Reply #40: Post seems to have polarized the group a bit

[NothingRight]

While the opinion about the significance of the death of Bin Laden may seem blasphemous to many, it is not without it's merits, and is certainly worthy of debate here.

If you had a friend or family member killed on 9/11, or in the various wars since then, you may have a fairly strong opinion about the quest for Bin Laden, finding his death to be a piece of closure, in a way like bringing the murderer to justice.

For those who do not have a direct connection to the events, it is easy to look at the last 9+ years and say our blind devotion to the destruction of Al Qaeda and Bin Laden have instead led to our instability and unrest.

According to many on the inside, one of the main goals Bin Laden had in this attack was drawing the Americans into a prolonged war they could not "win". He knew it would be polarizing here, as well as financially disruptive. There are many who believe that all of the items the original poster mentioned, like the Patriot Act, reflect victory for the terrorists, as we now seem to live in a constant state of paranoia, waiting for the next attack.

The great thing about being progressive, or liberal if you wish, is that we are willing to entertain a good, healthy debate on any topic, provided logic, data and facts are the basis of the debate. There is no productive point to a debate on things that are ideologically based, as they are strictly driven by faith.

My personal feeling on the matter was a sense that we finally accomplished a primary goal of the war on terror, declared in December 2001. It also left me with an "Okay, now what?" feeling. Bin Laden's death, from an operational standpoint, is not much more significant than that of a general, whose position will soon be filled with another general.

If we want to win the war on terror, we must stop acting terrorized, stop terrorizing other nations in the name of ending terrorism, and begin the slow process of building a dialogue with people of all backgrounds, understanding you can't please everyone, and someone will almost always want to kill you because they believe you are their mortal enemy for one reason or another.

The glory is that this is simply my opinion, and, as such, carries only as much weight as you give it.