NCHS Courant
Staff Report
On Sunday, May 1, at approximately 11:35 pm President Obama addressed the country, confirming the beliefs that Osama bin Laden had been killed in Pakistan by US Forces.
In his speech, Obama outlined the timeline of the process of locating and eventually killing bin Laden. “Then, last August, after years of painstaking work by our intelligence community, I was briefed on a possible lead to bin Laden. It was far from certain, and it took many months to run this thread to ground. I met repeatedly with my national security team as we developed more information about the possibility that we had located bin Laden hiding within a compound deep inside of Pakistan. And finally, last week, I determined that we had enough intelligence to take action, and authorized an operation to get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice.”
Some students stayed up late enough to watch the announcement, and felt a sense of peace after the attacks on 9/11 in 2001 and almost 10 years at war.
While some students immediately responded with patriotic Facebook statuses and Twitter updates, many community members were tempered in their enthusiasm. “His death won’t be the end of terrorism, but will end the heal some of the old wounds,” Director General of the Model United Nations club senior Chris Dudley said.
One student who finally feels some closure is senior Matt Brady, who tragically lost his father in the North Tower on 9/11. It was just one day after Matt’s ninth birthday. “It was a rough night because it reopened old wounds that you almost think had healed from an emotional standpoint,” Matt said. “It surprised me at how distraught the whole situation made me.”
After Obama’s announcement about Osama bin Laden’s death, Matt was once again flooded with the disturbing images of the towers coming down as news networks continuously rolled the footage. Matt felt compelled to post this status on Facebook: “Closure hits at those deep, repressed emotions you’ve tried so hard to suppress. Thank God for family, protect those in harm’s way, and God Bless America.”
“It’s very hard to rejoice and be exuberant over the death of someone,” Principal Tony Pavia said. “But if the death brings closure to families affected by 9/11, then we could look upon this as a day to go down in history.”
Yet another aspect of the situation that many acknowledged was the morale boost that the assertion of U.S. power brought and the implications for the 2012 election. “The risk was that people would see [Obama] as weak in defense, but the fact that the government got Osama blunts that,” social studies teacher Stephen Vehslage said.
“It shows [Obama] as a strong and tough president, and it will make it difficult for Republican challengers to criticize him for being weak on defense,” Chris said.
Others began considering the effect of the announcement going forward. “I don’t believe this is the end of a chapter,” Mr. Pavia said. “It’s the beginning of a long chapter in history marking this country and the world’s fight against terrorism.”
“The big thing is going to be the spinning in the media outlets of the events of the last couple days. This is but a chapter in a very unfinished book–it took ten years to find one man by a country that has the greatest military technology ever produced in the history of mankind,” Social Studies Department Chair Richard Webb said. “Imagine the labor and cost it’s going to take to really [execute]a war on terror. There’s no end to this conflict in sight, and it seems to be getting even more complicated. How the U.S. manages the aftermath of his death is going to be very important.”
“A lot of people feel that there will be reactions–this will mean a threat to our national security,” senior Katie Scott said. “But [the death]is still good–it shows that [the United States]can take control of things.”
“The danger is that al Qaeda isn’t one person,” Social Studies teacher Jessica Browner said. “We’ll have to see whether there will be retaliation—there’s the potential for a lot of scary things.” And although al Qaeda will become decentralized as followers vie to take bin Laden’s place, there are many other terrorists who don’t operate under al Qaeda.
In addition to Al Qaeda being decentralized with many followers ready to take bin Laden’s place, there are many other terrorists who don’t operate under Al Qaeda. “There are independent terrorist organizations that operate independently and aren’t under his command,” Chris said.
Moving forward, another subject of interest will be the relationship that the U.S. has with Pakistan.”I wouldn’t be surprised if Pakistan knew he was there,” Mr. Webb said. “We have a very bad marriage with Pakistan, but it’s a marriage nonetheless! When you think it’s broken, someone does something to make it work, and when you think it’s working, someone does something to almost obliterate it. India wants Afghanistan as an ally and that threatens Pakistan–they would be surrounded. So Pakistan has an interest in an unstable Afghanistan.”
“[Osama] was living in this luxury complex outside of the main city in Pakistan, but Pakistan is going to say they didn’t know anything about it,” Ms. Browner said.
Even though Osama bin Laden’s death was largely received with joy and enthusiasm, families who lost loved ones on 9/11 know the pain never truly goes away. Matt said he was thankful for “the amazing support from friends and family, everything from Facebook messages to calling to texting.”
