Mission Accomplished... for real this time.

I need to take a moment to write about tonight's announcement that U.S. Navy Seals killed Osama Bin Laden.  I don't live in New York or D.C.  I don't know anyone personally that was a victim of 9/11.  I don't think I even know someone who knows someone that was a victim of 9/11.  I don't have any special insight, smarts or knowledge on the incident.  I just watched it on television like millions of other Americans, horrified and upset.

On 9/10, my family flew back from my grandfather's funeral in Indiana.  It seems crazy to me that we might have been flying back to California the day of the attacks.  Needless to say, that fight probably would have been cancelled.  But millions of people traveled on 9/10 and 9/11, doesn't make my story very special.  It's just where I was at the time.  Context.

It was summer break between junior and senior years in college.  I remember very clearly having to get up early the next day to drive my dad to the Honda mechanic.  Instead of going back to bed after dropping him off, I flipped on ESPN to watch Sportscenter.  Only, there was no Sportscenter.  Every single station had the CNN news feed or the ABC news feed of the Fox News feed.  I watched the television as the chaos unfolded live. 

I remember feeling a lot of pride when President Bush stood up on the debris and declared that "the people the knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon."  I remember thinking, this is who we want to go after the terrorists, a Texas cowboy who will give 'em hell.  I felt a lot of pride in seeing the NYPD and NYFD rush into falling towers without even thinking.  Obviously later we realized Bush was a tad inept.  But that's been reported on for years, we know the score there and I won't repeat it.  Maybe if he hadn't gotten side tracked in Iraq, history would have been written differently.  It's Obama's victory now.

In the weeks after 9/11 we found out that something called "Al Qaeda" and someone called "Osama Bin Laden" were responsible.  I was angry hearing this ideological maniac named Bin Laden say the attacks were a strike on America's military and economic icons (while denying his involvement).  Bullshit.  The buildings may have been icons, but the people inside them weren't.  The people that died that day were normal citizens.  Christians and Muslims alike.  Dads and moms and brothers and sisters that went to work that day, just trying to earn a living.  People that never got a proper burial because their remains were never found.  Most Americans are just trying to get by, they don't think on a daily basis, "Hey I've got to disseminate capitalist ideology today" or "I'm going to slap the rest of the world in the face by fornicating, gambling and partaking in intoxicants." 

No.  Most of us think about how we're going to pay for health insurance for our kids.  Or figure out if we're going to make enough money to maybe take a vacation this year.  Or will we find someone to love?  Do I call my mother enough?  Is this cancer?  We've got a lot on our minds.  That's what I get the most angry about when I think about 9/11.  The event didn't touch me personally, except for getting angry thinking about how innocent people died because a charismatic jackass lured some suckers in to die for his "cause."

Other thoughts...

For ten years we're thinking Bin Laden is hiding in a cave, living a destitute existence while rallying his terrorist troops around the world.  Turns out he's probably spent at least the last 4 years living in a residential neighborhood in a newly constructed home.  The initial specifics don't bode well for the Pakistani government.  

The house was recently built, within the last six years according to CNN.  The house stood out like a sore thumb, bordered by 18-foot-tall walls lined with barbwire.  The residents  burned their trash, never bothered to set up a phone nor internet line.  Kind of suspicious.  The house is also about a 100 yards from the Pakistani Military Academy.  Talk about turning a blind eye.  Harbor a terrorist much?   If someone (in)famous was living in your neighborhood for four years, don't you think you might notice?  Someone reported that the U.S. paid the Pakistani government $50 million to be able to go in and get Bin Laden.  If that's true, I hope that check bounces.  Finally our national debt works for us!

When it all comes down to it, Bin Laden was a murderous hypocrite.  The guy from a wealthy Saudi family never wanted to live in a cave.  Just like all narcissists, he came to believe his own hype.  He felt he deserved a comfortable place to hide out, and I wouldn't be surprised to learn he constructed a room to look like a cave so he could continue to produce his videos.  Some reports say Bin Laden used his wife as a human shield when the Navy Seals raided his home.  Hardly the righteous martyr he wanted to be portrayed as, more of a guy scared of dying.

And how cool did Obama play this?  The U.S. got tipped off to his whereabouts in August, and no one heard a peep until after Bin Laden was dead.  In fact, the night before the attack took place, Obama is crackin' on Trump at the White House Correspondents Dinner.

Anyway, I felt I had to take a moment from the ridiculous to address the serious.  I'm sure this whole post has been a rambling, incoherent mess.  Ten years, tens of trillions of dollars, it feels good to finally kill Bin Laden.  It feels like it maybe hasn't been a total waste of time, resources, and American lives.  CNN asked rhetorically (as they are wont to do) if this was the most glorious U.S. occasion since the Berlin Wall falling.  Probably in my lifetime.  If not that, maybe the 1980 U.S. Hockey victory over the Russians.  Do you believe in miracles?

God Bless the military men and women like those Navy Seals that go out there and kick ass every day so I can live in freedom and waste time on a blog like this.  I'm serious. 

Now back to the ridiculous.