Eugene Robinson: A Page Has Been Turned

[babylonsister]

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/a_page_has_been_turned_20110502/

A Page Has Been Turned
Posted on May 2, 2011

By Eugene Robinson


WASHINGTON—The flag-waving, horn-honking crowd that converged at the White House Sunday night was brimming with unrestrained joy, unmitigated patriotism and a sense of unlimited possibility—which meant Osama bin Laden had suffered not only death but defeat as well.

snip//


There will be more terrorism. Al-Qaida is not dead, and in fact may redouble its efforts at mayhem. But there has been a definitive change. Bin Laden was more than a piece of unfinished business. He was a constant, if rarely acknowledged, presence in our lives. He was there when we took off our shoes at the airport, there when we drove past the Pentagon, there when we saw a picture of the New York skyline.

As long as bin Laden remained at large and unaccountable, he retained the power he had so cruelly usurped on 9/11. On Sunday, those who gathered at the White House were celebrating our psychological liberation.

The changes in our lives will endure, but the man responsible for those changes is gone at last.

[lunatica]

1. Osama Bin Laden defined the first decade of the 21st Century

So instead of promising horizons and forward movement in the new century a handful of people, led by Osama Bin Laden turned it into a re-do of the Dark Ages. The decade became a religious war leaving gaping ruin in every corner of the planet. Bush and Cheney were the perfect instruments of destruction in their blood lust to go after the oil in the Middle East by wantonly using the terror tactics of Osama Bin Laden as the excuse to erode our rights and to treat us like the enemy and to spread a destructive empire if aggression.

It's been a sad start to the century. I wonder if it's even possible that it could have been much worse.

[gordianot]

2. It is also where and how Bin Laden was killed.

Osama was living in a mansion compound in an area surrounded by the military complex of a large military stakeholder with nuclear weapons. To a large degree he was protected by his surroundings far more than hiding in a cave. Bin Laden had every reason to feel comfortable when George Bush publicly announced he was not that concerned in the self proclaimed mastermind of American slaughter on American soil. Obama really turned the page, they took Bin Laden out of his comfort level when he had every reason to feel safe and that he got away with it. Whatever deal that was made Obama was not party to the deal, turning pages indeed.