OH HAPPY DAY

Notes of Concern…
…JackBlair

Oh Happy Day


It came as a surprise, the feeling of joy and relief, when I heard the announcement of the death of Osama bin Laden.

Readers who think it is somehow unseemly to find joy in the death of any human being should turn to the Sport Section of the paper immediately. You are not going to enjoy this column.

I consider myself a man of faith. I am also a student of history.

Most religions contain some sort of horrendous punishment for sinners. The concept of something like “hell” is found in one form or another. An unrepentant sinner has an eternity of burning ahead, for instance.

So if I receive a feeling of joy when learning that an unrepentant sinner, a horrible human being, a person who walked this earth with a smirk on his face after murdering three thousand innocents (and who knows how many more murders committed on days other than “9-11”) ---don’t even try to make me feel a sense of guilt. I feel none.

Trained United States citizens in a “black ops” situation tapped old Osama twice, once in the head and once in the body, when they surprised him in his lair.

Standard operating procedure.

They did exactly what they were trained to do.

It appears it was quick, efficient and clean. He did not suffer. For me, a little suffering would have been OK , but it is what it is.

Compare that scenario with the one that had people frantically making their last calls to loved ones as nut cases flew their plane into the World Trade Tower, or the Pentagon, or a field in Pennsylvania.

How about the feelings of the folks above the “hit mark” on the World Trade Towers who were burning, inhaling smoke, and choosing between jumping many stories to their death or just sitting by waiting for the fire.

Oh, I should also make mention of the fact that none of these thousands of people was armed. They were not offered the opportunity to surrender.

None of these thousands went to work planning on committing murder. None of these thousands expected 72 virgins awaiting them when they got to heaven. Nope. They just expected to take a long commute home, reunite with their wives, husbands, mothers, fathers, children and other loved ones, and turn around the next day and do it all over again.

There were no “next days” for them!

A decade ago our president said we would answer the horrific acts of “9-11” at a time and place of our choosing.

A decade later another of our presidents had the great honor of actually selecting that time and place and delivering that response.

During the intervening decade both those presidents and countless other officials worked every day to bring that madman the verdict of the American people.

We have no allies really in this war on terror.

We stand alone my friends.

International law and custom suggest we should have advised the Pakistani government that we wished to overfly their country. Osama bin Laden, unarmed and essentially unguarded, expected we would do just that.

And if we had, our friends in Pakistan would have let him know and he would have been quickly off to a new hideaway.

And we gave the government of Pakistan billions of American dollars in the last years.

“Everyone is looking out for himself.”

True. Sad but true.

“Every dog has his day.”

True. And pleasantly so.

Fellow Americans, revenge is best served up cold.

And today Osama is not cavorting with 72 virgins.

He is swimming with the fishes.