What is your reaction to the death of Osama bin Laden?

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I just heard the news less than an hour ago, and am still struggling to figure out what to think. He was a bad person, and as the mastermind behind 9/11 his organization needed to be fought. This is something that I believe. Still, there are some facts that I am having trouble reconciling:

A person was shot in the head, and people throughout the United States are chanting USA repeatedly. At the Phillies game, everyone was celebrating as if the Phillies had won the world series (the comment of a fan attending the game, NOT my oppinion BTW).

As an American I remember waking up on 9/11 and being in a state of shock throughout the day. Although I am usually anti war, I clearly recognized that I could NOT justify the avoidance of initiating a military response of some kind to these events. Right now I sort of wish that bin Laden had died of natural causes, i.e. something like cancer for example instead of being shot. He is our generations Hitler. And like Hitler, bin Laden needed to be killed. I just feel uncomfortable with the idea that anyone is celebrating the fact that a human being was shot to death.

I am simultaneously a liberal, a Christian (although I struggle with this A LOT), and an Autistic. I don’t know how these three aspects of myself interact to form my reaction to these events. Any comments?

It doesn't directly effect my life at the moment. But as far as I'm concerned, he fired four jet-sized bullets first. He got what he had coming to him.

And hey, I have been saying for weeks that once Kate and William got married good things would start to happen. This is one of them.

I am sad that death is such a part of what we are as humans. I cannot rejoice in war, no matter how just the apparent cause. Bin Laden's end was consistent with his choices.

He caused so much death, even among his followers. It had to end. A bullet to the head wouldn't have caused much suffering to a person who caused so much. I agree that the cheering and chanting is rather over the top and makes me uncomfortable too, but it doesn't surprise me. People even celebrated when Ted Kennedy died.

Don't believe it as of yet b/c I've seen no evidence of a body.

I'm glad the bastard is dead.
He got what he had coming to him.

A last someone had the brains to get rid of him. But hey there are still too many terrorists out there that may be as bad as him or even more.

He got what he deserved. I just hope this accelerates the end of all of the pointless wars.

This was my immediate reaction:

"Does anybody else . . .anybody at all . . . realize that this has little to no impact? That Bin Laden has spent most of the last decade in hiding and has had very little to do with actually running terrorist operations? That his death is the death of a man who served as a conceptual head, and so loses no power in his dying? Anyway, I hate to comment, but you are all excited over nothing."

It is still my reaction.

I'm also anti-war.

I think some people are ridiculously emotional about this. Calling him our generation's Hitler is about six kinds of inaccurate. Hitler was clearly far more destructive and evil, and that is quantitative.

I will say it is good that he is no longer alive.

"Other"

While justice was served, I'm a bit disappointed that there will be no trial. But it was sweet justice, nontheless.

His body was dumped at sea, where there will be no shrines built over his body, and where fish and other creatures will consume his remains.

It's not about what kind of impact it had. It's about justice hunting him down for what he did.

A killer might not kill again, but that doesn't mean that he shouldn't get punished.

I was sad/horrified. I don't like to think of another human suffering even for a second, no matter what he did previously. I don't like it when humans think they have the right to kill another human. Even if that other human did the same earlier. Obviously it would be chaos if people didn't "keep each other in check" but I still don't like it.

By the way proxybear - being "glad the bastard is dead" isn't very Sufjan-y of you!

I think it's a shame that he wasn't captured and had a fair trial (after all the outcome would have been GUILTY) because to kill someone because they killed someone else (I know I am downplaying what BL did of course) seems like asking for war from the remaining terrorists. Unfortunately, terrorists are immature and have only one goal. To cause as much suffering as possible. Now they have even more 'reason' in their twisted minds to want to harm Americans. That's not a good thing. It's going to turn into a sick game of 'I kill one of you, you kill one of us, I kill another of you so you kill another of us.' When is it going to end?

Also I was quite disgusted that people are celebrating someone's death, regardless of who they were. It's really not very good.

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I have HFA, ADHD, OCD & Tourette syndrome. I love animals, especially my bunnies and hamster. I skate in a roller derby team (but I'll try not to bite )

indifferent.

it won't change a bit. terrorism etc will continue as always.

all the hype people give it right now is all they need to get even more traction and even more nut-cases want to revenge his death.

if everybody was indifferent about him and his ideas, al-qaeda was insignificant and only a mere plague... like flies and mosquitos.