Osama bin Laden

It was a bit of a shock to me that today Osama bin Ladan was killed by elite American forces.  I had like many thought that he had died. Some thoughts....

• I was suprised that it had taken so long to get him considering his house stood out. It makes you think that a few people in Pakistan knew about him... I thought he may have just lived in a cave.
• The rumors of him having medical treatment may well have been true
• I was a bit disappointed that he wasn't put on trial. One of the amazing feats of the Israelies was the capturing with Mossad the Nazi Adolf Eichmann in South America and bringing him back to Israel for trail. It seems to me the right thing to do as a western nation. Even Saddam Hussein had a trial!
• I really like what Brian Mclaren had to write::

I can only say that this image does not reflect well on my country, especially in contrast to the images that have been so strong here in recent days ... revelers celebrating a wedding.
Joyfully celebrating the killing of a killer who joyfully celebrated killing carries an irony that I hope will not be lost on us. Are we learning anything, or simply spinning harder in the cycle of violence?

• I wonder how this will reflect on the Arab Spring we are seeing at the moment with so many dictators been thrown out?

Here is a bit of a reflection I wrote a while ago on the book
The Osama bin Lan I know , by Peter Bergen  

This book was disturbing. After reading it I decided that Al Qaeda was the Muslim equivalent to the Christian Klu Klux Klan. In one line they talk about a merciful God and killing the infidel. What the book did bring to my attention was ‘the Islamic awakening’ which I had never heard of before. In a nutshell, it refers to the corruption and poverty in Muslim nations combined with rising education in some of these countries. Bin Laden in many ways was able to bring together the people that struggled in poverty and oppression at the hands of governments and rally them against the West.