Tonight, I can report to the American people and to the world that the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al Qaeda and a terrorist who's responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent men, women and children.
- President Barack Obama, 05/01/11
We've lost something of our soul here in this country...something that separates us from other parts, other countries where we say everybody has their day in court no matter how bad of a person, no matter what piece of scum they are, they have a right to a trial
- Filmmaker Michael Moore on CNN 05/05/11
I feel a quiet satisfaction that Osama Bin Laden is dead.
I am not troubled that he didn’t have a gun in his hand when he was shot by Navy Seals. I am glad he did not cost another human life. He was a man who earned his fate.
When news of his death was announced, crowds spontaneously gathered at the White House and cheered. From the footage shown on CNN and MSNBC, many in the crowd were college students who would have been anywhere between 8 and 12 years old when Mohammed Atta and his crews committed the quadruple atrocities of 9-11. They are too young to really remember what the country was like before then.
At Ground Zero, the celebrations appeared to have less of a frat party feel. People who lost loved ones were there along with Police and Firefighters remembering those who ran in the buildings only to die with the ones they were trying to save.
Now that Osama Bin Laden has died, we no longer appear to be tied down by the terrorist from Lilliput. His freedom can no longer mock the burned wall of the Pentagon, the hole in the ground in Shanksville or the empty space in the New York sky-line.
As an outsider in New York I am struck by how close 9-11 is to the surface here. I can’t presume to share the city’s trauma. I experienced 9-11 as an American, which is different than experiencing it as a New Yorker.
Sometimes New Yorkers will tell you their story, unasked, out of the blue.
In 2006 I was standing with a client on the roof of his office building, looking back over the Brooklyn Bridge towards the New York skyline. Suddenly my companion got very quiet, and told me how he stood on that spot and watched the towers collapse.
People were already coming across the bridge past his building, where a nursing school was located. The students and teachers gathered all the supplies they could, walked out of classes, and set up triage and first aid centers at card tables on the sidewalk. They helped people - many of them white with dust - all day.
Michael Moore said killing Osama Bin Laden cost us a part of our soul.
I disagree.
We lost that part of our soul soon after 9-11.
Before 9-11, Americans prided themselves that we were different from the rest of the world. We stood for individual freedom against the power of the government. We didn’t torture our prisoners, we didn’t spy on our citizens. While not perfect, we strove to push back government’s powerful hand.
That changed the moment the first plane struck.
We willing gave up or freedoms and handed the government, unprecedented, open ended power to abridge our rights. In the past when our government reached into our lives at this level it was for a finite period of time - until the end of the southern rebellion, or the war in the Pacific.
Not this time. The Patriot act gets renewed with few modifications, expanding the power of the government to protect the homeland in an open ended, unending war on terror.
After 9-11, we became a country that openly debated the merits of different techniques of torture. I guess that’s what now sets us apart from the rest of the world. We debate torture as we do it. The rest of the world just does it.
Now we are a country where we spy on our citizens for no reason. Several years ago it was revealed that the US government was eaves dropping on all overseas calls. Despite the outrage there is no clear word that this practice has stopped.
We didn’t loose part of our soul when we killed Osama Bin Laden. We lost a part of our soul when we changed from a country where citizens put limits on their government to a country where government puts limits on its citizens.
When we quietly comply with this change we carry the white dust of the towers on us where ever we go.
