down in Pennsylvania and in Times Square and other places across the nation. There was sheer joy in the air.

My thoughts went to photographs of other demonstrations I had seen over the years, the ones in foreign countries where people were displaying hatred for the United States, dating all the way back to the 50s to the first one I could remember which was Richard Nixon’s motorcade under attack somewhere in South America, What was different in ours yesterday was nothing was thrown, no flags were burned, no effigies hung, just an expression of pure joy. And, I found myself hoping the people in the countries where those other demonstrations took place could see that same message. Hey, we don’t hate you, we don’t hate your country, we got our man and that’s that. Justice served. As our editorial writer wrote today, we didn’t start the war, he did and now he is a casualty of his own war.

Finally the word I came up with to put on it was satisfaction. I felt satisfied in the way good old American western justice was served. The bad guy got his; it’s over, let’s see what we can work out now without the gunfire.

The cowboy justice was carried out in a way we can appreciate too. How many times have we seen an impossible covert mission like this in the movies and on TV. Only this time those were real bullets flying around. Even so, mission accomplished with no friendly casualties.

So, my word was satisfied. Other words I heard were closure and revenge and a few others. Revenge isn’t going to bring his victims back and as for closure, well perhaps the survivors will feel as I do that justice was served but that isn’t going to bring their loved ones back either.

And sadly this isn’t over. There are 10-year-old kids being trained right now to hate us and to carry on the man’s holy war. We can be aware of that and prepare for it and do what we can to stop it but that has to be a continuing operation,

For now it’s time for a moment of satisfaction. Eight years after it was declared prematurely: Mission Accomplished.

ADDENDUM: One interesting aspect of the action was a couple of fellows near the compound actually tweeted the whole attack without realizing what it was about. This is a link to one of the Twitter feeds.