One Reason Why Some Americans Have Been Cheering
I was asked why a bunch of college-aged Americans seemed to be celebrating the Death of Osama bin Laden.
My theory is pretty simple: they grew up with this guy as their Boogie Man.
Ten years ago, these 18, 19 and 20-year-olds were 8, 9 and 10. At that young age they witnessed a shift in how America handles security and foreign relations, but weren't really mentally ready to deal with it. Anyone else with basic critical thinking skills or have been exposed to something similar had an idea of where phrases like "war on terror" or "9/11 changed everything" was going to takes us, and far too often, those places weren't pretty.
But these guys? This became their world almost overnight; a world where the enemy could be everywhere, where a friend could turn into an enemy, where saying the wrong thing made people question where your loyalties lie. And in truth, the justification for this paranoid logic was, "It's because bin Laden killed all those people, and we couldn't stop him."
Ten years later, we did stop him. So a bunch of college-aged kids, who grew up under the shadow of the terrorist Boogie Man, decided to celebrate.
My theory is pretty simple: they grew up with this guy as their Boogie Man.
Ten years ago, these 18, 19 and 20-year-olds were 8, 9 and 10. At that young age they witnessed a shift in how America handles security and foreign relations, but weren't really mentally ready to deal with it. Anyone else with basic critical thinking skills or have been exposed to something similar had an idea of where phrases like "war on terror" or "9/11 changed everything" was going to takes us, and far too often, those places weren't pretty.
But these guys? This became their world almost overnight; a world where the enemy could be everywhere, where a friend could turn into an enemy, where saying the wrong thing made people question where your loyalties lie. And in truth, the justification for this paranoid logic was, "It's because bin Laden killed all those people, and we couldn't stop him."
Ten years later, we did stop him. So a bunch of college-aged kids, who grew up under the shadow of the terrorist Boogie Man, decided to celebrate.
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