This is cross posted by Zach at Huffington Post Monitor
Just when we thought we had seen the last of her, Mya “Sue Happy” Guarnieri has made her way back on to the Huffington Post, with an article titled “Americans Shouldn’t Be Celebrating Bin Laden’s Death.” As you might expect, she is not only critical of Americans for celebrating Osama’s death (which would at least be understandable, even though I might not agree with it) but goes a step beyond that to declare moral equivalence between it and the 9/11 attacks:
“Americans — many of whom consider their so-called War on Terror morally righteous — must ask themselves if the images of their celebrations really look so different than those that they condemn…A death of a human being should never be celebrated — whether that person was an innocent or whether he or she is guilty of an unspeakable crime. Bloodshed, and rejoicing in it, only perpetuates the cycle of violence.”
Far be it from me to disagree with her, but I for one think there is a rather large difference the 9/11 attacks and the takedown of their mastermind. Perhaps I’ll leave this to one of the Huffington Posters, who said it better than I could:
But to be honest, if you can’t see the difference between what happened on September 11, 2001, and the killing of Osama Bin Laden, there isn’t anything that I could possibly say to convince you otherwise. Instead, let’s turn back to the article for a minute, as Ms. Guarnieri works in a few more anti-Western talking points:
“We must remember that a tremendous majority of the Arab and Muslim world did not revel in the horror of 9/11. The attacks were largely denounced — from Ramallah to Pakistan and almost everywhere in between.”
The thing is: This isn’t so much not true, as it is only half true. Iraq loudly announced that we got what we deserved, and though most governments condemned the attacks, non-state actors didn’t:
“Sheikh Yassin, leader of the Islamic militant group Hamas, said “no doubt this is a result of injustice the U.S practices against the weak in the world.”
From Gaza, Islamic Jihad official Nafez Azzam said “what happened in the United States today is a consequence of American policies in this region.”
And of course we know about the celebrations of Palestinians, though there is no way to know how official or widespread they were. Yaacov Lozowick has a new article about how he remains popular even in death. And of course the condemnation of Bin Laden’s long-deserved comeuppance. This isn’t to say that Al Qaeda and Bin Laden are the heroes of the Middle East, because they obviously aren’t. But this makes me wonder if Ms. Guarnieri is waffling: On the one hand, Americans are just as bad as those who celebrated the attacks. On the other, the people who celebrated the attacks are insignificant and unworthy of our attention (in which case, so are the Americans who did).
One last thing: After declaring herself to be an American-Israeli (which I did not know), she compares Americans unfavorable to Israel, in that they are both too happy when their enemies bite the dust. But then she ignores Israel’s solidarity with America after the 9/11 attacks, in stark contrast with the Palestinians. I guess even though the article is about America, it wouldn’t do to let a possible cheap shot at Israel pass by.
