The Death Of A Mass Murderer

Osama bin Laden

Editor’s Note: We publish this piece because we approve of the author’s revulsion at the crass jingoistic celebrations supposedly cropping up all over America upon the death of Osama bin Laden. The death of a human being is no cause for crass celebration. We note, however, that if really dead, (a) it’s not proven that Osama died as officially declared, and (b) that his guilt for 9/11 is similarly not fully established. Many people around the world doubt in good faith that Osama and his band of suicide attackers was really behind the tragic events of 9/11. That Osama did hate the US, there’s little doubt. He also hated the Russians, and for similar reasons. bin Laden hated any and all civilizations that would defile his idealized Islamic world.  Inasmuch as he hated what he justly regarded as “occupiers” of his world, he was more morally in the right than our government, by any measure a brutal invader. Indeed, with the US leading the pack of criminal meddlers in the Middle East and Central Asia, he found the ultimate antagonist. But all of that fails to prove that he was in fact the chief cause of 9/11. 

BY DAVID SETH MICHAELS

I know the news, that Bin Ladin is dead. And that he was a mass murderer. He will not be mourned in the United States. Or by me. But reaction to his death— the chanting of “USA, USA,” the celebration, the cheering, the delight-— disturbed me. I found it distasteful. And alarming. It is one thing to cheer justice, it is quite another to cheer death.

The celebration was an alarming echo of the reaction in various cities in the Middle East a decade ago when the collapse of the World Trade Centers was reported. This was not a celebration of peace (the wars continue). And it does not end the struggle in the US both to be free from attack and simultaneously to preserve the US democracy. If anything, the celebration signals that peace and harmony are far, far away, and that the past decade has entrenched their remoteness.

This morning I received an email from Rabbi Arthur Waskow of the Shalom Center. I pass part of it along:

How might we address the death of a mass murderer?

The Torah describes Moses and Miriam leading the ancient People Israel in a celebratory song after the tyrannical Pharaoh and his Army have been overwhelmed by the waters of the Red Sea. Later, the Rabbis gave a new overtone to the story: “The angels,” they said, “began to dance and sing as well, but God rebuked them: ‘These also are the work of My hands. We must not rejoice at their deaths!’“

Notice the complexity of the teaching: Human beings go unrebuked when they celebrate the downfall and death of a tyrant; but the Rabbis are addressing our higher selves, trying to move us into a higher place. (The legend is certainly not aimed at “angels.”)

Similarly, we are taught that at the Passover Seder, when we recite the plagues that fell upon the Egyptians, we must drip out the wine from our cups as we mention each plague, lest we drink that wine to celebrate these disasters that befell our oppressors.

…What I myself felt was more like “sad necessity” — and I would have preferred a mournful remembrance of the innocent dead of the Twin Towers and of Iraq and Afghanistan — a thoughtful reexamination of how easy it is to turn abominable violence against us into a justification for indiscriminate violence by us.

I agree. Mournful remembrance would be a change for the better. Unfortunately, I do not expect it. Or peace anytime soon.

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