Within the last 2 years, President Obama told CIA director Leon Panetta to make the search and capture of Bin Laden the top priority in Afghanistan. As impractical and zealous as that might have seemed, it just feels right today. Bin Laden might not have been the logistical or intellectual force within Al-Qaeda at the time of his death that he was before, but he was certainly a symbolic and inspirational force. And as the lush compound that provided him refuge shows, he might still have been a financial force too.

All this time we thought or were told that Bin Laden was hiding out in some cave in Pakistan. Who knew that this that the cave would turn out to be a fortified compound with 4 bedroom, 4 bath, and a waterfall grotto (just my guess)? U.S. counter-terrorism official John Brenan claimed that there was no way Pakistan did not know about the hideout. It was in the same town as Pakistan’s Military Academy.  That’s like W. “disappearing” to some $10 million mansion on the Hudson River, a few thousand yards from West Point.

President Asif Ali Zardari swears that Pakistan was neither neglectful nor seditious in this matter. He also pointed out that it was cooperation with Pakistan that lead to the intelligence that lead to the capture. But it was and is the complex and flawed relationship that we have with Pakistan that has allowed the Taliban a safe haven for resurgence. Nevertheless, U.S. officials still claim that a dubious alliance with Pakistan is better than no alliance at all.

It was a bit unjust and insulting to see the U.S. government go to such lengths to give Bin Laden a proper burial. Thousands of people who died on September 11^th were not afforded that same respect. Just imagine if an elite Al-Qaeda group had kidnapped Obama on one of his diplomatic visits to the Middle East. They would have set him ablaze, chopped him up, and done all sorts of abominable things to his body. They gave him a proper burial so there wouldn’t be uprisings, but it seems Bin Laden’s death alone has inspired protests and created a threat for terrorist acts anyway.

I don’t think burying him so quickly and at sea was as shrewd as people think. They were right not to bury him in the ground. You do not want to create a shrine for Osama Bin Laden followers. However, now that his body has been thrown so quickly into the sea, jihadists, Islamic dissidents and other anti-American crackpots (many of which are our own citizens) will resist closure and deride the strength and integrity of our military, the CIA, and the U.S. government. I think they should have kept his body for a while to refute any propaganda, and then cremated him at Guantanamo and buried his ashes there.

All in all, however, the U.S. military, CIA, and President Obama did an outstanding job. Obama acted expeditiously and forcefully. He took a huge risk to launch a covert operation like this and it paid off, not because of good luck, but because of good judgment. Yet some credit should be given to his predecessor. It was a special CIA prison and subsequent interrogations in 2001, 2004, and 2005 that lead to Bin Laden’s currier , which in turn lead to Bin Laden himself just 2 days ago. It would be hard to imagine the capture and killing of Bin Laden without the aggressive intelligence mechanism set in motion by George Bush.

The bottom line is that it is a very good thing that Bin Laden is dead, and dead today. It is most apparently a victory for justice and vengeance. But it is also a boost of moral for the United States, on a war on terror which has faded from popular consciousness. It is a boost of confidence for the U.S. in general, which has struggled economically in the last few years,  and has seemed to lose its sense of exceptionalism. And maybe most substantially, it is a message to the Middle Eastern street that Jihad is not as dignified or glamorous as they might think.

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