laughing in the face of tragedy

[The Great Quail]

>I asked myself last night, What's the
>difference between Osama and his goons laughing at us and Donald and his
>laughing at them?  The only honest answer I could come up with is  Not a
>goddamned thing!

That's a good question. And I thought about it for a bit, and to a 
certain extent, I came to the same conclusion as you -- laughing at 
misery and pain is truly a ghastly thing, even though it is fairly 
common among humans.

Though I think it goes beyond merely laughing at pain and suffering, 
and I do think that context provides some nuance, and points to a 
deeper level of disturbance and ill-will on behalf of bin Laden.

Both men are laughing at the ease with which an enemy was crippled. 
Both laugh at the loss of arrogance on the other side. The real 
difference comes with how you yourself understand their concept of 
"enemy." To bin Laden, the civilians in the Word Trade Center were 
the enemy, and deserved their deaths just as much as would U.S. 
Marines. By participating in the U.S. system, they called their fate 
down upon their heads. To Rumsfield, the Taliban are the enemy; 
because they aided and abetted those who toppled the Towers. By not 
surrendering bin Laden, they called their fate down upon their heads. 
Both men dehumanize, both men have no time to mourn for civilian 
deaths. But to bin Laden, there are no civilians; so that's not even 
in the question. While Rumsfield may have disregarded civilian 
casualties, bin Laden was laughing *at* civilian casualties.

So, while on one level, there may not be much of a difference in 
laughter directed at the suffering of an enemy, I think that the 
context of who that enemy is, and how they "deserved" their fate, is 
significant.

And me? While I am no fan of Rumsfield, I would rather find myself 
surprised to be sharing an inhumane laugh at the Taliban than trade 
the slightest giggle with bin Laden.

--Quail