The appropriate emotion when an opponent is killed is mourning.
The bloodlust I see in the joy around the country is saddening.
Is this what 10 years of war has wrought?

My father's (former) office was hit by the plane that was flown into the Pentagon on 9/11. After having spent much of his career there, he relocated to an office in Crystal City about a month prior to the attacks. Although, I have some mixed feelings about all the champagne spraying and "historic partying" we are seeing in the media, I will go out on a limb and say that if my father was in his Pentagon office on the morning of 9/11, I would not be "mourning" the death of an opponent today. That people are demonstrating relief, or that they are feeling satisfaction in this is natural, I think. How that translates into action is what differs. Some people might want to gather for a vigil, or have moments of silence. Some people feel the need to get together and shout from their rooftops. Seems like a combination of both.

Relief and bittersweet are words that describe some of the feelings I have towards what has transpired. I will go on record to say that I am also happy that some justice has been served, and hopefully the people who were intimately affected by 9/11 will experience a small degree of closure on some level. Clearly, this has conjured a myriad of emotions and when it's complicated beyond the simple happy, angry, sad, there is a potential for, well, what we're all seeing in the media. Honestly, I don't think it's so much bloodlust and joy in death as it is people en masse trying to show their support/relief/happiness/sadness/thankfulness/patriotism in an organized way. And, sometimes, it doesn't come off right.

I was surprised. I had forgotten he was still out there.