"This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love."
I have been listening to Linkin Park, A Thousand Suns and woven into this phenomenal work are some quotes from Martin Luther King.
Today we hear that Osama Bin Laden has been killed. That we are celebrating and cheering all over the western world at his death. I keep hearing the words of King resonating in my head. This is such a sensitive subject that I write about it with trepidation at what my expressed thoughts might understandably provoke but write about it I must. I think it is a travesty that life can be twisted and mutated into the cesspit of malfeasance that occupied the space that we call Osama Bin laden. Even saying this however I am saddened to hear that he was killed, that he was not ever brought to account. That he was gifted an end without ever understanding the tragedy of the world that his words and actions have caused. I don't mean that I wish for vengeance to have been visited upon him, although I could easily understand how his victims may desire this, but more that he was tried and held until such time as he understood the loss and pain of his victims or until his life ended naturally. To treat him and his life with the respect that he did not treat his victims. Surely this would engender a spirit of common humanity amongst his followers and his enemies alike. Crowing and braying like mindless beasts at the moment of the kill is as demeaning as it is futile and for me it cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love.
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