Way back in my glory days of grad school, I wrote an essay on the collapse of the Soviet Union. In this essay, I claimed that American culture had a profound impact on how the Russians perceived themselves. The international success of movies such as Rocky 4 and Red Dawn made the Soviet Union look weak, no matter how hard they tried. Although Rocky and the Wolverines popped the Soviets in the jaw, nothing mattered more to the idea that the US could eventually defeat the USSR, I argued, than the 1980 Winter Olympics hockey game - The Miracle on Ice.
America in the late 1970s wasn't doing so hot. There were high gas prices, political turmoil in the Middle East, a president no one took seriously, and the Bee Gees. People were still suffering from the social fatigue of the Vietnam War. Then on February 22nd 1980, 20 college hockey players gave America something to believe in again. If these college kids could beat the vaunted Soviet Hockey Machine, then maybe all of American could stick it to the USSR. The team and the victory gave people hope. They made people proud to be Americans.
I was reminded of my essay and the 1980 Miracle on Ice after reading a recent blog post on the eloquent Pitchers and Poet's blog. Pitchers and Poets compared a late inning baseball victory to the death of Osama Bin Laden and described the concept of sports and national victory.
Even though I see the comparison, I don't think one man's death is anywhere near as big as what happened in Lake Placid. It is a small victory for us and a small defeat for the concept of Islamic radicalism, if it even can be called a defeat.
It is important to remember Bin Laden's place in American culture. He was an evil mad man soaked in a mysterious philosophy. He was a dangerous international unknown and the type of boogeyman parents use to get children to stay in their beds or advertisers use to get people to buy American-made used cars. He was part Freddy Kruger, part David Koresh, part chupacabera, and part Dr. Doom.
Bin Laden brought out the best of American ignorance. He was the leader of a sect in a religion few Americans knew or cared about, despite the fact that their numbers dwarfed the number of people living from sea to shining sea. Their ignorance both drove him and fed their own impressionable fears. It was a villain-generating machine of the best sort.
Similarly, the Cold War-era Soviet Union stood as a mysterious threat to our American Way. Their political and economic philosophy was all that was bad in the world, even if it was fairest way to ensure group prosperity in theory. They used their secret police to round up dissidents, used fear to keep smaller nations in line, and made Archie Bunker's life a living hell.
This past Sunday night I watched thousands upon thousands of Americans take to the streets and revel in the death of Osama Bin Laden. There is no doubt the Bin Laden killing will have political effects for American policy going forward. It is a definitive strike in the public eye in War on Terror. For the terrorists, although terrorists are replaceable, international icons aren't.
Another factor to consider is Bin Laden's role. He wasn't the chief of operations for Al Qaeda, even if you believe in "One Mighty Al Qaeda to Rule Them All". He was a figurehead, the Bobby Bowden of Radical Muslim International Terrorism. Removing him may even provide room for growth for a more ambitious Muslim leader.
What bothers me however is that whereas in 1980 we celebrated a sports victory, in 2011 we are cheering death. We didn't score a five-hole goal or hit a game-winning home run against the Al Qaeda National Team. We killed a man. In that we are no better than those who cheered when the Twin Towers fell.
Ask yourself, if former President George W Bush died in any manner and you saw Iraqis cheering, would you be upset? What if it was those who lived a prosperous life under Saddam prior to the US invasion? Not that some might have benefited from the removal of Hussein, but surely those whose lives are worse or who lost loved ones as collateral damage might loathe our former leader. Bush gave the orders that killed thousands of Iraqis and caused billions in damages. Shouldn't some Iraqis hold the same hostility towards him that we collectively held towards Bin Laden?
The idea of cheering for death creeps me out. It's like Ancient Rome and Navy Seal Team 6 is our border-crossing lions. Perhaps however that is only my liberal education talking. Maybe I need to fall back on my natural American psyche. According to anthropologists, America may be more barbaric than our European predecessors. We are forged both from the wilderness of Lewis and Clark and the gutter instincts of a New York sewer rat.
Because we hadn't faced an immediate threat to our borders since the days of Pancho Villa, we christened Bin Laden as our number one threat. Now he can't take away our life, liberty, or pursuit of happiness, nor will he ever dress Lady Liberty in a hajib. But realists (not realist theory supporters, but real world realists) would argue that there was no way Bin Laden actually could anyway.
There are and will continue to be columns and posts and essays and articles written about what the Death of Bin Laden means. Like Weird Al and his plate of mashed potatoes in UHF, we all know "this means something". Whether or not the symbolism is closer to the 1980 Olympic hockey victory or a baseball team winning the last game of the season to avoid a 100-loss campaign has yet to be seen.
