Admittedly, I haven’t been reading all of the punditry so there may be something far worse out there, but I think David Sirota at Salon certainly opens the bidding for ahistorical b.s. nicely. He writes that the war on terror changed America into a more cruel and bloodthirsty country. Or something. An excerpt:
But in the years since 9/11, we have begun vaguely mimicking those we say we despise, sometimes celebrating bloodshed against those we see as Bad Guys just as vigorously as our enemies celebrate bloodshed against innocent Americans they (wrongly) deem as Bad Guys. Indeed, an America that once carefully refrained from flaunting gruesome pictures of our victims for fear of engaging in ugly death euphoria now ogles pictures of Uday and Qusay’s corpses, rejoices over images of Saddam Hussein’s hanging and throws a party at news that bin Laden was shot in the head.
This is bin Laden’s lamentable victory — he has changed America’s psyche from one that saw violence as a regrettable-if-sometimes-necessary act into one that finds orgasmic euphoria in news of bloodshed. In other words, he’s helped drag us down into his sick nihilism by making us like too many other bellicose societies in history — the ones that aggressively cheer on killing, as long as it is the Bad Guy that is being killed.
Again, this isn’t in any way to equate Americans who cheer on bin Laden’s death with, say, those who cheered after 9/11. Bin Laden was a mass murderer who had punishment coming to him, while the 9/11 victims were innocent civilians whose deaths are an unspeakable tragedy. Likewise, this isn’t to say hat we should feel nothing at bin Laden’s neutralization, or that the announcement last night isn’t cause for any positive feeling at all — it most certainly is.
But it is to say that our reaction to the news last night should be the kind often exhibited by victims’ families at a perpetrator’s lethal injection — a reaction typically marked by both muted relief but also by sadness over the fact that the perpetrators’ innocent victims are gone forever, the fact that the perpetrator’s death cannot change the past, and the fact that our world continues to produce such monstrous perpetrators in the first place.
When we lose the sadness part — when all we do is happily scream “USA! USA! USA!” at news of yet more killing in a now unending back-and-forth war — it’s a sign we may be inadvertently letting the monsters win.
Perhaps Sirota can give me a date when this nobler, better America existed? When were we the kind of country that quietly mused on the futility of violence in the immediate aftermath of a huge success in a war? Did we contemplate somberly the death of Hitler? It seems to me that we have always been the sort of country that celebrates victories and comeuppances of this kind. That doesn’t make us like al-Qaeda or Hamas, that makes us human.
If anything, what’s different today is that we live in a country which produces more and more people like Sirota who see the killing — in battle! — of an implacable foe and murderer as a time for quiet reflection and sadness. If Sirota cannot see the difference between the myriad Islamic death cults we are at war with and our own society, it is not because there isn’t one. It is because he suffers from a nihilism all his own.
I cannot believe this piece was written by THE David Sirota?!
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhat a birdbrain. Has he EVER read any history?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThank goodness this twit wasn't present when we hung Lincoln's murderers.
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Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI seem to recall reading about some celebrations after it was announced that the Japanes general who masterminded the attack on Pearl Harbor was shot down and killed over the Pacific.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseNY nitwit Gary Ackerman is certainly a nominee in this category.
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Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseReally? Really?
No-one here thought that the people at the White House cheering was similar to the cheering for the terrorists?
Someone has died. I would have though NRO, of all places, with the reverent KLo would remember God's dressing down of Miriam after the Egyptian army drowned in the Red Sea.
What I learned about VE day and VJ day was that people were cheering because the war was over, not because millions had died.
I did not cheer Bin Laden's death. I don't cheer the execution of even the most depraved. I do understand that it has to be, but I am sad that events came to pass to make the death necessary.
We do not celebrate the bombing of Hiroshima or Nagasaki. We do not celebrate the firebombing of Dresden. We do not cheer the sacking of Atlanta. We cheer victory and the end of a conflict. That is the American way.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abusehehehe...
Mr. Goldberg, today I had to consider what Democratic Partisans would be saying if GW Bush or another Republican was President. It would be obviously dreadful. They certainly would not be saying the Republican deserves reelection today, after the elimination of Osama Bin Laden. Democrats would be doing all they can to diminish the successful elimination of Osama, if a Republican were President.
And in reality, the accomplishment is not possible without the Bush Administration, period. Obama gets credit for not being able to end the Bush Team and Policies fighting the GWOT. Obama is lucky he did not follow his own political rhetoric which preached a "no meddling" doctrine and condemned Unilateral Military Action - especially on foreign soil with sovereign Nations. We were told we cannot grasp cultural differences and these Terrorists should be given the rights of a US Citizen and access to US Civilian Courts.
Now, this will be cheered as Obama's only positive, and he really had little to do with it. It reminds one of those who try to give credit to the Clintons for Welfare Reform, one big contradiction in terms.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI can see where he's coming from. A man's death is not something that should be celebrated for its own sake, and I don't think that this victory means we are anywhere near the end of this war, so that doesn't really warrant a celebration either.
That said, it seems to me that the proper response to this is not sadness, but professionalism. A job needed to be done, it was done, it was done well, congrats, now let's move on. Part of why the celebration bugs me is because it doesn't seem that any of this is really worth dwelling on. I mean, sure it's good, but great? Not likely (though I suppose time will tell), and it's going a fair way to distracting us from the fact that we're still at war (something too easily forgotten in any case).
Regardless, this kind of celebration certainly is't a change from the usual, and doesn't make us any more like the terrorists than all people everywhere are.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAll of the deeply religious people in my life--and most of them are quite conservative--have responded to the news with a time of reflection and sadness.
I've realized that how people react to this new is one of the best indicators of the sincerity of a person's faith I have ever seen.
The book of Matthew does clearly say we should not celebrate at our enemy's death, and that God does not take pleasure in the death of the wicked.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWe did not cheer the gruesome events of bombing major cities in WWII. We /did/ cheer killing the /leaders/ who made such gruesome events necessary.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseTo all those who criticize celebrating the death of Bin Laden on moral and religious grounds, you are entitled to your own beliefs, but...
Come. Off. Of. It.
Seriously-- there was never going to be, there never WILL be, a V-E or V-J day in this war. It will never be "over" in the way we want it to be, there will be no victory parades, there will be no ticker tape. This event is all that we may ever have to at least approach that level of finality-- the "end of the beginning," so to speak.
While I am certain many are taking too much joy in the death of a fellow human being, the overwhelming majority of people celebrating last night would have celebrated JUST AS HARD had we captured Bin Laden alive-- of that I have no doubt.
To those of us not dizzy from our high horses, his death at the hands of the brave men who have sacrificed so much defending us all of these years is a cause for celebration, not self-important navel-gazing from "Christians" ignorant of their Augustine & Aquinas. This was a Just victory in a Just war.
It's *morally obscene* to compare this to celebrating Hiroshima-- this is celebrating Midway.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseOddhan,
Can you point to historical references where Americans cheered when:
1. King George died?
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse2. When Jefferson Davis, Stonewall Jackson, or Robert E. Lee died? (or for that matter, when Lincoln was assassinated).
3. When Kaiser Wilhelm died?
4. When Hitler, Goering, Goebbels, Himmler, or Eichman died?
5. When Mao, Lenin, or Stalin died?
The US isn't as different from the Islamists as you and I would like, Jonah. Like them, we want to control the world.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWould sitting back and having a Sam Adams qualify as blood thirsty cheering? :)
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse1. "The Dumbest Reaction To Bin Laden’s Death So Far"
You ain't seen nuthin' yet. Wait till academia weighs in.
2. That said, I did not feel ebullient at the news. A particularly nasty specimen of an infestation of virulent vermin has been eliminated. I salute the skill and perseverance of all those responsible and especially the courage of those at the tip of the spear.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAllajn: With the exception of Hitler, we weren't at war with any of those people when they died.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuseannomirabilis: The US wants to control the world?
That must explain why after conquering countries, we keep turning them back over to their own people to run.
You know, you liberals have a long history of saying really stupid things, but why do you keep trying to top your previous idiocies?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSorry, I am with Allajn and Dragon Hamster on this one. Yes, justice was done, but I take no pleasure in the death of any human being. I think there is something sick about all the celebrations taking place. It doesn't speak well of us or our culture. And it's certainly not Christian behavior.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI can't believe I'm defending this Sirota guy vs Jonah, but I mostly agree with his sentiment, though not in all his particulars. Pride, mixed with sober reflection seems to me the reaction we should expect and encourage from our countrymen. Of course, the kids in those crowds were not elected president of the United States. His disgusting, hubristic announcement with the emphasis on the "I" word was a symptom of how low class our man at the top is.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe FT has a similar complaint about "frat party behavior" by John Gapper. I thought they had better sense.
Whatever. For ten years the country has strained every nerve to find this mentor of murderers and want-to-be tyrant. His departure is a real improvement to any hope of peace. I think we can depend on our humanity enough to enjoy a moment of satisfaction at a moment's advance of justice.
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