Here's a take on the religious considerations regarding celebrating OBL's assassination. Even if we are atheists, it just makes more sense to try to cooperate and coexist peacefully, rather than piss off others by taking more than we're due, acting superior, and fighting real or perceived threats all the time. There is more than one way to confront a threat. But nationalism is the worst religion of them all. It's got all the brainwashing, exceptionalism, and bigotry, without any of the redeeming compassion and morals. I guess that's why modern regimes needed to sprinkle in a little "democracy" and "rights" here and there, so the peasants believe they are fighting for something noble. It's quite telling that during WWI, both the Brits and Germans were telling their people that they were fighting to save civilization from evil.
The way the OBL hit turned out is interesting, because both sides will spin it like crazy for their propaganda. Initially there were reports that OBL was armed and used his wife as a human shield before he was shot. So of course he's the dastardly coward to the end. Fairly tale closure, good guys win, and score one for the home team. But new reports say that is false, and that he wasn't armed (not sure how the wife died, if she even died?). So the Jihadi side will say that OBL died like a martyr at the hands of the infidel Zionist killers. He may become so mythologized that he will be a better recruiting figure dead than alive. So what have we accomplished? A common concern during the War on Terror is to avoid creating more new terrorists than we neutralize. Clearly this isn't about one man anymore. America created Osama to be this catch-all bogeyman comprising of all our fears and insecurities. The Islamists see him as a freedom fighter defying tyranny. Now it will be interesting to see what new person or entity assumes that role for each side.
A radio host was interviewing a college-aged girl, and they were discussing how that generation is sometimes labeled "the 9/11 generation", I guess because it was the most significant event of their lifetimes and they grew up with the nation at war. The young lady said that she was glad to witness the death of the "man who stole their childhoods". Talk about melodramatic. Yes 9/11 was understandably traumatic on us all, but unless a kid was directly affected by a death or job loss due to 9/11, I think that generation was still able to grow up with plenty of comfort, security, and opportunity in America (if you're not poor or colored). What about the "stolen childhoods" of all the Iraqi children that our weapons maimed or who became orphans due to our war? Have some perspective. It's not all about how we've suffered, and an American life is not inherently more valuable to humanity. Maybe if we thought more humbly and globally, people wouldn't hate us so much.
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