Muffin Bottoms [not] Just another WordPress weblog

The blood lust of so many of my “countrymen” (and women) this week over news of Osama Bin Laden’s death frightens me greatly as a human being but also as an army signal corps veteran.

There should be somber reflection and subdued “joy” regarding Osama Bin Laden’s demise.

There should be a search for closure and catharsis throughout the land perhaps, and especially among those who lost loved ones but there should not be all this demonstrative applause and neo-patriotic joy. A real Warrior prays for and seeks peace only killing as a last resort and necessary “evil.”

All this armchair warrior behavior gives me great pain. Not to mention I find it rude because come on now! It shows very bad form.

A songwriter friend of mine named Spook Handy puts it this way:

WORSE, HOWEVER, IS THAT HE BROUGHT OUT THE WORST IN SO MANY AMERICANS. PEOPLE I KNOW, FRIENDS AND EVEN RELATIVES, ALLOWED THEIR DARKEST DEMONS TO RULE THEIR RATIONALE AND EMOTIONS – COLLECTIVELY PRETENDING THAT WE DIDN’T KNOW WE WERE WRONG TO TEAR APART IRAQ, TORTURE PRISONERS AND DISREGARD THE SPIRIT OF BOTH THE AMERICAN CONSTITUTION AND GENEVA CONVENTION.

http://www.facebook.com/notes/spook-handy/thoughts-on-osama-bin-laden/10150560528145654

My friend Lucy put it this way:

IT RATHER BOTHERS ME THAT ONE OF THE SEALS COMMUNICATED TO HIS SUPERIORS THAT ‘GERONIMO’ (OSAMA BIN LADEN) HAD BEEN KILLED IN ACTION.

GERONIMO WAS A GREAT NATIVE HERO. WHAT AN INSULT — OF THE GREATEST MAGNITUDE!

WHY WASN’T THE CODE NAME COLUMBUS, HITLER, STALIN, CUSTER, JACKSON, OR SADDAM USED ?????

Shepard Smith and Christiane Amanpour are both very excited about this new path that the United States is

taking now that Seal 6 team took Bin Laden and four other peoples’ lives away two days ago. If you follow their careers with any kind of discerning eye you will see they do not go anywhere that they can’t make low millions of dollars and high hundreds of thousands of dollars exploiting death, war and conflict. Falluja, Palestine, Tokyo, Britain, New Orleans or a vote count in Florida or Ohio. Doesn’t matter. If there’s conflict, if there are people grieving dead relatives, they will be there with their teleprompters and microphone. “How does it feel, Mrs. Metacom, to see your dead husband’s skull rotting on a pike at the gates to your neighbor’s village?” “This just in, we have a 9 year old grieving his dead dad, Metacom junior, please speak clearly into the microphone, your dad is dead, you are in shackles, they are beating your mother nearly to death and tonight they’ll be boating you down to Bermuda to be slaves, how are you feeling right now?”

And here’s some of what Rabbi Lerner has to say about all that:

The task of spiritual progressives at this moment is to reaffirm a different consciousness —

to remind ourselves that we are inextricably bound to each other and to everyone on the planet.

The struggle against terrorism will not be won through killing, no matter how many people

we assassinate. It will only be won when we in the West can show genuine love, caring,

and generosity toward everyone else on the planet.

http://www.tikkun.org/nextgen/tikkuns-spiritual-response-to-the-assassination-of-osama-bin-laden

Last word goes to my friend Rachel who asks this!

What does this say to our children?
Did you know Native Americans historically
serve in the United States Armed Forces
in higher numbers per capita than
any other ethnic group.