Pebble in a Pond

I was getting ready to shut down, and cruised the Tribune site one last time.  I noticed a headline that the President was going to address the nation, so flipped to CNN on cable.   Dang!!


As I write this David Gergen is commenting, and a crowd is cheering in front of the White House.  Gergen points out that the politicking as begun and some folks will lobby ever harder to bring home the troops from Afghanistan.  His comment points out the ripples that will extend from this particular pebble tossed in a pond.


What about Afghanistan?  Do we come home now and leave it to the Taliban?  What about Guantanamo?  Al Qaeda is splintered to begin with, just what is it we think these prisoners can accomplish after being out of the loop so many years?  Wolf Blitzer comments that military installations are on higher alert in case there is retaliation.


I am torn.  As an American, I am glad he is no longer a viable threat of any sort.  As a human being I regret that my fellow human beings are still engaging in assassination, for that is what it was (and that term is already being used by CNN commenters), in order to stop a man.  Self preservation is a human response to an existential threat.  Bin Laden, and Al Qaeda, was deemed to be such a threat.  I hope that we are learning how to recognize and defuse the issues that allow such threats to arise.  Those pebbles in the pond are no less momentous than the events of today.