During President Obama’s address to the nation on May 8, 2011, he told the nation that “Justice has been done” and Osama bin Laden had been killed during a top secret operation earlier that day. All across the nation, near Ground Zero and the White House, Americans were celebrating
“For me personally it is fantastic,” junior Matthew Rindelaub said. “I think bin Laden is a terrible person for what he did and I think it is really awesome that America has achieved its goal for pretty much the past ten years for getting him killed”
Not all students share the same enthusiasm as Rindelaub.
“My friends were more excited about it than I was, and they reacted about it like a holiday,” senior Steven Wu said. “It was a historic event in our history. At first it was surprising to see his name on Facebook because people had forgotten about him and now he’s dead.”
Facebook was a popular place for students to post their feelings about bin Laden’s death. After a few days the reaction on Facebook turned from statuses like “Waldo 1 Osama 0” to a famous Martin Luther King Jr. quote “Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” Facebook users were expressing their views on how one death could not necessarily make up for all the lives lost on September 11.
“Yes, people should be celebrating his death,” Rindelaub said. “I understand that some people feel that celebrating somebody’s death, really death is tragic, in general is a bad thing. However, because bin Laden symbolizes what America has been fighting for, for the past ten years, and it has been in our interests to really get rid of him, I think it is a great day for America and our interest of our country and should be celebrated.”
One of the biggest questions surrounding bin Laden’s death is which president should be given the credit for the killing.
“Right now I’d say since the intelligence was gathered during both times, we got our initial tip for the currier during Bush’s term but we played through the intelligence during Obama’s presidency,” Rindelaub said. “I think they should both split the credit because their administrations both kind of fostered the information and the intelligence community to get bin Laden”
