I’m not one for real-time blogging, but here we go.
President Obama is about to announce that Osama Bin Laden has been killed during a US operation in Pakistan.
Almost ten years after 9/11 and, ironically, on the eighth anniversary of President Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” announcement…… the guy’s finally dead.
What’s the lesson? Maybe it’s something like Masada, when the Roman army under Lucius Flavius Silva spent years building a ramp up the side of a plateau with a Zealot-held fortress on top in order to exterminate the last cyst of the rebellion. No matter where an enemy of the US goes, even if it takes ten years we will find you and bring the hammer down.
I doubt Bin Laden’s death will mean much on the ground right now—Al Qaeda and the Taliban are a franchise operation these days…. But as a symbol and as closure, it means everything. I watched the 9/11 attacks as they happened. I remember where I was every minute of that day, and now I’ll get to remember where I was when the circle was closed.
I feel like I’ve just let out a breath that I didn’t know I was holding.
