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Health & Fitness

Osama Bin Local

The death of Osama bin Laden is an international story that is surprisingly local.

Greetings Marina del Rey Patch.com readers.  

This is my first blog.  

Thanks to Patch.com and our local editor, Paul Chavez, for the forum.  I think Patch.com has done a brilliant job of organically sifting the "Internet" into a neighborhood forum, and I really am proud to start blogging here.  

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Given that, I am surprised at my first choice of topic because it is anything but local... or is it?  The killing of Osama bin Laden is an international story of largest proportions.  However, at my water cooler, where I work, in conversations with friends, no issue in recent memory has struck more locally; this event is all we are talking about.  

The flash point for me was watching a clip of Michael Moore on CNN's Piers Morgan Tonight

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In his rant, Moore denounces the actions of beyond brave Navy Seals on a Presidential mission from a holier-than-though bully pulpit, saying that America "lost its soul" by killing bin Laden, leader of the world’s most menacing ring of terrorists the world has ever known.  (Click here to see the interview)

I beg to differ.

I consider myself a former hippie (probably still am, at the core) half Greek American with incredibly liberal views.  Still, I just could not get on the bandwagon of Moore's moral view.  I deplore killing.  I deplore lack of due process. I will even admit that I am conflicted about the brash taking-out of Al-Qaeda’s front man.  I get the jingoism, the endeavor for patriotic spin—especially as 2012’s Presidential race begins. 

At the end of the day, however, I agree not only with the killing and its manner, but also with the immediate burial at sea—this shocks even me.

Why?  

Because citizens of the world, regardless of religious training, cultural bias or education level, did not at all need to go through a protracted and inevitably controversial, caustic trial process.  There is something very final about death.  It cannot be revoked, or even negotiated with, after the fact.  

I would like to think there was an incredibly strategic and finally effective counter-cultural wave that was cultivated by our foreign operatives, CIA or otherwise.  And, once subversion in Egypt, Syria, Libya and the myriad of other places was finally, from within, thrown off balance, the climate was okay enough to shoot the bastard.  

Today, moderate Muslims can understand this killing.  Years ago, when I know I heard Christiane Amanpour broadcast on International CNN that OBL was basking in Pakistani suburbs, this action of death would not have, could not have, been tolerated by Muslim Regimes, governmental or otherwise.  

I understand the "America's lost soul" idealism Moore is talking about.  I far more advocate for the “continuing cycles of violence is wrong” mantra heard from closet Liberals, of late. Most of all, I think I understand this argument from Obama:  we will not hurt your innocent civilians, your women or children, we will not lie.  We will use, however, our extreme militaristic advantage and subsequent precision to make Pakistani (or other countries’) air control virtually useless, find all terrorists at-will and take them out with no mercy between trigger and target.  Terrorists cannot hide, governments cannot lie.  

Most amazing is that we somehow surpassed bravado and drum-thumping and simply got that guy who’s caused the world so much dismay and strife over the last 15+ years unnecessarily.  

My only caveat is for those who are not on top of the world, like we are, the ones who crave our knowledge, our advantages, our wealth, our privileged station in life.  I wish we could get light to them more efficiently, more quickly.  I think that’s the root cause of this all.  Even so, it is never wise, or even smart, to shoot the leader of the day.  And today that leader, the world’s leader, is America.  However flawed our international dissemination of information and evolution is on planet earth, there is no denying that America is leading the way, at least for now.  

 We never, ever, deserved so much harm after giving the world so very, very much.  

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