Osama bin Laden is dead, but his legacy of terror continues

Osama bin Laden is dead, we are told this morning, and he has been buried at an undisclosed location at sea.

Yes, the mastermind of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the U.S. and the most wanted man in the world was shot in the head, and he is gone now, but one has to wonder whether or not he lost the battle he led for so long against the western world.

Even as we celebrate we ought not forget that although we lost 3,000 lives on 9/11, since then hundreds of thousands of civilians have died in our two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan where our military continues to be engaged, as well as elsewhere in the middle east. 

And let us not forget our war dead and the hundreds of our soldiers who will suffer from severe injuries for the rest of their lives.

There are other losses – it’s that whole “blood and treasure” thing. In addition to funding two wars, millions of our taxpayer dollars continue to be tied up in homeland security measures put in place since 2001.

With the above facts in mind, one reads in a more sober mood, the story of the operation that took bin Laden down in Pakistan early this morning. Andrew Malcolm at the Top of the Ticket (LA Times):

So, in the end it was not a cold, dank Afghan cave that sheltered the world's most wanted man, Osama bin Laden.

It was a huge million-dollar enclave in Abbottabad, Pakistan, with far too much security and 18-foot high walls, way taller than necessary to protect the two couriers who allegedly lived there alone. (See raw video footage below.)

That in the end is what brought the sudden end to Bin Laden's life with a U.S. bullet into his head, among other places, after a circuitous 10-year hunt for the spiritual leader of the global Al Qaeda terrorist franchise and the master plotter of the 9/11 attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people.

The hunt began to narrow several years ago when interrogations of Guantanamo Bay detainees produced the nicknames of a pair of highly trusted couriers, used by the captured 9/11 architect Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Bin Laden, who had learned his electronic communications could be monitored by the U.S.

It took nearly two years of CIA analysis to determine the men's real names and to begin tracking them, ultimately to and from the housing compound that was built in 2005. The compound, according to senior administration officials, was eight times larger than others in the area. 

Its occupants burned their trash, rather than putting it out for collection. And strangely, although apparently wealthy from no visible income sources, the occupants had no telephone or Internet links to the outside world. 

According to a variety of sources, the raid on the compound was authorized last Friday by President Obama just before he left for Alabama and Florida.

The carefully rehearsed operation struck about 1:30 a.m. Monday local time.

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