489 Killing Evil Doesn’t Make Us Evil By MAUREEN DOWD

Killing Evil Doesn’t Make Us Evil

By MAUREEN DOWD

WASHINGTON

I don’t want closure. There is no closure after tragedy.  (Nice to know what you don't want, Mo - what about some of the rest of us?)

I want memory, and justice, and revenge. (Spoken like the true Irish Harpie that she ish.  Hey DoDo Boid - you got your memory;  the only place we ever find justice is in the halls of prison;  whatevah happened to 'Vengeance is mine,' sayeth the Lord. 

When you’re dealing with a mass murderer who bragged about incinerating thousands of Americans (UMM, whatever else you might want to call him, Osama was NOT a mass murderer; we have too many examples, based on present day usage, of such sick creatures - Gary Speck, Gary Dahmer, Ted Bundy, etc;  It actually sounds more as if MoDo is pissed because Osama "bragged" about it, and I can't ever remember Osama "bragging" about the killing of innocents) and planned to kill countless more, that seems like the only civilized and morally sound response. (And why in God's Holy Name must this be the ONLY civilized and morally sound response?  How about have him tried by a jury of 12 Muslims who sentence him to life in prison, in solitary confinement, to live out his days contemplating Allah?)

We briefly celebrated one of the few clear-cut military victories we’ve had in a long time, a win that made us feel like Americans again (pathetic Dowd - equating the kililng, the execution of a tall skinny bearded guy for a "clear-cut military victory" -- SADLY she is not wrong when she apends, 'a win that made us fell like Americans again - ITS A FUCKING KILLING!! AN EXECTUTION) — smart and strong and capable of finding our enemies and striking back at them without getting trapped in multitrillion-dollar Groundhog Day occupations.  (What the fuck is this?  OF COURSE it has cost us hundreds of billions of $s, has gotten us trapped in multitrillioin-dollar Dog Day Occupations -- this are undisputable facts, and the viper queen, dismisses them out of hand ... MAUREEN DOWD:  ARE YOU HITTING UP THE LIQUOR AGAIN?  DID YOUR LESBIAN LOVER LEAVE YOU AND TAKE THE VIBRATOR?)

But within days, Naval Seal-gazing shifted to navel-gazing.

There was the bad comedy of solipsistic Republicans with wounded egos trying to make it about how right they were and whinging that George W. Bush was due more credit. Their attempt to renew the debate about torture is itself torture.

W. preferred to sulk in his Dallas tent rather than join President Obama at ground zero in a duet that would have certainly united the country. (Don't impute motive - that's RUDE)

Whereas the intelligence work that led to the destruction of Bin Laden was begun in the Bush administration, the cache of schemes taken from Osama’s Pakistan house debunked the fanciful narrative that the Bush crew pushed: that Osama was stuck in a cave unable to communicate, increasingly irrelevant and a mere symbol, rather than operational. Osama, in fact, was at the helm, spending his days whipping up bloody schemes to kill more Americans.  (Unlike we Americans who waste no time whipping up bloody schemes to kill more innocent civilians - we just fucken KILL EM!!!!

In another inane debate last week, many voices suggested that decapitating the head of a deadly terrorist network was some sort of injustice. (And who would these "many voices be?"

Taking offense after Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general, said he was “much relieved” at the news of Bin Laden’s death, Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch, posted the Twitter message: “Ban Ki-moon wrong on Osama bin Laden: It’s not justice for him to be killed even if justified; no trial, conviction.” (And Roth gets it right!)

I leave it to subtler minds to parse the distinction between what is just and what is justified.

When Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, said she was “glad” Bin Laden had been killed, a colleague called such talk “medieval.”

Christophe Barbier, editor of the centrist French weekly L’Express, warned: “To cry one’s joy in the streets of our cities is to ape the turbaned barbarians who danced the night of Sept. 11.” (Who were those turbaned barbarians?  How many of them danced?  There were drinks being drunk and chauvanism wreaking its stench across the glob)

Those who celebrated on Sept. 11 were applauding the slaughter of American innocents. (Inputing motive) When college kids spontaneously streamed out Sunday night to the White House, ground zero and elsewhere, they were the opposite of bloodthirsty: they were happy that one of the most certifiably evil figures of our time was no more. (Jeez, MO!)

The confused image of Bin Laden as a victim was exacerbated by John Brennan, the Obama national security aide who intemperately presented an inaccurate portrait of what had happened on the third floor in Abbottabad.

Unlike the president and the Navy Seals, who performed with steely finesse, Brennan was overwrought, exaggerating the narrative to demonize the demon.

The White House had to backtrack from Brennan’s contentions that Osama was “hiding behind women who were put in front of him as a shield” and that he died after resisting in a firefight.

It may be that some administration officials have taken Dick Cheney’s belittling so much to heart that they are still reluctant to display effortless macho. (And they should; Cheney never paid any price, btw) Liberal guilt may have its uses, but it should not be wasted on this kill-mission.

The really insane assumption behind some of the second-guessing is that killing Osama somehow makes us like Osama, as if all killing is the same.  (The results of all fatal kilings are consequential.

Only fools or knaves would argue that we could fight Al Qaeda’s violence non-violently.

(SO .... um, I'm speechless)

President Obama was prepared to take a life not only to avenge American lives already taken but to deter the same killer (yes, death certainly denies our killers a lot of things)  from taking any more. Aside from Bin Laden’s plotting, his survival and his legend were inspirations for more murder.

If stealth bombers had dropped dozens of 2,000-pound bombs and wiped out everyone, no one would have been debating whether Osama was armed. (And yet, such a murder would have been barbarous more, because of the deaths of the innocents) The president chose the riskiest option presented to him, but one that spared nearly all the women and children at the compound, and anyone in the vicinity.

Unlike Osama, the Navy Seals took great care not to harm civilians — they shot Bin Laden’s youngest wife in the leg and carried two young girls out of harm’s way before killing Osama.

Morally and operationally, this was counterterrorism at its finest. (Sadly, she is quite correct here.)

We have nothing to apologize for.

MARK GANZER