Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Arises from the dead to be assassinated


Let me say right off the bat that I have no sympathy for Osama Bin Laden. It doesn't break my heart that he's met his (un)timely demise. However, I must confess that I find it a little unnerving the amount of celebration and rah-rah American-ness that has been taking place since the news rocked this country that our arch-nemesis has been slain, not by drones in the sky, or the Pakistani intelligence, but instead by our own elite Navy SEALs.
Sure, I will freely admit that I think it's good for our national consciousness to have this terrorist eliminated. We've been dragging around this heavy weight for the last ten years; pushing the search for Bin Laden to the back of our minds, and trying the forget that he was the reason we removed the Taliban, bombed and killed hundreds, if not thousands, of civilians in Afghanistan, and somehow tried to legitimize our attack and occupation of Iraq because of either the ties to Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, or because we were worried that Saddam Hussein was going to become another terrorist (I could never exactly figure out their excuse - I don't think I'm alone on this one). Now, at last, the dark cloud has parted, and we can finally say - as a country - that we killed the man responsible for the attacks on the World Trade Center. It is sort of a national catharsis that I think we're in desperate need of, and I think it actually might have an amazing effect on our economy, the salty political discourse, as well as our foreign policy.
Now don't let my hopeful words above in any way legitimize the United States' actions over the past ten years. We've been the opposite of rational and virtuous at nearly every turn, and the assassination of a terrorist mastermind doesn't exactly negate all of that. However, the fact that it happened under a new president with a new strategy, along with an amazing speech that emphasizes the fact that our country is not, and never was, at war with Islam, but that we can be (though the Tea Party, or many other intolerant people people would say otherwise) a nation that embraces diversity - diversity of religion, racial diversity, sexual diversity, gender diversity - and can be a place that the rest of the world will look at and wonder at how well our heterogeneous country, the most heterogeneous on the planet, work so well.
Sorry for the patriotic stuff, but I think our country has gotten a bad rap for the actions of a minority of greedy and ignorant people, who we had absolutely no control over (well, I guess the mid-term elections would say we do have control over them, but with a voting vote in the 40% range, it doesn't exactly speak well to democracy). I think that Obama, regardless of his action involvement in giving the go-ahead with this operation, has just secured his second term. I know it may be a little premature, and I don't want to jinx him in any way (I don't actually believe in jinx's, so it doesn't exactly matter), but I don't really see the Republican argument against a president who is working hard to drive the unemployment numbers down, the economy up, and just killed public enemy number one. The daze will wear off from Bin Laden's death, but short of a dramatic downward shift in the economy, or something unforseen (I guess that's always what has the effects, huh), I think we're looking at Obama/Clinton in 2012. Yes, I think Hillary Clinton will be Obama's running mate in 2012 - setting herself up for another run in 2016.

6 comments:

Christine H. said...

I'll give you a dollar if you're right about Obama/Clinton. I'd wager more, but that might be foolish.

Unknown said...

Might be foolish for me, or foolish for you? You know Hillary still wants to be president very badly, and you know that she's just beefing up her foreign policy credentials right now at State. So the next logical step is to become VP, and then it's on to becoming president. Also, look for her trying to connect more with the American people as VP, so as to soften her hard image, and let people see that she is an intelligent, hard-working, capable woman.

Crystal Marie said...

Wow! Obama/Clinton? What about poor Joe Biden!?!?

I never even considered it. Hmmmmm. The more I think about it though... the more I like it!

Unknown said...

Isn't it great. The Hillary/Obama primary in 2008 split Democrats into factions; neither being right or wrong, just support in different places.
So we can basically take that support and create one giant umbrella under which all Democrats can sit. I mean, let's be honest, does Joe Biden really bring anything super-substantial to the table?

Christine H. said...

And Biden didn't really add much to the ticket if you ask me.

Unknown said...

Or if you ask me. :)