Two weeks ago, an event happened that is so significant it’s easy to take it for granted. Osama Bin Laden–the terrorist mastermind that ripped a hole through the comfort level of Americans almost a decade ago, and has been up to no good for much longer–is finally dead. In the 24 hour news cycle that makes up modern media ADD, it’s easy to be impressed with this for a day, then move on to the next thing, except in this case there is no next thing. At least, nothing that will be this big for a very long time, whether people realize it or not.
A lot of my readers were extremely young when the World Trade Centers went down. I myself was a sophomore in high school, watching it on TV during history class. In Alabama, it was never really seen as that big a deal (my Math teacher didn’t even let us watch the coverage…bitch) but that didn’t stop people from buying then-record amounts of ammo. For the rural South, it outwardly changed nothing, but inwardly changed everything. No one would admit it, but the thought of a terrorist not belonging to any country with no standing army or rules of warfare launching a successful mega attack on American soil left even the backwoods feeling insecure. Even people who thought “Well, that’s New York. There’s no way they’ll be interested in a mall in Bumblefuck” didn’t really believe that deep down the next time they boarded a plane and a guy was wearing a turban.
For almost half my life and all of the important part, Bin Laden has been a fixture on the most wanted list. A Muslim boogie man capable of talking young men into being martyrs, into striking you on a plane, a train, or in your automobile as you cross a bridge. At one time or another I have heard of “terrorist plots” on everything from the Brooklyn Bridge to the local high school football game, and no matter how bogus those reports, a lot of people still walk a little less easy.
All of which brings the question: Where do we go from here? Over the last decade, 911 and the subsequent failure to catch Bin Laden has driven us a little crazy. We launched one war that has become America’s longest, another that had nothing to do with terrorism, tortured people, spied on domestic citizens unconnected even in an abstract way to terrorism, shredded the constitution, and almost bankrupted America (Bin Laden is listed as our costliest enemy at 3 trillion). Worse still were the costs you can’t count.
People were paranoid, gun crazy, and America became a generally more hostile place as a result. [I don’t need to point out the irony of the strong anti-Obama rhetoric…and then him being the guy to finally catch Bin Laden] Al-Qaeda will likely disintegrate, falling apart due to infighting to take the top spot (they’re basically a gang and this always happens with a power vacuum in organized crime), and losing further ground to more nationalist rivals like Hizballah/Hamas. So we know where the terrorist organization long used as a boogie man to justify everything from the Patriot Act to Homeland Security is going. So the question now is, where do WE go from here?
Can we finally scale back our puke-inducing military budget, our unwieldily national security apparatus, our collective fear and paranoia, and reinvest in ourselves, our education, our healthcare, our poor people? Or will this be another missed opportunity, just like the fall of the Soviet Union, which actually increased our military budget?
It’s true, I think a lot of us are taking for granted how significant his death is.