It’s been two weeks since the world’s number one terrorist has been eradicated from earth by - I hate to admit it -by the Navy SEALs, and I only say that begrudgingly because my husband, although part of the same Special Operations family, is a Green Beret, and like any sibling rivalry it always burns just a little when your oh-so-popular brother not only gets to do the job and get the glory, but does it so well it will most certainly be remembered in the history books as a ‘perfect mission.’ But alas, the rosy glow is starting to leave our cheeks, and as we wake up to the world post Usama bin Laden, the hangover is starting to sink in.
We can all think back to our twenties...you know you had the most amazing time, out until dawn, singing “Oh What A Night” in unison with your best buddies in some local hangout. Until you wake up and realize you still have no job, your boyfriend broke up with you, you lost your favorite purse in the cab (with your credit cards), you broke your diet by eating an entire pizza by yourself...and you then threw it up, you broke the heel on your favorite Jimmy Choos, and your head aches so bad that you can’t move for fear of it actually exploding. And of course, as you lie in bed writhing in pain, that’s when it hits you - your parents are coming over for brunch in a half hour. Or something like that. Here’s my Top 10 bin Laden hangover realities.
We can all think back to our twenties...you know you had the most amazing time, out until dawn, singing “Oh What A Night” in unison with your best buddies in some local hangout. Until you wake up and realize you still have no job, your boyfriend broke up with you, you lost your favorite purse in the cab (with your credit cards), you broke your diet by eating an entire pizza by yourself...and you then threw it up, you broke the heel on your favorite Jimmy Choos, and your head aches so bad that you can’t move for fear of it actually exploding. And of course, as you lie in bed writhing in pain, that’s when it hits you - your parents are coming over for brunch in a half hour. Or something like that. Here’s my Top 10 bin Laden hangover realities.
Reality #1 - Fears of retaliation. Since the night of bin Laden’s death and al-Qaida’s eventual public acceptance of it, Americans here and abroad have been warned to be on high alert for a terrorist fueled backlash.
And it’s working…folks have been jumpier than a virgin at a prison rodeo. (Always wanted to fit that in somewhere.) Between hearing about people trying to open cockpit doors mid-flight and out-of-control commuter trains crashing in Hoboken, one wonders if paranoia isn’t starting to settle in. It doesn’t help that after sifting through Usama’s private journals collected in the raid, U.S. officials now say “bin Laden remained the driving force behind every recent al-Qaida terror plot,” and let’s not forget the recent surge in porn industry profits.
Reality #2 – Our soldiers are still over in Iraq and Afghanistan living, breathing, fighting and dying. Four while I wrote this article. Bin Laden being killed doesn’t change their day to day existence, nor their family’s waiting back home. In fact if anything it has made it more dangerous. Bin Laden’s death most likely has galvanized those “take-it-or-leave-it” radicals to step up the attacks against our GI’s.
Which is really part of Reality #3 - They still hate us. Protests against the U.S. have been popping up across the globe since we whacked the primo extremist leader. This as the so called peaceful block of Muslims, especially in our own country, were such a small collective voice, no one quite remembers hearing them react at all. No loud chants of, “We can finally move on!” or “Good riddance!”
So it should come as no surprise to most that Pakistan was the epicenter of protests. Even more ironic was that many of the protests were to “demand the Pakistani government withdraw its support of the militant U.S.”
And it’s working…folks have been jumpier than a virgin at a prison rodeo. (Always wanted to fit that in somewhere.) Between hearing about people trying to open cockpit doors mid-flight and out-of-control commuter trains crashing in Hoboken, one wonders if paranoia isn’t starting to settle in. It doesn’t help that after sifting through Usama’s private journals collected in the raid, U.S. officials now say “bin Laden remained the driving force behind every recent al-Qaida terror plot,” and let’s not forget the recent surge in porn industry profits.
Reality #2 – Our soldiers are still over in Iraq and Afghanistan living, breathing, fighting and dying. Four while I wrote this article. Bin Laden being killed doesn’t change their day to day existence, nor their family’s waiting back home. In fact if anything it has made it more dangerous. Bin Laden’s death most likely has galvanized those “take-it-or-leave-it” radicals to step up the attacks against our GI’s.
Which is really part of Reality #3 - They still hate us. Protests against the U.S. have been popping up across the globe since we whacked the primo extremist leader. This as the so called peaceful block of Muslims, especially in our own country, were such a small collective voice, no one quite remembers hearing them react at all. No loud chants of, “We can finally move on!” or “Good riddance!”
So it should come as no surprise to most that Pakistan was the epicenter of protests. Even more ironic was that many of the protests were to “demand the Pakistani government withdraw its support of the militant U.S.”
Anti-U.S. Protests in Pakistan Last Week
Wait a minute; the haze is starting to set in again. Let me work through this in my post hangover state:
...Bin Laden lived in Abottobad for years just 60 miles from their nation’s capital...
...The Pakistani government says they had no idea?! Ok- cut to image of “no guards” on the roof of his compound. Hard to believe the top wanted man in the world would only have one guard protecting him unless he felt safe from capture...
...Then, picture 1.3 billion dollars of our hard earned taxpayer dollars being sent each year since we arrived in Afghanistan to the duplicitously denying Pakistani government...
...Then cut to an image of Congress JUST THIS WEEK voting YES again to continue the Pakistani’s billion dollar slush fund for yet another year...
...Wait I’m starting to come around…Oh yes, and the Pakistani people want their government to stop supporting the U.S military? Hey Dumbasses! (Ok, now pretend you’re calling to them from far away) Your government doesn’t support us! It’s pretend! You know like the movies! You ever see Peter Pan? Oh forget it...
Reality #4 and #5 - Pakistan is about a ten on the ‘Bullshit Meter’ and we pay for them to be that way.
Which slides us right into our next reality fueled reminder - Even after President Obama finally shows the world he has some cojones to order the raid and execute bin Laden the double tap way…..he then kowtows to the radicals by making sure they know we buried his scrawny body according to Islamic Law. I don’t remember the victims on 9/11 getting that same courtesy. Really? That’s what you think is important Mr. President? To show the world that even after we blow your head off, we can still dress you up and take you to the opera. Secondly, let’s not offend anyone by releasing a snapshot of our handiwork while our enemies keep the sole market on documenting every death they've ever caused. Keep the only picture in existence (at least since you’ve been elected to the White House), proving that our country will always reign supreme, hidden from our enemies so as not to upset them. Remind that fact to the families of those four U.S. contractors ambushed, killed, burned and then strung from the Euphrates Bridge outside of Fallujah back in 2004. Oh yeah, is that nausea starting to wash over you again? Reality #6 and #7 – Photo flap and funeral faux pas. Our country stays weak in the eyes of our enemies.
Speaking of weak, let’s not leave out the CIA and the fact that the current administration has practically stripped our interrogators of doing their job without fear of being persecuted as a war criminal. It’s fact that harsh interrogation techniques led to the information that eventually led us to bin Laden, yet the president and his Left Wing minions led by our Attorney General-Lite Eric Holder are still trying to cling to the notion that giving McDonalds Happy Meals to hardened terrorists will be just as effective as drowning the shit out of them. Reality #8 – The Left will never budge on waterboarding, and I’m going to throw in Guantanamo just for G.P.
And now for our families and friends of 9/11 victims, we must know that the death of bin Laden has only brought to the forefront the pain that they have been living with for almost 10 years now – pain, unlike for most of us, never really goes away. And only now, after the haze of celebratory dancing in the streets, long winded champagne toasts and patriotic slaps on the back are over, do our countrymen begin to realize the stone cold sober reality that never left our 9/11 kindred: Reality #9 - The dead are still dead and they are not coming back.
So what about that dancing in the street you say? It was mostly college age kids, you know, the ones in the most impressionable age group on that September 11th - not quite teenagers, but done with little kid stuff.
And now for our families and friends of 9/11 victims, we must know that the death of bin Laden has only brought to the forefront the pain that they have been living with for almost 10 years now – pain, unlike for most of us, never really goes away. And only now, after the haze of celebratory dancing in the streets, long winded champagne toasts and patriotic slaps on the back are over, do our countrymen begin to realize the stone cold sober reality that never left our 9/11 kindred: Reality #9 - The dead are still dead and they are not coming back.
So what about that dancing in the street you say? It was mostly college age kids, you know, the ones in the most impressionable age group on that September 11th - not quite teenagers, but done with little kid stuff.
I mean, my generation didn’t grow up with 24/7 never ending news coverage about the horrific attacks and subsequent wars. We didn’t grow up with images burned into our brains of people jumping 102 stories from burning buildings, of watching our parents cry silently, watching year after year, the endless stream of families holding up pictures of their lost loved ones at Ground Zero. We didn’t grow up with the collective anger and American pride that enveloped the country after the attacks. But these kids-turned-young adults did, and they did it helplessly; like kids who watch their parents fight and ultimately can’t understand it, so they blame themselves. The death of Usama bin Laden to them is probably one of the first concrete things their generation can claim as their own. And like a kid who hopes winning the championship baseball game or getting the lead in the school play will distract his parents enough to keep them together and make everything good again… they cling to the news of bin Laden’s death, in some childlike way, hoping that it will finally wipe away the emotional turmoil they’ve been watching unfold around them for the past decade. But like those of us adults who’ve nursed many a hangover since turning 21: Reality #10 - They’ll eventually sober up in the end.
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©LC
If your over 21 and decide to postpone that hangover, please check out these bin Laden themed drinks gathered by riverfront times.com.
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©LC
If your over 21 and decide to postpone that hangover, please check out these bin Laden themed drinks gathered by riverfront times.com.
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