Now let me at the truth which will refresh my broken mind

So, it’s been over a week since the president announced Osama bin Laden’s ambush and death. Now that the media climate is slightly less rank with the musk of Post-Osama Retrospective, I feel okay talking about it myself.

Several things surprised me about the whole, messy ordeal. I’m surprised it happened, frankly. I’m surprised it happened in Pakistan. I’m surprised that the operation was kept so successfully under wraps for so long. (As Garrett noted, for however worried anyone was or is about WikiLeaks, clearly some secrets are still secreting successfully.)

And perhaps as a result of my Americanism, naiveté, or simple bemusement over anything that seems a little ridiculously “meta,” I was also surprised by the overall strong reaction to the overall strong reaction that Americans had to the news.

Intellectually, I can appreciate why various people, both in our own country and around the world, were a little taken aback by what appeared to be unrestrained, patriotically-flavored glee at the announcement of bin Laden’s death. The mood, particularly in New York and D.C., was reminiscent of the Munchkin parade after the house-crushing of the Wicked Witch of the East. Which might not seem so unreasonable until you remember that bin Laden was a pretty serious political and quasi-religious figure, and the Wizard of Oz is a kid’s movie.

On the other hand: September 11th was a day that resulted in an explosion of shock, grief, fear, and rage, and since then there has never been an event that's offered a counterbalance of needed, conciliatory relief. Since 2001, there has only been a slow, plodding progression of disappointments, confusion, and antagonism over the U.S.’s arguably misguided attempts to respond to the attack, as well as compounded sadness over the subsequent military, Iraqi, and Afghan lives lost in that effort. Over the last decade, there has been continuing terrorist activity and near-misses, and very little in the way of events that would give mourners of 9/11 reason to feel hopeful or resolved.

I don’t believe that Americans reacted to Obama’s announcement last week in a thoughtful, considerate way. I believe the reaction was an emotional deluge (the word catharsis has been bandied about a lot, and for once I don’t think that Aristotle would particularly object) that burst out with such rapidity and fervor that deconstructing its source is all but impossible.

I believe it’s a mistake to react with distaste and judgment to the happiness that emerged in D.C. and NYC. The reasons for the “gleeful” reaction are necessarily complicated, a powerful cocktail of raw emotion—that The Face of Terror is gone, that the U.S. government achieved a goal, that there is finally just one excuse to feel like something has been resolved, that Al Qaeda is maybe even just a little weaker, that there is perhaps a reason to believe that the U.S. will stop being at war sometime soon, that Obama has proven himself to be sort-of-okay at the whole military thing, that the U.S. suddenly (if briefly) felt like a united country.

For people in other countries—who may, as a result of cultural and political differences, always view the actions of Americans as dramatic, brash, arrogant, and in bad taste—I can understand their lack of understanding at last Sunday’s celebrations.

But as for the born-and-raised Americans who quickly decided to be jaded, intellectual, and embarrassed over the burst of emotion from their countrymen and -women, I’m confused and feel a little pity by the lack of understanding and empathy. It's a free country, and all that, and people can believe what they will, but I just hope to never begrudge an emotional surge of non-antagonistic joy in a group of people who have experienced such pain.