I don't really know what to feel about bin Laden's death.

I saw a headline online today: “Musings on the death of a madman.” I know bin Laden has been called a mad man since he started blowing people up, but it makes me uneasy, calling him that. It’s certainly easy to do so. Easy to relegate him to the cast of historical crazies, men whose acts were so violent, so reprehensible, that they MUST have been mad, because sane people don’t do such horrible things. But as far as I know, bin Laden wasn’t crazy. He did evil things, but he did them for reasons that, to him, made sense. Hitler did too, for that matter. Both men had values that were accepted by many others, goals based on their ideals, plans to reach them. Each took the logical steps to reach his goal. If we write history’s monsters off as nut jobs, it keeps us safe from our own lesser darkness. It creates a high, thick wall between us and them. They can do those things because they’re crazy. We’re not crazy. We’re different. We don’t blow up buildings with the express purpose of killing thousands of civilians. We accept civilian deaths (we call it ‘collateral damage’) as part of war…but that’s different (and it is, but is it a qualitative difference, or merely a relative one? Does that matter?) We may use enhanced interrogation techniques…but that’s different; we don’t cut off fingers. We don’t execute political prisoners, but we execute those who ‘deserve’ it, insisting their guilt absolves us of ours.

Osama bin Laden deserved to die, by any rational human standard (inasmuch as any of us are in a position to make that call). He did cruel, violent and terrible things. More horrible than any of us can ever imagine doing. But he wasn’t crazy. He was a human being, who had been angered, inspired to believe fiercely in whatever it was he believed in, and who lived out those beliefs to their most extreme conclusion.

I wasn’t personally affected by 9/11. I lost no family or friends. I’ve lost no one in the armed services. I remember walking into Mr. Bird’s room that morning and seeing the towers fall on the corner-mounted TV. I thought it was another one of his movies (we watched Predator when we studied Beowulf) and wondered what book it “related” to. Even after being shuffled into the school gym with the rest of the 200 kids in my high school, after hearing our teachers tell us what was happening, it still all seemed like one of Mr. Bird’s movies to me. And, in a lot of ways, it has continued to. I’ve never been to Ground Zero. I have no tangible connection to those events. I’ve been emotionally moved watching newsreel footage, but the events portrayed haven’t changed my life in any noticeable way, really. So, given that, I feel in a poor position to even form an opinion on the rightness or wrongness of what’s taken place over the last 24 hours. I didn’t lose anyone. I don’t want vengeance. I haven’t spent the last ten years of my life hoping for justice.

But then I’m not so sure I know what ‘justice’ means, anyway. It is used, it seems, as a synonym for ‘retribution.’ An eye for an eye is just. A tooth for a tooth. Justice is getting what’s coming to you. Karma is justice. It’s an unsatisfactory-sounding justice, I guess. And maybe that’s the best we can hope for this side of eternity. But I hope that’s not true. Shouldn’t justice be making things whole? Or at least better? Maybe bin Laden’s death will, ultimately make things right, in some way. Or better. Or not as f-ed up as they have been for the last ten years. I don’t know, I mean, I hope it does. But I’m not celebrating it. I am in no position to rebuke those for whom bin Laden’s death means their child’s murderer is dead. Or their mother’s. Or their friend’s. But I feel unsettled and uneasy by the whole media bonanza of exclamation points and congratulatory phrases. I thought maybe writing out my thought process would ease my unease. It hasn’t, particularly. I like having an easy position to retreat to, a nice clearly expressible opinion on whatever the issue of the day may be. But I don’t.