Osama bin Laden is Dead

Kind of hard to imagine I'm typing those words. As I read the live blogs and the NY Times articles about it last night and heard the President's words, I could not believe that after 10 years, we can finally say those words.

Osama bin Laden is dead.

I felt relief, of course. Andrew Sullivan, who was live blogging the progression of events, included a pretty shocking video of the towers falling, to remind people of why this matters, of what this man did to our country. I watched the video and was moved by it all over again.

Osama bin Laden is dead.

I'm not one of those who is overjoyed by it. I would have preferred him to be tried and found guilty, not just for the attacked on September 11, but also for the attacks around the world that were orchestrated and carried out under his orders. I would like him to be tried by sharia law, the only law he and his followers recognize. Standing in a square in Saudi Arabia with an executioner at his side, while a judge asks his gather victims if they can forgive the man. If any of them can not, he is executed and buried in an unmarked grave, per Islamic tradition. That is how I wanted Osama bin Laden to die. But he didn't.

He was killed in a carefully planned and executed mission by the US. A beautifully handled mission that shows both dedicated and discretion (not our greatest pairing of skills as of late). The goal was to take him alive, but there was no way that was going to happen. A man like Osama bin Laden doesn't live in the culture he does and do the things he had done only to be taken away quietly. Of course he fought. Even if he had been captured, he would have tried to escape again and again. His followers might have chosen to kidnap Americans in retaliation or struck out in attempts to get him back.

So last night a breathed a sigh of relief and shed some tears for all those who have died in the process. And this morning, I woke up thinking...

Now what?