Well, 10 years after 9/11 we have finally caught up with Osama bin Laden. I’m glad. He was a fugitive from justice and I’m glad we no longer need to look for him. Is it a victory against terrorism? In my opinion, not really.
As humans, and particularly as Americans, we like to put a nice clear face on things. We had made bin Laden our face of terrorism. We plastered his face on the news and said, “This is the guy!” This is our enemy! We offered rewards for his capture and spent billions of dollars looking for him. Now he is dead. Terrorism, I assure you, is alive and well. We must have captured or killed the number 2 Al-Qaida leader five or six times in the last 10 years. There is always another. There is always another number 1. We will never solve the problem of terrorism by killing its perpetrators.
The solutions for ridding the world of terrorism are as varied as the groups that carry it out. It is an ongoing problem. It has existed since the beginning of time. The most important thing we can do help ensure that people are educated. People need something to live for. When your life sucks, and it sucks every day, you will put a nice clear face on your suffering. You will decide, or be convinced, that it’s all because of the United States (or Israel, or England, or Spain). We should be figuring out how to make peoples’ lives suck less. Then they won’t need to put our faces on their problems.
We have succeeded in eliminating a useless old man living in his retirement home. Not that it is not a good thing.
ReplyDeleteYou are absolutely right in that there is always a Number One. Now we will wait till we hear that name and begin hating him. . .or her.