The death of Osama bin Laden has been one of the most thought-provoking moments of the semester. I’ve been grappling with what the death itself means and, more importantly, what the proper response should be. Caroline did a tremendous job exploring the strange mixture of emotions that this death brings in her post, but I wanted to try to understand why it feels so weird to celebrate this moment.
I can’t help but put this accomplishment in the context of previous wars to try and figure out what the proper response would be—what would past generations have done in this situation? However, imagining my reaction to the death of Hitler or Kim Il-Sung doesn’t create a corresponding scenario. Just as this War on Terror is unlike any we have fought before, our response to its victories cannot follow the guidelines of history.
