A Quiet Compassion

I don't usually get very political on this blog, and I don't really have the energy (tonight) or the desire (ever) to really start getting political now.  But with the world experiencing so much change lately, with so many conversations both said and unsaid, and because it's all I've been thinking of for the past three days, I'm going to go ahead and talk about it a little.

Now if we can believe everything our government says -- and I'm not saying that we always can or should, but I admit that I usually, sometimes naively, try to give them the benefit of the doubt -- during a clandestine military operation this past weekend, America's Enemy #1, Osama Bin Laden was shot and killed.

I think for the most part, the initial reaction felt by the nation was fairly consistent.  Shock.  Distrust/disbelief.  Belief.  Acceptance.  Relief.  I, for one, definitely went through those stages, feeling each one pretty keenly until finally allowing that feeling of calm relief -- however short-lived it may have been -- wash over me.  I can honestly say that I believe the world is less one more dangerous person. Dangerous in the really get-you-at-your-core sort of way where they're willing to die in order to cause the destruction of others.  That kind of a dangerous person, the kind who acts as if they have almost nothing to lose, scares me the most.

But right on the tails of my relief came other reactions I saw on videos, heard on the news, read online in places I have no excuse for visiting (case in point: Why was I on Sarah Palin's Facebook page again???).  Excitement.  Celebration.  Elation.  Mockery.  Righteousness.  Validation.  People were waving flags.  They were chanting, "USA!  USA!"  They were quoting scripture in one breathe and applauding death in another.

And I was left feeling...confusion.  Disappointment.  Resignation, but no understanding.  I was embarrassed.  I still am embarrassed.  It just seems to me that, over the course of the past 10 years, we've lost sight of something incredibly important as we freely label people as "the enemy" or "other" or "they" or "enemy combatant" and most definitely "terrorist."  We seem to have forgotten that they're human.  That this is human life.  And that no matter who it is or what they've done, the loss of human life is never something to celebrate.  It's never something to be casual about.  If we do, if we are, then we become the very thing we say we're fighting against. 

As Americans, even those of us with military families, we have the luxury of distancing ourselves from the consequences of our actions.  We don't see the costs of our war until it's too late, until our soldiers come back wounded in ways we can't begin to understand, until news reaches us of 12 year old children being blown up by bombs meant for their grandfathers.  Until towers collapse and we lose things we can never get back.  And, given that we've experienced that loss as a nation, and that others have experienced it much closer to home, I can accept that everyone deals with things differently.  That everyone would deal with the news of Bin Laden's death differently.  But this can't be okay. 

Celebrating death can never be okay.  Can it?

There have been a bunch of articles written in the past day or so that seem to express my feelings much better than I myself can.  If you're so inclined, this has been my favorite: "USA!  USA!  is the wrong response"