Thursday, May 5, 2011

Osama bin Laden victory becoming an embarrassment?


Today President Obama will be visiting the site, in which the World Trade Center was destroyed on September 11th. It comes four days after he broke the news on Sunday that we had killed Osama bin Laden, and immediately, the nation sprung into celebration.

But in the days following, some of that celebration has become dominated by mixed reactions based on the contradictions of the Obama Administration. We were told at one point that Osama bin Laden was armed. Then he wasn’t armed. He used his wife as a human shield. He didn’t use his wife as a human shield. His wife was killed; then his wife wasn’t killed. CIA director Leon Panetta said the death photos would be released; now they’re not going to be released.

Over the course of the last three days, what should have been a triumphant moment to unite the country just as we were on September 12th, 2001, the entire issue of Osama bin Laden’s death has seemingly continued to divide the country. Apparently the administration has no problem with the leaked photos that are available of bin Laden’s couriers that were killed in the compound, but they have a major problem with releasing a photo of the man that masterminded an attack which killed thousands of innocent Americans.

In addition, there is growing hypocrisy on the left and the right. People on the right are arguing that President Bush deserves more credit than President Obama for bin Laden’s demise, which is true to the extent that Bush initiated the War on Terror, even though President Obama ultimately made the final call. The left meanwhile are all up in arms about whether bin Laden should have even been killed, because universally, the left is against violence and death … with the exception of abortion.

With happiness, closure, sadness, anger, doubt and further questioning from Americans abroad, and with the actual story of the raid changing on so many occasions, one has to ask themselves if this victory has become something of an embarrassment for this administration?

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