Monday, May 2, 2011

OBL is dead - Now what?

Osama Bin Laden is dead.  He is dead by the hands of the US military.  Good riddance.  However, now that he is dead, we have the luxury to look at the moral implications of our actions.  We assassinated him.  We used the power of our military might to seek out and destroy one man.  And other than a sense of retribution, what did it accomplish?  Isn’t Al Qaeda still strong and operating?  Terrorism is still prevalent.  The threat level is still orange. 

Even as I relish in the idea that we finally got him, I have a doubt that this alone was the right thing to do.  And it wouldn’t have mattered who was in the oval office when it happened, so this is not a slam against President Obama, but a call to arms to finish the job.  Peace is not the absence of war, but the lack of threat.  There will be peace one day, but we still need to strive towards that goal without losing ourselves in the mix.  Osama Bin Laden is dead.  May God have mercy on his soul.