Ten years ago Dale Earnhardt died in a car crash, the Williams sisters competed against each other for the U.S. Open title, and Sen. Jim Jeffords of Vermont defected across the aisle. Ten years ago the world changed. Then we started looking for Osama bin Laden.
A lot has changed since then, and Osama is dead. In one of the gutsiest calls perhaps since JFK chose to sweat out the Cuban missile crisis, President Obama ordered a surgical strike against a high-value target in a sovereign country with whom relations have recently been on ice. And it paid off.
Emotions have been running high over the last couple of days. Some people celebrated in the streets. Many others felt oddly truncated or emotionally stifled, unsure about how to feel or what to think. As the raison d’être for the longest war in American history, Osama’s death is a victory, but just what kind of victory is unclear. An ideological one, clearly, but its strategic value is opaque. We can assume that the intelligence gathered from the compound in Abbottabad where he was killed will prove resourceful. But we know that his contact with the outside world has been limited, and it seems likely that Al Qaeda has been operating independent of his involvement. If that is the case, it’s also logical that terrorist networks have been anticipating this day, and now is the time for NATO and defense forces to remain vigilant. Taliban insurgents are notoriously active during the spring season and Osama’s death provides exactly the kind of ideological backdrop on which they thrive.
And that’s not all. Desperation may begin to creep into terrorist ranks as the politics of radicalism become subverted by revolution. Osama was able to operate, to gain support, because he offered many people something they’d never had before––he offered them recognition. People were screaming and Osama promised each of them a megaphone. Of course that’s not all he promised, and many have died as a result of that form of recognition that carries with it the weight of accountability.
It had become clear to many that empty recognition made for hollow representation. Then something happened: a street vendor in Tunisia set himself on fire, and whole generations of people realized that they could scream louder with one cell phone than with ten-thousand megaphones. The technological revolution had come full-circle in a democratic iteration, and the promise of recognition was fulfilled through participation. Now that Osama is dead, it almost feels as though the ramifications are further reaching than anyone could possibly have hoped or imagined. It feels like we are on the brink of a new era, and for the first time in a while my heart and brain are in optimistic agreement about the possibilities for our future.
