Bin Laden Reported Dead, May 1st 2011

Don't worry, you should still be afraid.

"We're not out of the woods, George," says Deborah Burlingame,wife of a pilot slain on September eleventh. Meanwhile, a group of fanatics gather, draped in flags and chanting for their own superiority; fair-weather patriots shouting their love for their team, the best team, and gloating with a winner's pride.  The television correspondents are caught off guard, Gerardo Rivera has nothing to say.  On every channel it is the same old lines:  A culmination of a ten year effort, the assassination was a job well done (with appreciative nods to the former president, his memory already receiving a buff); America can reach out and "touch" its enemies, wherever they hide; our enemies hide everywhere, we must still be afraid.

Somewhere a scientist is being photographed scraping skin cells and extracting blood from a dead old man.  Pictures are a necessary trophy now.  Bin Laden's is a body of which we want proof.  In Abu-Ghraib the sin lay not in the pleasure the soldiers took in the suffering of their prisoners, but in the prematurity of that pleasure.   Print the dead man's face on the cover of tomorrow's news, let a jubilant nation touch the wounds.

In his national address the president fell back onto cliche - "freedom and justice for all," God bless America.  Outside the White House a crowd gathers shortly after midnight.  It's a horrible resemblance to the celebrations reported throughout the Middle East just about a decade ago.  There is no solemnity tonight, no reverence for life.  Death is a party and yes, you should be afraid.  "USA. USA. USA."