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Osama bin
Laden was a gift from God to all of us for which many of us have
yet to express our thankfulness. This is not to
say that the people who were killed on 911 deserved to die or
that God wished them dead, but rather that our response to the
collapse of the twin towers was a wake-up call to all
Americans to look into the mirror and see what we have become
as a people, which we might now realize as we review our
unfolding reaction to that attack:
1.
We see how fragile our commitment to the rule of law and to
the spirit of truth and justice has become. Our
leaders responded not with wisdom and restraint but rather
with vengeance and an almost total disregard for what we say
our nation stands for, or what we hope to teach our children
the meaning of freedom is.
2.
Our first reaction was to attack a country that had no
connection to the 911 attack. As an occupying
force our responsibility was to protect the lives, wealth and
well-being of Iraqi citizens and to preserve their heritage
and the many good things they enjoyed in life.
Instead we did exactly the opposite of that, showing an almost
total disregard for their lives, their heritage, their future,
or their posterity. In fact we committed great
atrocities, including awful war crimes against hundreds of
thousands, in fact millions, of innocent men, women and
children.
3.
We also unveiled before the world the dehumanizing nature of
the greed and brutality that describes the culture in which
our economy, our government, and our corporations operate.
4.
We saw that our elected officials at every level were impotent
in thought and deed in terms of honoring their oath of office,
totally failing to provide the proper checks and balances on
those who used the crisis for their own selfish or ignorant
ends. Most elected officials in fact had no
trouble ignoring their oath of office as they allowed the
administration to degrade the Constitution and the rights and
freedoms of not only Iraqi citizens but all world citizens,
including our own.
So when I say
that bin Laden was God's gift to America, I mean that God
already was aware of the degraded moral fiber and the lack of
consciousness of those who had attained leadership positions
in our society. Even more important, God knew that
our population at large had never learned or perhaps had
forgotten that we are all responsible for the state of our
nation and its place in the world. It is every
citizen's responsibility to keep freedom, truth, and basic
human decency alive so that our children's birthright might be
insured -- the right to live in a just society, under a fair
and equitable rule of law, amongst people who are committed to democracy,
freedom, truth and justice for all people.
Osama bin
Laden, with help from God, swept aside the veil behind which
America's decline had gone unnoticed. We should
cherish and be thankful for the opportunity God is giving us
before it is too late.
I say, "Thank You God for
Opening My Eyes that I might now seek forgiveness for what I
did or did not do, so that I might strive now to
reclaim my honor, my dignity, and my country's promise.
I now understand why
we were attacked in the first place and why it was so
important to learn what you have always been trying to teach
us out of love and compassion for us all."
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