Osama's killing no cure for 9/11 family members

Every American remembers where they were when they first learned of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. I was at home in San Francisco. It was early morning, and I was readying for work. The phone rang and it was my father, calling in alarm: The World Trade Center had been attacked. There may be more violence in cities across the country, he said, and he beseeched me to be careful. There was both worry and anger in his voice. For a Chinese-American immigrant and an unwavering patriot of his adopted country, the attack was both terrifying and a personal offence. Reactions similar to my father’s—a mix of fear and anger—would play out across the nation that day. In the instant that the first jetliner slammed into the façade of the first World Trade Center tower, our collective personal and national security—the soul of American freedom—stood deeply shaken. The initial alarm and confusion was paralyzing. From TV news broadcasts came the pictures of the smoking towers, enveloped in thick plumes of smoke. Next came the devastating, haunting images of the office workers who leapt desperately to their death from more than 100 stories up in hopes of being saved. From friends and family in New York City came reports of how they had rushed from Chinatown to escape the cloud of dust and rubble, or how they were stuck in darkened subways for hours, or how they were unable to get home but found eventual safe haven with strangers. The story also hit close to home. A plane from San Francisco crashed in Pennsylvania after heroic attempts by its passengers to foil the insidious plot. The attacks struck at the core of America’s perceptions of nation and self—that despite our military might, our tremendous resources, our global leadership, we could be completely and devastatingly blindsided. And that was cause for anger. The shattering of this ideal on such a large scale has since had ripple effects that have been felt the world over. They have come most notably in the form of a troubled war on terror, that unceasing flex of American military muscle in multiple and disparate theaters against an ever-expanding category of enemies at increasing human and financial cost. It has manifested itself in grandstanding by both Democrats and Republicans, who have sought to use the tragedy for political gain. It can be seen in the seething public anger—some of it violently and erringly misdirected at Arab Americans and Islam. It has also played out in the unresolved tension between civil liberties and national security—how much are we willing to cede personal rights and privacy for some theoretical assurances of societal safety? And then, there is the sustained personal loss, the emotional toll, the psychological strain. Those of us who were not in New York City on 9/11 can only understand the event in academic terms. And those of us who didn’t lose a loved one from the attacks can never fully understand the cruelty of the act. But the outrage we all felt—still do feel—is very nearly universal. What kind of depravity lives in the hearts of Osama bin Laden and his followers? How could someone so coldly, calculatingly kill thousands of innocents? “Justice has been done” [caption id=“attachment_3661” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Has justice really been served? “]  [/caption] Now, nearly ten years later, every American will remember where they were when they found out that U.S. military forces had put a bullet through Osama bin Laden’s head. I was home in Berkeley. This time it was night, post-dinner. And this time I got the news via Twitter and a text message from my step-mother. I streamed footage from ABC and CNN and watched revelers in front of the White House and at Times Square as they cheered and chanted with glee. What was palpable this time was the sense of relief, an impulse to gather and release the collective anger, hatred, and worry. No matter that the unbridled display was a bit disconcerting to me and other observers; from the public celebrations to the Twittersphere, the national mood was clear: “ Justice has been served.” Indeed, Debra Burlingame, the founder of 911 Families for a Safe & Strong America whose brother piloted the plane that terrorists crashed into the Pentagon, told Fox News that she felt her brother’s “ death had been avenged.” But justice means different things to different people, and if there is one thing I have learned from 9/11, it is that there will never be enough drone attacks over Afghanistan or bullets to the head of terrorists to provide adequate redress for either the violation that this country felt on September 11, 2001, nor the lives that were lost that day. Certainly, to equate bin Laden’s killing with a cure for the grief of 9/11 family members—that this was somehow an leveling of their pain to the order of achieving “justice”—is a fallacy, a fairy tale, a fleeting mirage at best. I come to this perspective thanks to a story I wrote about five years ago about Phyllis and Orlando Rodriguez, who lost their son Greg during the terrorist attacks. The Rodriguezes were compelling because they had taken an unusual position on their loss: They did not seek war as a response to 9/11, and Phyllis went so far as to befriend the mother of Zacarias Moussaoui, a conspirator in the 9/11 attacks, because she wanted to embody the humanity and generosity that the 9/11 hi-jackers so clearly lacked. As she put it, she “wanted to eliminate some of the conditions that make people so angry” that they would commit acts of terrorism. Though some found the couple’s approach extreme, they have honestly sought ways to salve the sadness—as have the families at the other end of the philosophical and political spectrum who have sanctioned war and cheered bin Laden’s death. And yet, surely, for all of these families, their loss lingers whether bin Laden is alive or dead. This is certainly true for Phyllis and Orlando Rodriguez. When I contacted them separately on Monday to get their reaction on bin Laden’s death, they both told me that as a matter of politics and policy, they would have preferred if the al Qaeda leader had been captured and forced to face the punishment prescribed by an international criminal court. To them, that would have been justice. But on a personal level, the news of bin Laden’s death, hasn’t helped them with their grief. “The first reaction is not joy, but it’s reliving those moments,” Orlando said by phone from his office at Fordham University, where he teaches criminology. In a separate conversation from the couple’s White Plains, New York, home, Phyllis agreed with her husband. “What I’ve come to understand is that Greg is dead,” Phyllis said. “He’s been dead for nine-and-a-half years and he’ll never come back. It’s bitter and sweet to think about him, but I will never get over the sadness. I don’t walk around sad and depressed all the time, but it’s there, along with the positiveness of him. The word ‘closure’ is bandied about and it really is a misleading term. You can kill a thousand Osama bin Ladens and it will not bring me any closer to ‘closure.’” As I have come to learn from the Rodriguezes, there is a real limit to using violence to seek justice—though it can serve a symbolic or visceral purpose, it doesn’t return in any meaningful or sustained way what has been taken away. “Yes, I hated Osama bin Laden,” Orlando said Monday. “I hate Osama bin Laden. I will always hate him. I will always be angry at him, and at the 19 young guys who killed my son. I hate them for what they did. All of that doesn’t take away from the fact that there are good ways and bad ways of dealing with violence.” “I think that this was basically a revenge killing and revenge killings satisfy some emotional need that we have, but it doesn’t get us anywhere,” Orlando continues. **“**There are people all over the world who have lost their relatives and spouses and friends to political violence and they are not calling for revenge. They are calling for forbearance and reconciliation, and that is what Phyllis and I are trying to do.”