Words matter

This past week Osama bin Laden was killed.  He was a symbol for an enemy unlike any we've ever known in the United States of America, unlike any we've ever known in the so-called "civilized world."  Death in war is a frightening concept, but when it's played "according to the rules" we can somehow depersonalize it, imagine that it only happens to soldiers, those people we don't know (unless we do,) people who signed up for the killing, knew what they were getting into, even got paid for it.  But the death of "innocent civilians" is an atrocity we can't comprehend.  Or maybe we can, if we call it "collateral damage."  Words matter, and even the few I've written will incense victims of 911, a symbol for that different enemy, the "terrorist" who kills even "civilians."  He is the inhuman monster that does not care who he murders, whether they are "soldiers" or babies.  I do not mean to say anything that would make the deaths of those 2752 civilians any less tragic or meaningful.  I am horrified by the killing of innocent men, women and children, as I am horrified by the holocaust, as I am horrified by the genocide in Rowanda...as I am horrified by Dresden, and Hiroshima and the deaths of 109,990 innocent Iraqis.  The United States of America responded to Osama bin Laden by lashing out.  We were enraged by this enemy we could not see, who wore no uniform, who did not play according to Queensberry rules.  So we invaded the country where he was, and for good measure, the country where he wasn't.  We kicked him out and we killed the dictator in Iraq, and by the way we only lost 109,990 people to collateral damage in Iraq and about 10,000 (give or take a few people) in Afghanistan.  But we won.  We killed Osama bin Laden.
What bothers me so much, is not that we as a country are so happy he's dead.  Surely, had I been of age,  I would have celebrated the assassination of Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin.  And I think it is justified to murder bin Laden, even according to Queensberry rules.  But it's the words we use that bother me.  He was our enemy, a man who felt we were collateral damage.  The civilians of the United States were his Hiroshima and Nagisaki.  All I am asking is that we recognize it as such.  We can celebrate the winning of a battle as long as we understand the cost of the fight.  It demeans our humanity...it demeans humanity...to think we are no less guilty of murder for killing one man, than we are for killing thousands or millions.
Martin Luther King said "Returning hate, multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.  Darkness cannot drive out darkness:  only light can do that.  Hate cannot drive out hate:  only love can do that."
So the country is celebrating.  People are out in the street shouting hurrays.  College students who were babies in 2011 are cheering and partying in revelry over the killing of Osama bin Laden.  Our president, who is hated by almost half the country because their names sound alike, is taking credit for, and making political hay out of the United States of America murdering one kidney-failing terrorist.  I have yet to hear one journalist, including those from the far left, finding fault with this.  It appears to be the only issue that brings our country together, and maybe that was its purpose, not only its unintended result.
But words matter.  Let's face it.  Might makes right and history is written by the victors.  There is no text on the founding of America written by an Apache or a Navaho.  There is no one in New Mexico who thinks they are living in occupied territory.  And so if we want to preserve our way of life, we need to fight, and unfortunately slay our enemy.  But we do not need to demean what that does to us as a country and as individuals.  We pay a price for that murder, each and every one of us.  It would be humane to acknowledge that.  Words matter.