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Commentary: Is the United States Losing its Humanity?

How do we look to the rest of the world as we’re dancing in the streets celebrating the death of another being?

We've all seen the spontaneous outpouring of thousands of Americans filling the streets with patriotic jubilee after the news that Osama bin Laden, the alleged mastermind behind the 9/11 tragedy, was killed by a highly trained U.S. Navy Seals outfit known as Team 6.

 

"We got the bastard" read in one prominent New York newspaper, summing up the general consensus of the day. But as the nation is busy patting itself on the back over the slaughter of another human being, the humanitarian in me can't help but ponder some of the ironic points of this whole thing.   

 

First off, I find it really contradictory that so many "patriotic, God-fearing Christians" were glibly celebrating the death of another human being, regardless of how evil he or she may have been. As a child in middle-school history class, I was taught that we as Americans value human life over all else and that every human being accused of committing a crime, no matter how heinous and despicable, should have his or her day in court. How do we look to the rest of the world as we’re dancing in the streets celebrating the death of another being?

 

I find it ironic that our president, who is a Constitution scholar, doesn't share that viewpoint when it comes to this matter. I suppose that in the president's mind, the end justifies the means, which is to get Osama bin Laden at all costs. I also find it extremely ironic that a Nobel Peace Prize winner, a self-proclaimed admirer of the late, great Dr. Martin Luther King, a man who vowed that he'd see to it that our nation would engage in more diplomacy and less war has our military engaged in three separate wars simultaneously.


According to President Barack Obama, America is a safer place now that bin Laden is dead. But I wonder if we truly are. With our nation engaged in three wars, our economy in shambles, our civil liberties being trampled on in the name of safety and Osama bin Laden joining the ranks of martyrdom for thousands of angry Islamic militants, many of whom we have no idea where they are or when they plan to strike, are we truly any safer?

(Photo: ASSOCIATED PRESSAPP)

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