A lot of folks are debating if it's wrong to feel elation at the death of someone even if that someone is Osama Bin Laden. I don't think it makes you a bad person if you do or you don't. If it bothers you, set yourself some reasonable dividing line…like it's okay to cheer the demise of someone who caused 1000 or more innocent people to die. I think that's about where the cutoff point would be for me. If I'm in a compassionate mood, maybe 1500.
My own sense of elation over the announcement came from a number of different places, none in the vein of "that bastard deserved to die." I was happy that there was some potential closure there for folks still feeling the pains of 9/11. It may not matter to some but it's there for those who want to grab it. I also thought America is in bad need of a "win" and this can be viewed as a big one. And maybe the first thing I thought was, "Good…no trial."
I believe that any person — yes, even the killer of 1000+ people — is entitled to a fair trial, complete with genuine legal representation. I just don't think there's any way Osama Bin Laden could ever have received anything resembling a fair trial…and the logistics and jurisdictional disputes would have been nightmares. I'll bet at least a year and thousands of man hours would have been spent just to decide where to have it. His attorneys would have been attacked as terrorist enablers. There would have been demonstrations outside and hourly bomb scares and speeches and grandstanding and…jeez, what a mess. If the man could had a trial with no showboating and overlays of martyrdom, great. Take him alive. But does anyone really think he could have been tried in a court of law? For real?
And what if he'd gotten the first O.J. jury?