The fact that the most powerful country in the history of mankind with all it's resources and covert activities couldn't find Osama bin Laden for almost ten years is amazing, in the worst way. But what is even more amazing is the fact that out of all his followers who he depended on to keep him hidden, not one tried to cash in on the multi-million dollar reward for his capture. It's impossible to know just how many people actually knew where he was but just imagine what a difficult task it was to hide him and what elaborate and wide-reaching planning it entailed. And now we know it also involved hiding one of his wives and some of his children as well. Think of the logistics of it, not to mention the food, the health care, the clothing, the education of his children and whatever else he would need from the outside world. There was an entire compound to run including a small army of personal bodyguards and somehow the secret remained. Even the ones who weren't devout followers kept the secret-the doctors, the housekeepers, the cooks, the repairmen,and all the wives, girlfriends,and children of the men there. No one wanted to be a multi-millionaire enough to turn him in. Now that's loyalty.
It's different in America. Once a reward for someone is posted, it's just a matter of days. And now with Facebook it's just a matter of hours until the person is turned in. $5,000-10,000 seems to be the average person's breaking point. Personally, a free lunch is all the reward it would take for me to turn in any religious man who the authorities were trying to find. That, along with being a Jewish homosexual is on the top 10 List of reasons why I could never be a Radical Islamic Terrorist. I tend to not be blindly loyal to movements or to men who head those movements. Such loyalty can be admired, but it should also be feared. People with such absolute and unwavering loyalty to a movement or a man are usually the same people capable of terrible things. Only that degree of loyalty can turn a person into a merciless killing machine. The closest I've ever gotten to being loyal to a movement was the Gay Rights Movement, but I still would never have blown myself up even if Harvey Milk had told me to.
Another thing I want to say about this "strangely celebratory event" is that it's great how President Obama is getting so much mileage out of this. It's like killing Hitler, almost. Hitler still wins that contest. There's even clamor that this will seal The President's re-election. First, George W.Bush gave a black man the opportunity to become The President Of The United States just by being such an awful President himself, and now another awful man is going to give the same black man an opportunity to be re-elected. What a wonderful country filled with opportunity we live in.
The best part is that now we have a President who can say "Mission Accomplished" and actually means it.
