Concerning the Death of Osama Bin Laden

My friend, Rev. Wendell L. Griffen, pastor of the New Millenium Baptist Church in Little Rock, Arkansas, wrote this reflection on the US killing of Osama bin Laden on May 1, 2011.

The announcement by President Barack Obama that U.S. forces killed Al Qaeda terrorist leader Osama Bin Laden in an attack on a compound in Pakistan ends a manhunt that began when Bill Clinton was president and intensified after the mass murder Al Qaeda committed in the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Towers in New York and on the Pentagon in Washington, DC. No one should be surprised that Americans are glad about Bin Laden's death, as it represents a military and intelligence victory over the man who masterminded an organization devoted to terrorism, murder, and instability around the world.

Bin Laden's death marks a just conclusion to the manhunt. We should be relieved, but his death is no reason for triumphalism. The U.S. killed Bin Laden, a terrorist. The military and intelligence victory must be acknowledged and appreciated.

But the greater challenge for the United States and the rest of the world is to address the moral, political, economic, and other causes and forces that contribute to the estrangement that produced Bin Laden and his followers. Bin Laden, for all his importance militarily, was but a glaring symptom of that estrangement. The moral challenge now is whether people (policymakers and everyone else) are willing and able to face and engage in the solemn work of addressing the factors that influence people to become terrorists.

This is no time for triumphalism. Instead, we should give serious thought about how to reconcile human differences so that violence, hate, and cruelty don't take root within people. That work is more important than killing one terrorist, even if he was Osama Bin Laden. Bin Laden is dead. The more important work isn't.