Hey, I killed bin Laden! What more do you want?

I'm having trouble understanding how the President could have the stones to order a daring Special Ops search and destroy mission to take out Osama bin Laden--this after being the worst wimp imaginable during the health care debate and now showing signs of knuckling under to the Repigs when the budget bill is finally passed. After the constant threat of government shutdown for weeks, they apparently decided that shutting it down would not have the dramatic effect they wanted. Then, the news cycle having abandoned the fallout in Japan and the devastation of monster tornadoes in the U.S. South, it took up the increasingly annoying "why doesn't Obama produce his birth certificate" being trumpeted by Trump in his most boorish and self-aggrandizing manner.
Apparently even a President can't get hold of his "long form" birth certificate (who knew they even existed?) without a Papal dispensation. But it was finally obtained and displayed in all its glory, whereupon the Birthers all screamed that it was a fake. Everyone knows that the CIA can create any document you want! Then, a miracle occurred.
President Obama gave the order to have Osama bin Laden killed. The government knew where he was holed up and the Navy Seals were sent to do what they do best. They shot an unarmed bin Laden in the head, according to some reports in view of his wife and daughter. Four other men were killed in the raid, but not one American! This was Obama's moment of glory, and for once he milked it and took advantage of the spike in popularity that this event precipitated. 70% of the U.S. people now believe Obama walks on water. There was the solemn ceremony at Ground Zero with the 9/11 survivors at which the Master Speechmaker and Master of Gravitas did not make a speech because there are no words to describe the horror of what occurred that day almost 10 years ago. I have to admit that it was classy of him to pass up a golden opportunity to underline his recent achievement. Problem is, the wingnuts lost no time in giving the torture that occurred under GW Bush the credit for killing bin Laden, not Obama. And now we have "Deathers" (whom I suspect to be the same folks as the Birthers) who are saying that he's not really dead, and if he is, Obama can't take the credit because it was Bush's waterboarding that supplied the info. (Bush was invited to the Ground Zero ceremony but declined the invitation--the stinking little weasel knows very well that he would appear to be even more of a stinking little weasel alongside Obama.) The indisputable fact that Bush was the cause of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon seems to have gotten lost in all the fanfare. In fact, Bush is an even bigger mass murderer than bin Laden if you count the thousands who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan in the course of Bush's wars which never would have been started if Bush were not in the White House. And unlike bin Laden, Bush will never be the recipient of the harsh justice he deserves because Obama lacks the political will to pursue him, Cheney, Rove, Rumsfeld and the rest of the Bush Crime Family, as Mike Malloy calls it.

The fake news media are still having a field day 5 days later. Should the grisly photo of bin Laden with his skull blown off be published for all to see? "No drama Obama" predictably decided against it, even though there are good arguments on both sides of this issue. Strangely enough, Americans don't trust their government enough to take their word for it that bin Laden is really dead. Hey, can we see those DNA test results? Supposedly certain members of Congress have been discreetly shown the photo. We are supposed to believe them, I guess. But when you realize that pics can be easily photoshopped, there would be no way of knowing if an "official" photo was really what it claimed to be.

I don't want to see it.
What gets me is that
a) the Pakistani government undoubtedly knew that bin Laden was holed up in this compound for years and never told us after receiving billions in aid from the U.S.
b) that same government is now chastising Obama for having bin Laden killed
c) al Qaeda and the Taliban have acknowledged the death of their leader and are calling him a martyr. (Isn't that as good as proof that he's dead?)
d) We are still dicking around in Afghanistan when we could be getting out of there NOW since there is no more mission there. (Actually, we have suspected for years that b.L. was in Pakistan, not Afghanistan, and thousands of lives have been sacrificed in the name of destroying the Taliban, which no military venture can do.)
e) And what exactly is our mission in Iraq?

I am relieved that b.L. is dead. Had he been captured, there would have been an endless circus surrounding his trial, and every crazy terrorist organization in the world would be rallying around him and grandstanding. Had he been buried on land, they would have erected a shrine at the gravesite where all the criminally insane acolytes could gather. I am against the death penalty for ordinary individuals and I do not exult in anyone's death, no matter how heinous their crimes. But I would not have hesitated to kill Hitler if I had the opportunity, and b.L. falls into the Hitler category of Individuals Extremely Dangerous to Humanity who must be put down like rabid dogs to prevent the death and suffering of thousands, even millions. A long prison sentence simply allows a worshipful cult to spring up around the monster, and there is always the possibility that the laws will change and he will be released at some time in the future. We can't take that chance.

My friend Peter Gluck saw the towers burst into flames and was physically ill and permanently traumatized by the spectacle. Others saw people jumping from the burning skyscrapers. It was bad enough to see the same shot repeated endlessly on TV for days and weeks until it burned itself into your brain. Curtiss and I went to Ground Zero in Oct. or Nov. of that year and you could still smell the mixture of plastic, chemicals, ashes, and burned flesh in the air. On the fences surrounding the footprint of the Towers were posters with names and photos of the missing loved ones who would never be found. To this day when I drive across the Manhattan Bridge and see the bare space where the Towers once stood, tears come to my eyes and a heartsick feeling overwhelms me. Yes, it was Osama bin Laden and al Quaeda's plot, but George Bush bears the responsibility for allowing it to happen. I cannot and will not forgive him.