Yesterday, it was revealed that Osama Bin Laden had been killed in a mansion in Pakistan.
Sitting on a train headed to San Diego, I almost leapt to my feet to announce the news… but alas, I was unable to look up from my Al-Jazeera live stream.
I am proud of the United States, and our collective power to pursue and ensure the protection of our people. Last night, I immediately thought: ‘Joseph Kony, you’re next.’ A secular society’s right and imperative to protect its people with lethal force as a last resort is something I believe in. Going to Law School solidified this. And an evolving global identity is expanding the central nervous system of ‘civillian safety’ to marginalized individuals (children, women, ethnic groups) outside of our national boundaries. But it was moving, humbling, profound, and strange to see mobs of people take to the streets at the news that a man and his family have been killed. I get it: he is an anti-social monster, the very personification of what cannot be tolerated by a global society. His death, I believe, was necessary. And I applaud the strategic efforts of the United States military and intelligence community for pulling off this long over-due and much anticipated mission.
But it does make me think… about the LRA and justice and peace and celebration.
And I hope beyond hoping that one day, we will hear the news of a man named Joseph Kony being captured and delivered to The Hague. I hope we will rejoice at his capture, and watch with bated breath as he is tried and sentenced by the ICC. But if he is killed, I hope we, the community of Invisible Children, will sigh in relief at the end of his tenure as a demi-god of terror, and mourn the perversion of a human soul and the tragedy of his crooked life. When we respect life, even the lives of evil men, we withhold the seeds of future evil planted in the children of perversion.
I must also remember that I am called to grapple with such moral labyrinths. I believe we must seek justice and serve our fellow man. And for a secular society, justice is not suicidal self-sacrifice in the face of evil. That may be ideal in the moral rafters of the spiritual life, as it should be, but such loftiness cannot be and should not be expected of a diverse republic. Nor expected by the international community of ideologies. It is the necessary and restrained use of force in the face of imminent danger that establishes the rule of law. (and also guarantees the free exercise of faith)
And I also believe there is an important difference between chanting ‘USA! USA!’ at the death of one mass-murderer… and the burning of American flags and celebration at the death of innocent people on 9/11.
When Kony is removed, I will toast to peace. I will celebrate the triumph of justice. I will most definitely high-five this hoodwink team of culture shapers that have pursued him together. But I hope that somewhere in the celebration, I will pause for the tragedy of the existence of super-villians, and the slow response that stopped him.
All that said, Joseph Kony is still at large, and he continues to murder. With him, we have the opportunity to chase justice with resolve and see another victory worthy of celebration down the road. A moving, human, and conflicted celebration.
Here’s an article I read at Salon.com about this whole thing that got me thinking. Remember, these are my views. I encourage you to tell me yours. – JJ
USA! USA! Is The Wrong Response:
There is ample reason to feel relief that Osama bin Laden is no longer a threat to the world, and I say that not just because I was among the many congressional staffers told to flee the U.S. Capitol on 9/11. I say that because he was clearly an evil person who celebrated violence against all who he deemed “enemies” — and the world needs less of such zealotry, not more.
However, somber relief was not the dominant emotion presented to America when bin Laden’s death was announced. Instead, the Washington press corps — helped by a wild-eyed throng outside the White House — insisted that unbridled euphoria is the appropriate response. And in this we see bin Laden’s more enduring victory — a victory that will unfortunately last far beyond his passing.
For decades, we have held in contempt those who actively celebrate death. When we’ve seen video footage of foreigners cheering terrorist attacks against America, we have ignored their insistence that they are celebrating merely because we have occupied their nations and killed their people. Instead, we have been rightly disgusted — not only because they are lauding the death of our innocents, but because, more fundamentally, they are celebrating death itself. That latter part had been anathema to a nation built on the presumption that life is an “unalienable right.”
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.
