I'm going to tread carefully here because this is a) a very emotionally charged topic, b) I don't believe I have any answers and c) I'm trying not to take sides or put one person's viewpoint ahead of another's.
So here we go. Sunday evening JJ and I were watching Celebrity Apprentice -- not because we faithfully watch it or anything - just because we were lazing on a Sunday night and that's what was on. All of a sudden a newsflash came on saying to stay tuned because the President had an important impromptu announcement. That kind of thing does not just happen all the time, so it got our minds racing. What could it be?? News crews seemed to be scrambling to put together a broadcast and eventually it came out that the news was about Osama Bin Laden. And the next thing was that he had been killed. Wow. Pretty crazy. My mind went to the future. As I held my sleeping baby, I pondered what would happen in the future because of this. I also thought about the military men and women we know (and the ones we don't) putting their lives on the line and how this would affect them - particularly the ones deployed.
I didn't actually see the President's briefing (I fell asleep - oops), but I was interested to see what others had to say about it the next day. I checked my school email because I wanted to see if anything official had come out about what to say to kids, etc. but found nothing. Here's what was buzzing about on Facebook:
"I am way too close to this whole episode to be rational about this in any way, shape or form," he said. "Last night was a good night, for me, and not just for New York or D.C. or America, but for human people. The face of the Arab world in America's eyes for too long has been bin Laden, and now it is not. Now the face is only the young people in Egypt and Tunisia and all the Middle Eastern countries around the world where freedom rises up. Al Qaeda's opportunity is gone." --Jon Stewart
"President Obama single-handedly came up with the technique in order to pull this off," Limbaugh said on Monday. "You see, the military wanted to go in there and bomb as they always do. They wanted to drop missiles and drop bombs and a number of totally destructive techniques here. But President Obama, perhaps the only qualified member in the room to deal with this, insisted on the Special Forces. No one else thought of that. President Obama. Not a single intelligence adviser, not a single national security adviser, not a single military adviser came up with the idea of using SEAL Team 6 or any Special Forces." --Rush Limbaugh, which sounds a little too pro-Obama because it was meant tongue-in-cheek
Daddy, Mommy, Big Sis, Big Bro, and baby #3!
1 comment:
Josh and I did watch the President's address and were interested in it. We were so frustrated that the commentators before and after seemed to be saying that Obama would be fully credited with the "victory" especially since it normaly seems that if it were up to the dems, we wouldn't even be over there... but I hadn't really thought too deeply about the subject. I guess my initial reaction was hope that the organization that OBL lead would begin to crumble. I don't feel like I'm rejoicing at a death, but maybe I should look at how I feel a little more... Good post EJ. :)
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