Conflicted

I feel like I need to preface this post with a couple of very important facts: I consider myself a proud American and I support our troops. I love my country and the freedom I have been afforded as a citizen. And I respect the men and women who serve in the name of our country to protect that freedom. I may not agree with all of the political decisions that have led us into or kept us at war, but I do fervently believe that America is a great country, democracy is a wonderful thing, and those that put their lives on the line to defend that should be honored and respected (so long as they are acting with integrity, upholding our standards and acting in accordance to the values upon which our country was founded).

As the news spread on Sunday that we had killed public enemy number one, celebrations erupted. Crowds in Washington D.C. and New York grew exponentially on the TV screen, Facebook exploded with celebratory status updates, and I even heard several rounds of fireworks in my neighborhood. Myself, I found it really hard to be in the mood to celebrate. Do I think that he was a terrible murderous person? Absolutely. Please don't mistake that, I believe he was horrible and evil and killed thousands of innocent men, women, and children--and no doubt had plans to kill thousands upon thousands more. Tracking him down and killing him might have been the only way to stop him, unfortunately. But the fact that we did that doesn't make me happy. Relieved, possibly. Ready to run out into the streets chanting "USA, USA, USA?" No.

Like I said, I think the only way we could stop him was through this course of action. But stopping him doesn't necessarily keep us safe. There is still evil out in the world, and in my mind evil begets evil. Violence begets violence. We just added to it. He murdered, so we murdered, and then who murders next? The vicious cycle continues. What's our responsibility in halting it? Has it already spun too far out of control for us to be able to halt it? Are we doomed to keep the cycle spinning? I hope not, but I fear yes.

In the midst of all this I found myself wondering how all of my friends who are parents handle these situations. When the media is overtaken by stories like these how do you explain it to your kids? If I had kids, how would I explain it to them? Murder is bad, but it's okay that we murdered this guy because he is really really bad and we are in the right? Yes, I think he was really bad and that we are in the right to protect ourselves, but I just can't get excited about killing people, no matter how bad they are. I was mired deep in these thoughts when I came across this link. It doesn't necessarily make my spirit feel like rejoicing, but it does normalize things for me and make me feel better about not feeling like we just won the Olympics.