Justifiable Osamacide

My faith teaches me that we are to forgive one another and to turn the other cheek. That murder is wrong, and that we are to love our enemies.

So I'm a little conflicted over the fact that U.S. Navy Seals put a bullet in bin Laden's head last night and, as a nation, we are thrilled about it. Celebrations broke out spontaneously all over the country once the news was made public; throngs of strangers in Times Square and by the Reflecting Pool in D.C. broke out into "The Star-Spangled Banner". The news channels have now switched gears from debating the virtues of Kate Middleton's wedding dress and are instead trumpeting the fact that Enemy Number One has been eliminated.

May I say that I loathe bin Laden as much as the next person, and a part of me is also feeling exuberance. In so many ways, the man was the personification of pure evil; knowing his brains were blown out and his corpse is now fish food definitely has its good points.

But we are still celebrating murder - the murder of an enemy, yes, but murder nonetheless. I am in full favor of capital punishment myself; premeditation demands it. If one of my kids or my husband had been in one of the Towers, I'd probably want to pull the trigger on that bastard myself.

Yet, I see all these American rallies and celebrations on the news today, and it looks suspiciously like the rallies and celebrations I've seen on Al Jazeera when Americans have been killed over there. You know what I'm talking about; the flaming American flags, the frenzied cheering and chanting of death threats to the West...

Don't get me wrong - I am glad the guy is dead and I'm proud of the servicemen and women who brought it to pass.

I just think that having very public parties to celebrate the man's execution is tantamount to an engraved invitation for the next wacko to start planning his own 9/11.

Just saying...