George Bush: Osama bin Laden is Dead, Good!

George Bush said that Osama bin Laden is dead, good! But that is not all he said.

There are some reports that what George W. Bush has said in the aftermath of the killing of the number one terrorist in the world has been skewed a bit. In fact, a spokesman for the former President says his quote has been misrepresented to some extent. He DID say that is was good that the leader of al-Qaeda and 9/11 mastermind has been killed. As is now being reported, he was ‘glad, but not overjoyed’.

Why would he not be overjoyed? Osama bin Laden was after-all the arch-enemy of George W. Bush throughout his Presidency. He was the leader of al-Qaeda, the terrorists organization that had succeeded in perpetrating the most deadly, heinous and destructive act on American soil in the history of the United States.
He said he was not overjoyed because the act of killing Osama bin Laden was not carried out ‘out of hatred but to exact judgment.’.

The former president said he was “not overjoyed” to hear that elite US commandos had taken out bin Laden in Pakistan, explaining that the covert strike had been carried out not “out of hatred but to exact judgment.”

“The guy is dead. That is good,” Bush said, according to an ABC news contributor who attended the event. “Osama’s death is a great victory in the war on terror. He was held up as a leader.”

Asked about the accuracy of the report, a spokesman for the former president, David Sherzer, told AFP: “Most of the quotes are not accurate. But the general tenor of the piece accurately reflects President Bush’s views.”

Bush said he was eating in a restaurant with wife Laura Bush and two friends when he received Obama’s telephone call to inform him of the raid, and hastened home to take the call.
“Obama simply said ‘Osama Bin Laden is dead,’” ABC’s source quoted Bush as saying.
After Obama detailed his decision to order the raid on bin Laden’s fortified compound in Pakistan, Bush replied: “Good call.”

The former president praised US intelligence services and recalled a meeting with secretive and deadly US Navy Seal “Team Six” in Afghanistan.

“I said, ‘I hope you have everything you need. One guy said, ‘We need your permission to go into Pakistan and kick ass,’” ABC quoted Bush as saying.

In other words. This isn’t a time for celebration but for reflection. We do not exact justice because we are a cruel people, but because we understand what has to be done and are willing to do it, regardless of how difficult it is for us to do it. We do value human life as is the nature of our Judeo-Christian values.

The message to the rest of the world is that Americans are not as short-sighted as many think. In fact, we remember and we remember well. In addition to that, the long arm of American retribution will eventually find you and will retaliate, even if it takes a decade or more. But we do not relish the thought of taking human life, however repugnant that life ay be to us and to the values that we hold dear in our society.

I believe that is the message that former President George W. Bush was conveying in his statement about the killing of Osama bin Laden. We don’t relish the killing, but we will extract retribution if you attract us as is necessary for our survival and because we are a just, humane and civilized society.

In addition, we know that al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups are decentralized organizations. Taking out the leader, the figure-head, does not end the threat. Another leader will emerge who will try to prove himself. Our troops are deployed in several countries at this point, Iraq, Afghanistan and Lybia (just to name a few). Osama bin Laden is dead, but the Global War on Terrorism continues.

Posted by Beth Shaw