Are you sure Obama did it?

My parents were at my house tonight BBQing with us after a particularly tough day with my... ahem... hunny (yeah, I want to call him something else right now, but I'm trying to keep things PG-13 here).

My Uncle Joe called from Arizona to tell us about the Osama Bin Laden news. Since we were busy enjoying the great outdoors (JC and I were busy staying away from each other), the TV was off and everyone was clueless.

As the child of a career Army serviceman (CPT RET.), I can say that our entire family took this news joyously. I busted out a bottle of Asti I'd been saving for a special occasion (it was supposed to be for our San Francisco trip, but that's an ENTIRELY different post). Neverthless, I dug out my wedding champagne glasses and my parents, Italo, JC, and I toasted to the demise of the wicked witch (warlock? demon? inhuman being?)!!

And then I was on FB like everyone else, and I was busy commenting and LIKING and basically rejoicing online with as much gusto as those lucky bastards in Washington D.C. in front of the White House... But of course, America comes with a price. And American are nothing if not party poopers.

Yep. I just called a bunch of people PARTY POOPERS! Not everyone. So all you GOD BLESS AMERICA people and BRING OUR TROOPS HOME people, this is NOT for you.

Now, the rest of you quasi-politico, the-sky-is-falling, doomsayers: STOP. IT. NOW.

Seriously.

OBL is dead. We've been waiting 9 years, 7 months, and 11 days for this to happen. And I can honestly say that nobody would have ultimately cared if it happened because he slipped on a banana peel in his cave, hit his head, and had one of those soap-opera weird strokes that kill because the 1 in a million spot on his skull got lightly bumped by a limestone pebble.

This man cost New York thousands of lives. He cost our COUNTRY thousands of lives... and he cost many others their future - their very existence. Does anybody remember our false sense of omnipotence over world events on September 10, 2001? Nothing bad would ever happen HERE. That was a thought saved for movie premises like Red Dawn. No one would DARE try to attack Americans on American soil.

Then the black smoke, the falling bodies, the explosions... we all realized that day that Americans could be victims of terrorist activities on American soil. It didn't just happen in Jerusalem & Iraq & the general Middle Eastearn part of the globe. It had happened to "" US.

Now we all get news that this wicked being is dead. And I start reading threads about Obama taking credit, about Bush needing to be acknowledged, about whether or not troops had been withdrawn from Afghanistan yet, whether our gas prices were going to go down...

Seriously?!

Stop. Pooping. On. My. Party.

Better yet: Stop. Pooping. On. AMERICA'S. Party.

He's dead. Let's not get caught up in all the details of who (individual soldiers will NOT be identified in our lifetimes), why (duh, 09/11), masterminds (the entire U.S. government from Commander-in-Chief to every incoming soldier), or anything else. Let's pause to smell the roses.

Let's actually stop and think about today's significance in history, and in our collective American recollection. Let's give this day the importance it deserves.

It's not about who did what, what exact day it happened, who cooperated, who originally had the idea (I thought about OBL the day all the stuff happened, why didn't the Prez mention me too?)... it's not about that.

Today is an AMERICAN victory. It is an AMERICAN decision, mission, goal, whatever. It is an historic AMERICAN event. Don't pollute this day in history with conspiracy theories about the grassy knoll (where is the body? why did it take a week to hear about it? how do we know the DNA really is OBL's? who really gave the kill order? and on and on and on)

Osama Bin Laden is dead.

Amen.