At Ground Zero in New York City and outside the White House Sunday night, crowds of people celebrated Osama Bin Laden’s death by pumping their fists and shouting, "USA! USA!" But, for Jeremy Scahill, jubilation isn’t the most productive response to the killing of bin Laden. Scahill joined PBS’s Tavis Smiley show last night to explain why the death of bin Laden is a "somber occasion." Bin Laden’s capture and killing provides a moment to reflect on the tremendous number of people who Al Qaeda killed on 9/11 and the hundreds of thousands of people who have died in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Scahill thinks the treatment of the killing as a "sporting event" makes the US seem bloodthirsty and presents an image of a "culture that celebrates execution." He adds, if the wars in the past decade were all launched just so the US could kill bin Laden, it was not worth it. "Much of what happened in the past ten years militarily should not have happened," concludes Scahill.

—Kevin Gosztola