Reading the Pictures: USA, USA, OBL KIA

There are some radically different ways of reading this picture.  Are we looking at understandable pride and justifiable relief, dancing on a grave,  or "jingoism meets Spring Break" -- especially since many of these kids were probably in middle school in '01.  And then, to the extent it looks like election night in '08, it might also be an early Obama '12 reelection party.

Setting also matters. Similar photos from Dearborn (Same from  Ground Zero) seemed a lot easier for me to consume than what I was seeing Sunday night from much more white and conservative Washington.

On the other hand, the visual vibe from Time Square rang much closer to what we see above, where, instead of Spring Break, it was New Years Eve.

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Photo 1: Manuel Balce Ceneta / AP. caption: Crowds gathers outside the White House in Washington early Monday, May 2, 2011, to celebrate after President Barack Obama announced the death of Osama bin Laden. photo 2: Mario Tama/Getty Images. caption: People celebrate in Times Square after the death of accused 9-11 mastermind Osama bin Laden was announced by U.S. President Barack Obama May 2, 2011 in New York City. Bin Laden has been killed by US forces in Abbottabad, near Islamabad, Pakistan almost a decade after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 and his body is in possession of the United States.

 

Follow Michael Shaw on Twitter: www.twitter.com/bagnewsnotes

Comments

[adnull29]

10:52 AM on 05/03/2011

For the mastermind of the death & destruction of 9/11/01 to be killed is a great relief to these kids who've lived this post-9/11 nightmare. First reactions are to celebrate the death of a monster, and I give them credit for being so focused. A worse reaction was after 9/11 when some Americans took to muslin-bashing with the same vim and vigor. I'm far more worried about those celebrations.

[BlueOnBlue]

10:14 AM on 05/03/2011

Let's not judge all of America by it's 19-year-olds. I'd hate to think that my behavior during that age had to stick with me my entire life.

[MisBrit]

07:35 AM on 05/03/2011

Such wild celebrations were in poor taste

[RDBest]

07:34 AM on 05/03/2011

Michael, you look kinda young to be hollering "Get off my lawn ! "

[honoursplendor]

06:45 AM on 05/03/2011

"white and conservative Washington"? Where is that DC? Actual District residents are about 50+% black and 75+% of registered voters are Dems. The photos are of tourists/ college kids but DC is definitely not some white washed or conservative town. District residents are not the same as the out of towners from Congress.

[AnotherTry]

04:37 AM on 05/03/2011

How can a republican compete with Obama now? Will they suggest GITMO II or what? Obama has done everything to please the super rich and the industries that keep them super rich. They might as well cancel the 2012 presidential election. There's no point.

[zanzig]

04:36 AM on 05/03/2011

Michael, it might have been useful to us to have you compare the scenes of celebration above with the scenes of celebration in Middle East streets on earlier occasions (that have been shown, and commented on, in Western media before). Human behaviour is not so very different across the glbe.

[kbuffler42]

07:16 AM on 05/03/2011

You're right it's not! If memory serves, "we" were very offended by the people celebrating after 9/11. We were right to be offended; we were right to be shocked by such a lack of human compassion. We should expect the same response to what was demonstrated Sunday night. Now the question becomes how toinfuse humans, around the globe, with more compassion for their feloow humans?

[Feanor]

11:42 PM on 05/04/2011

i guess I am no Dalai Lama because I certainly don't believe criminals and their victims deserve an equal amount of compassion.

[El Guapo Numero Uno]

08:16 AM on 05/03/2011

One small difference. The middle eastern celebrations were for the killing of 3000 innocent, civilian Americans. The celebrations above are for ONE combatant that we have been chasing for 10 years. Americans, to my knowledge, have never partied like that when civilian casualties were announced.

[zanzig]

10:33 AM on 05/03/2011

I don't think so. The way I read the ME "celebrations" after Sept 11 was that they were gloating over having stopped America, not the deaths of 3000 people (not all Americans). I don't think you realise just how large your country looms over the world, and just how much some of these fanatics hate that. It is your country that is hated, not necessarily you individual Americans, do you know what I mean? What America stands for, how America (in the abstract) behaves, how America controls their leaders/rulers, how America affects their livelihoods... All of these add up to that hatred (an impotent one) that caused them to be gleeful about America (again in the abstract) being brought to its knees by a stone age people. I know many thoughtful people (in Egypt, Syria, UAE) who were horrified by the scale of death, but equally I know some who thought that scale of death was the only thing that would stop your country. I mean no offense; I am just trying to explain to you what I learnt over those years (when I travelled a bit in Egypt and Turkey)

[John Moran]

04:22 AM on 05/03/2011

Facebookers et al, keep trying to make the defense for this behavior, in that we would certainly celebrate the fall of Hitler. Having studied the Holocaust pretty extensively, I can tell you this is not the same event. Nazi Germany was not a group of nomadic terrorists. And to trivialize the Nazis in that way, in order to make the comparison, doesn't work. The Nazis were responsible for over 6 millions deaths - and WWII in total, well...millions more.

Over the last decade (I'm 45 now) I've watched as more and more people use 'Hitler' as a comparison to win any argument they wish. This is the kind of tactic pulled out by every Sara Palin who comes along, and now, sadly, America's youth is too ready to repeat the same comparisons. If one doesn't really know what Nazi Germany (and Russia, and Japan) did in WWII...they SHOULD. I mean, what Japan did in the same period was every bit as horrific and unjustified. But now, they are only known as the victims of a tsunami. Learn history people - I didn't even finish high school. If I know these things, what's your excuse?

This is not to say that OBL was anything worth protecting, and of course it's no loss. But this - on so many factual levels - has no similarity to the end of WWII. They are completely different events. Deal with this one for what it is, not what you wish it was.

[kbuffler42]

07:26 AM on 05/03/2011

The number of lives lost cannot be the only measure of the appropriateness of celebration. We can't begin to determine how many lives have been lost because of the violence carried out by (and encouraged by) OBL. So, I agree, no loss in his death, but the celebration, the chants of USA, etc, concerns me. I will be happier when we begin to move forward using an understanding of what history offers instead of citing the lessons of history after we behave rashly. Keep encouraging the reflection and consideration of history!

[shaunmarie]

04:17 AM on 05/03/2011

I left the US shortly after 9/11 - and as such, I have been missing the 24 hour news cycle and near constant breathless hyperbole that is the American media. Maybe that's why something about this strikes me as.... somehow staged, dishonest and theatrical.... perhaps I am wrong, but something about all this coverage, including the 'spontaneous celebrations' feel a bit like propaganda.

Last night I tuned into CNN international to see what had happened. Instead of learning anything, I was treated to breathless moment by moment coverage--- "Wolf, is it true they came out of the helicopters on ropes? Or did they land the copters,,,," "We don't know yet, we have conflicting reports Jeff... all we know is that its a great day in America..."

Why is it such a great day? We struck off one snake on the head of a gorgon, but since 9/11 we have created so many more. We are in three and a half undeclared wars, with military actions going on everywhere. Our economy is in shambles, we are a state that tortures, our policies border on fascism both home and abroad.... our rich are filthy rich while much of America is mired in Mexican style poverty.

So - we killed an old man who it too more than 10 years to find... wow. Does this mean we can address our real problems now?

[Trojan505]

10:55 AM on 05/03/2011

Thank you for writing this. I made a similar post and it was apparently not approved. We've lost so much of what made America great in the last 10 years that it's hard to be excited about this. Wow, they killed someone. Does this mean I can have a job that pays living wage now?

[Ross Lee Timbrook]

04:07 AM on 05/03/2011

I have to admit, I find the celebrations to be disgusting. I mean, how different is your life today now that Osama is dead? I still paid almost $4/gallon for gas, I still am looking for full time work. What does his death mean?

[Romeover]

05:53 AM on 05/03/2011

Apparently it means that you should be content with looking for work.

[kbuffler42]

07:31 AM on 05/03/2011

You ask an importan question. While everyone is busy reveling and the talking heads are babbling, the Sec. of the Treasury quietly extends the deadline for the debt ceiling giving our reps more time to raise it to avoid the "economic disaster" not raising it would cause. I thought we already had an economic disaster? Maybe the one he alludes to would affect wealthier people; I'm already affected!

[AllyCat7]

03:01 AM on 05/03/2011

I would have thought the celebration of many of these people to be more heartfelt had they not bragged about it in real time on their Facebook pages. That kinda threw things for me. Are you going for deeper reasons or just to gather some cool points from your online friends who aren't there?

[MikeWebster]

02:54 AM on 05/03/2011

There hasn't been much discussion of the similarities between these celebrations, and the celebrations after 911 in certain parts of the middle east.

Certainly people are entitled to be happy and to celebrate in their own way, but the images of people chanting USA USA in the streets will not impress the rest of the world, including America's allies.

[John Moran]

03:58 AM on 05/03/2011

Hear Hear! That's how it strikes me, also. I see very little difference in mentality, and it makes me feel like a hypocrite as an American.

[zanzig]

04:42 AM on 05/03/2011

Cerainly what I've heard (on the bus, in taxis and talking to work colleagues) today, confirms that most are disgusted at the "celebrations". Part of that disgust is because we (Australians) are a little more realistic about the consequences of Sept 11 2001: we know that the terrorists in other jihadi cells were emboldened to act; we know that that action was taken in London, Madrid, Mumbai and Bali. And we know that Australians are less safe in the world as a result. Killing Osama may have been justified as an action taken in war, but it is not going to mean much in the long run because he had very little to do with Jemaah Islamiya, Lashkar I Toiba or any other terrorist group. The only core commonality of these groups is that they are rabid fundamentalist Islamists, like Osama was. Nothing to celebrate yet, but I could understand a quiet satisfaction at beheading al Qaeda.

[SapphireBlaze9]

01:30 AM on 05/03/2011

I was also in middle school in 01. I didn't quite understand how horrible it was, I gathered that from the adults. So this whole terrorism crisis has been going on for as long as I remember. So maybe others my age have this hope that maybe now, somehow America can go back to this glorious time when politicians weren't paranoid, and the media didn't hyperventilate over everything, and we can experience it for the first time.

[MikeWebster]

03:12 AM on 05/03/2011

The problem is that the terrorism crisis is vastly over blown. The media hyperventillates over if because the most scary possible interpretation of the nastiest stories is how they sell the news.

Before this latest paranoia we had the cold war, which certainly was a lot more dangerous than any group of terrorists.

I agree that we need to move to a time where paranioia, and hyped media no longer permeates the entire society. That has certainly never been the norm that I can remember though, and I suspect things haven't been that way at least since WWII.

[grandcharles]

01:22 AM on 05/03/2011

Does this flashmob of people who were between 4 and 8 years old when the attacks occurred represent the true assessment of what has occurred here or is it just another excuse to party? If General Patraeus or McKristol or Secretary Gates were taken out by an Islamic hit squad and we witnessed Palestinian youth going crazy in the streets over it, how would we feel? We would believe they were barbarians........take the higher road than the adversary.....

[Andrew Wojtkowski]

11:58 AM on 05/03/2011

I don't see any 13 year olds. Your ability to do math compliments your ability to understand the effects of an act of terrorism on a teenager.

And furthermore, perhaps the correct answer is that it is definitely the appropriate response when you feel a sense of relief after someone who has been terrorizing your entire adult lives is killed. Perhaps the problem is us looking down at the Palestinian youth.

What you are doing is fighting human nature in an effort to appear more "adult" or "civilized." If your son or daughter was tortured and murdered, you would feel happy when that guy gets put to death by lethal injection. Any effort to suppress that excitement is simply fighting your humanity.

[Jokergirl]

01:17 AM on 05/03/2011

Most of people in these pictures were TEENAGERS or YOUNGER when September 11th happened. Then again they probably have relatives, friends in the military and they are RELIEVED. If you look at the Ground Zero pictures you will see vigils, SOMBER faces, quite different. In Times Square POLICE, FIREFIGHTERS were celebrating, they have earned that right too though.