Thoughts on the Death of bin Laden

Like all Americans, I celebrated the news that Osama bin Laden had been killed in a raid in Pakistan Sunday night. I thought back to 9/11 when I was awoken by my father, who told me something bad had happened at the World Trade Center. I spent the rest of the day sitting with my ninth grade class watching as the news stations played and replayed the planes disintegrating into the twin towers, the smoking aftermath of the attack on the Pentagon and Flight 93 in Pennsylvania, and the unbelievable collapse of the towers themselves.

After the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan several weeks later, I thought it would only be a matter of time until bin Laden was caught or killed, and I was sure they had him in Tora Bora. Then I watched helplessly as it was reported that the Northern Alliance allowed a cease fire which gave him the chance to escape. Over the years, the hunt for him stalled and public attention turned to Iraq and the economy. bin Laden dwindled to a shadowy figure who occasionally released video and audio tapes. While other key al-Qaeda members were being killed or captured, bin Laden remained elusive. Eventually, I came to believe that between the fierce tribal loyalty which surrounded him and the endless, rugged mountainous terrain of his hiding place, he would never be found. I fully expected he would be able to stay out of sight until the day he would die in a cave and be secretly buried.

Now bin Laden is dead, the result of what will likely be considered one of the more complex and brilliantly executed raids in history, his body positively identified with the help of his relative’s DNA and slipped into the Arabian Sea from the deck of a U.S. carrier.

If President Barrack Obama is gloating a bit, he certainly deserves to do so. Had anything gone wrong, had the helicopters been shot down or any of the Special Forces been killed, he would have borne the brunt of the blame. I haven’t been a huge Obama fan, but I am the first to admit he made a hard call that was successful, and he will get a massive and well deserved bump in the polls. It will be even better if everyone remembers that there is other credit that’s also well-deserved; the credit for how the intelligence was gathered, how the operation was planned and its secrecy protected, and most important, how it was ultimately carried out – successfully – by the Special Forces who stormed the compound.

I was inspired by the unbridled patriotism that followed Obama’s speech. The day may long be remembered as my generation’s V-J Day (August 14, 1945 when Japan announced it would surrender to the Allies, ending World War II). While Americans and our supporters should indeed celebrate, I sincerely hope we won’t now think that the war is over or that we can now simply leave the Middle East. Dangerous men like Yemen’s Anwar al-Awlaki and Egypt’s Ayman al-Zawahiri remain at large to threaten American lives, and they will not simply go away.

The Special Forces’ success will send al-Qaeda further underground, and make them look over their shoulders. They will continue to plan attacks on us, though their communications will become more difficult and the U.S. will surely exploit all of that intelligence they gathered during the raid. Also, there is a chance that internal conflict may erupt in the ranks of al-Qaeda as they work to fill the void – though, according to terrorism experts, there is no one who will enjoy the level of extremist support bin Laden had.

While others may point out that the death of one bad guy won’t matter when so many others are still out there, one thing has been made refreshingly clear, at least to me: Hurt us, and we will find you, no matter how long it takes.