Where Do We Go From Here?

I’m sure you’ve heard by now about the big news for America.  Osama bin Laden is dead.  And I keep seeing and hearing tweets and Facebook posts like “Fuck yeah, America,” and “Glad that bastard is dead.”  And while I’m excited, I guess I’m mostly conflicted. 

I remember when I first heard the name Osama bin Laden.  I was fourteen years old.  I’d had a particularly terrifying day at school, since the administration refused to tell us what was going on, but we’d been hearing rumors that were wrong but still scary.  I can still remember Brittany M. running down the hall while I was sitting in Mr. Divelbiss's honors biology class and telling us all that the Pentagon had been bombed.  And that was in second period.  We didn’t find out what had actually happened until we got home that day.  And all I could think the whole day was “Now that the Pentagon is gone, any of us could go.  At any moment.”  

And I remember weeks of news coverage that just consisted of watching the twin towers fall.  It was the news EVERY DAY.  We wallowed in the psychological blow and bin Laden’s name was all over the news reports and on everyone’s lips.  Journalists told us that he would be captured within a year.

I remember when (exactly 8 years ago) George Bush announced “Mission Accomplished” and I remember the political cartoon that went with it:  President Bush walking in an Escher-like maze, repeating those words futilely over and over.  And I remember wondering why our troops couldn’t come home if the mission was accomplished.  And why my friends were beginning to join the military and going over to a wild, dry place that I couldn’t imagine.

And I’ll always remember that bin Laden wasn’t caught until the end of my second year of law school.  This one man defined the last 10 years of American policy and the way we as Americans lived and traveled.  My own father was often stopped at the gates of the military base he worked on and his car was searched for incendiary devices solely because he is a swarthy man* with a mustache, something that had never happened before in his whole career.  Due to new technology, we’re all seen naked by TSA agents every time we want to get onto a plane.

And I’m not sure how I feel.  The memories of “where I was when” are incredibly powerful.  It’s shocking to me that these events are going to be in the history books of my own child one day.  It’s amazing to me that one day that child is going to ask me about it.  And I think that what will color that story is what happens next.  Does this mean that the mission is finally accomplished?  Will troop withdrawals actually start in 60 days?  Or will this just start an era of new faith in a disorganized war that should never have started?

What happens next?  And where will we be?

_____________________________________________

*Due to spending years on the deck of a naval ship