The Fatwa of Osama bin Laden

Experienced travelers know that the world is generally a safe place where one is far more likely to encounter smiles and the hand of friendship than the kind of scary situations we see on the TV news each night.

But it's never wise to travel blind, and for Americans and Westerners in general, that has meant being mindful of the fatwa of Osama bin Laden over the past 13 years.

In 1998, bin Laden and four other representatives of jihadist groups signed a fatwa that provided religious authorization for the killing of Americans and Jews throughout the world.

As seen in in 9/11, the Bali bombings of 2002, the Madrid train bombings of 2004 and the London subway bombings of 2005, Osama bin Laden and his minions took this fatwa to heart. This is not to mention the thousands of innocent Muslim persons who have died, often in anonymity, for not living up to al Qaeda's perverted ideal of Islam.

It seems odd that there are a fair number of people weighing in with the notion that the death of ANY human being shouldn't be celebrated, and that the happy demonstrations in Washington, D.C., New York, and across the world are unseemly.

But Osama bin Laden gave up any claim to humanity long ago -- even before he sent his goons to slit the throats of stewardesses with box-cutting knives, prior to ramming jets into the Twin Towers and Pentagon.

No one should feel sorry for bin Laden or feel in any Christian sense that humanity is diminished by his being shot down like a mad dog. Given the chance, this friend of medieval barbarism might have killed every man, woman and child in the Western world with a song in his heart. He belongs at the bottom of the ocean and the junk heap of history.

Robert Downes's new illustrated e-book, "Planet Backpacker: The Good Life Bumming Around the World," has been published on Amazon Kindle.