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	<title>Somewhat Manly Nerd &#187; terrorism</title>
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		<title>Osama Bin Laden Killed, Mets Win</title>
		<link>http://somewhatmanlynerd.com/blog/2011/05/02/osama-bin-laden-killed-mets-win/</link>
		<comments>http://somewhatmanlynerd.com/blog/2011/05/02/osama-bin-laden-killed-mets-win/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 02 May 2011 06:30:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>CajoleJuice</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Life]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mets]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[osama bin laden]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[terrorism]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://somewhatmanlynerd.com/blog/?p=3217</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[As I took an LIRR train home after a couple of days spent in Hoboken with a friend, I read David Foster Wallace&#8217;s wonderful essay on his personal 9/11 experience in his residence of Bloomington, Illinois. (Here&#8217;s a PDF of the original Rolling Stone article &#8212; a PDF which also includes the end of an [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>As I took an LIRR train home after a couple of days spent in Hoboken with a friend, I read David Foster Wallace&#8217;s wonderful essay on his personal 9/11 experience in his residence of Bloomington, Illinois. (Here&#8217;s a <a href="http://people.virginia.edu/~jrw3k/mediamatters/readings/cult_crit/Wallace_The.View.From.Mrs.Thompsons.House.pdf">PDF of the original Rolling Stone article</a> &#8212; a PDF which also includes the end of an article about Bin Laden.) Not an hour later, as I sat in my living room watching a 1-1 tie game between the Mets and Phillies, the crowd starting cheering &#8220;U-S-A! U-S-A!&#8221; for no apparent reason. Within a few moments, the announcers let the audience know that the catalyst was news of Osama Bin Laden&#8217;s demise. I can only imagine how much louder the cheer would have been if the game were at Citi Field instead of Citizens Bank Park.</p>
<p>What then followed were Obama&#8217;s official announcement/speech and crowds gathering across the country to wave flags and banners and cheer the death of their enemy &#8212; our enemy. But I still felt oddly uncomfortable watching college kids cheer and jump around in front of the White House due to some aging extremist Islamic terrorist getting shot in the face. As <a href="http://twitter.com/#!/Mobute/status/64909581905690624">this tweet</a> points out, it&#8217;s practically the exact same scene that took place in parts of the Muslim world after 9/11 that disgusted millions of Americans. While I don&#8217;t agree with making a direct parallel, since this is a death of a murderer (as opposed to almost 3,000 innocent people), I wasn&#8217;t the only person who thought the raucous celebration a bit unsettling. My father, a man who has voiced misgivings about Islam in general, even commented that he felt weird watching the footage on FOX News. Yeah.</p>
<p>I&#8217;ve also heard &#8220;the cost&#8221; of this assassination (if that&#8217;s the correct term) being described as possible retaliation in the coming days and weeks. No, the cost was <span style="text-decoration: line-through;">$4 trillion</span> <a href="http://costofwar.com/en/">over $1 trillion</a> and over 100,000 civilian deaths. Sure, we&#8217;re cheering the &#8220;end&#8221; of what we originally set out to do, but in the process we&#8217;ve sabotaged ourselves financially, helped destabilize much of the Middle East, and killed a whole bunch more innocent people than Bin Laden ever did. But I guess it was worth it to prove a point?</p>
<p>Maybe this isn&#8217;t the right time to talk about this shit, especially after seeing an image like this:</p>
<p><img class="aligncenter" title="these guys can celebrate" src="http://somewhatmanlynerd.com/pics/osamabinladendead.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="276" /></p>
<p>Because, fuck, if anyone has a right to celebrate this news, it&#8217;s the men who lost their friends at the World Trade Center. But they know &#8212; along with anyone else who lost a loved one &#8212; that this doesn&#8217;t change much. America finally finished the job we set out to do 10 years ago, but no one is coming back to life, Al-Qaeda and its off-shoots are still very functional, and Bin Laden ultimately won since he changed our way of life since 9/11/01.</p>
<p>But at least the Mets beat the Phillies in 14 innings, right?</p>
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