Ding Dong

So Osama Bin Laden is dead. President Obama announced it on Sunday and ever since then, the world has been reacting.

People will tell you how to feel.

You can already buy memorabilia.

Even the Vatican is sharing it's opinion:
"(Reuters) - Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden will have to answer to God for having killed many people and exploiting religion to spread hate, the Vatican said on Monday.

The Vatican has often condemned the concept of violence in God's name."

(which I thought was amusing considering the years of about 100 A.D. to about 1600 A.D. )

I've had various people tell me they had the Wizard of Oz song stuck in their head all day...myself included...Ding Dong the Witch is Dead!

But the thing I find most amusing are peoples interpretations on the event.

There's the Onion's opinion: "BREAKING: Violent Death Of Human Being Terrific News For Once http://onion.com/k1kJam"

Apparently his death is good and also not really effective at the same time for 'the market'.

3 people I follow on Twitter quoted Mark Twain:
I've never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure - Mark Twain

And of course we have to compare him to Hitler. Though it's actually a cool happenstance! Both Hitler and Osama were proclaimed dead to the world on May 1st. (Article here)

So what is my opinion? I thought I'd share something from my journal.

"My sincere reaction is that I am glad that a man so willing to kill so many innocents deserves his death. He could do nothing for this world but continue to bring irreparable damage to families and loved ones if he continued in his ways. However, I am reminded that God loves him. He is a son of God. And any pain caused on him from his sins, Christ too Atoned for. However, he also Atoned for all the pain that Osama himself caused upon so many of God’s other children . And may God be his judge. "

So has justice been served? Did Osama get Jimmered? The world is also horribly humorous about it all...which I believe shows a measure of insensitivity. This is about a man being stopped from killing more people. He hasn't stopped trying to kill civilians since September 11th. Yes, lots of other innocent civilians have died during the U.S. war on terrorism...does that compensate for our victory? We can only assume that the U.S. would stop creating casualties of war when terrorists stop attacking us. And that is a completely different goal than a terrorists'.

I'm glad so many people in the journalist world still have a moral compass...I'm glad they still ask these hard questions of 'Should we be rejoiced over revenge?' that I didn't want to ask because I was so happy someone had been brought to what I considered justice.