I once considered myself a Taoist. I don't anymore. But I felt this verse is important.
Verse 31 of the Tao Te Ching
Weapons are the tools of violence;
all decent men detest them.
Weapons are the tools of fear;
a decent man will avoid them
except in the direst necessity
and, if compelled, will use them
only with the utmost restraint.
Peace is his highest value.
If the peace has been shattered,
how can he be content?
His enemies are not demons,
but human beings like himself.
He doesn't wish them personal harm.
Nor does he rejoice in victory.
How could he rejoice in victory
and delight in the slaughter of men
He enters a battle gravely,
with sorrow and with great compassion,
as if he were attending a funeral
And you know, the more I read about OBLs death, the less satisfied I am. Maybe my rejoicing was immature, animalistic; the reactionary remains of our intellectual ancestry.
After much reflection, I've come to the conclusion that it's not right to celebrate the killing of a human being. No matter how evil that person may be. No matter how many lives were demolished under the persons accord.
But it is not a question in my mind whether or not we benefit from the death of Osama Bin Laden. He was a terrible man. The world is better off without him in it.
So, in that sense, I am happy that he's gone. But I would have been just as happy if he were in a prison cell. And justice would have been better served if he were alive; forced to face his accusers.
Am I sad that he's dead? Absolutely not. I won't miss a moment's sleep.
Ultimately, who's responsible for his death? Based on what I've read, he is responsible for his death. He has been on the run for almost 2 decades. He was hiding from the truth. But the truth eventually came to him. And what did he do? He tried to silence the truth. He threatened the lives of the soldiers who were sent to bring him out of hiding.
According to reports, he was still very much alive when our soldiers entered the premises. And he did fight. Which ended with two bullets in his head.
What I'm trying to say is that his death was the consequence of a justified response to a threat.
His death is not a flowery, beautiful end. It was a violent, tragic ending to a miserable life. He was a miserable human being.
I'm now inclined to look upon him with horror. Not out of fear of attack. More so because of the sheer depravity of his existence and ultimately the fitting, but nonetheless disturbing, end.
Osama Bin Laden was not a monster. By that, I mean that he was not a product of the supernatural. He was a human being. Which really makes his life and death that much more punctuated.
He's a case study on the deepest, darkest annals of the human experience.
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