Washington Examiner Editorial
A decade ago in the terrible aftermath of one of Americas darkest days President George W. Bush vowed that I dont know if it will be tomorrow or next month or next year but we will get him. Five years later tough interrogation by the CIA of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and another Osama bin Laden henchman turned up the nickname of an especially trusted courier of the al Qaeda leader.
There followed another five years of tedious but extraordinary intelligence work by the agency legions of military and civilian analysts and other experts that culminated in Sunday nights bold 40-minute raid by a contingent of 40 U.S. Navy Seals on a compound north of Islamabad Pakistan. Bin Laden was killed in the firefight that ensued then buried at sea after U.S. forces confirmed that they had in fact killed him and not somebody else. The operation took a mere eight hours.
Every one of these Seals and their compatriots in the operation deserve this nations highest award for their courage and fortitude. And President Obama will now forever be justly known to history as the American chief executive who finally avenged 9/11.
There are multiple lessons to be learned from bin Ladens demise beginning with one that ought to give great pause to all enemies of the United States of America. Democracies traditionally do not conduct long wars because they are too impatient. Not so America. It took nearly 10 years two presidents multiple CIA chiefs and countless Pentagon leaders and planners to get the job done. Bin Laden could run but not long or far enough to escape justice for mounting the most destructive attack ever on the United States. Bin Laden thus met the same end as Japans Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto who planned the Dec. 7 1941 surprise raid on Pearl Harbor previously the most lethal attack on this countrys people and soil. Yamamoto was killed when U.S. fighter aircraft guided by great intelligence work intercepted his transport plane and shot it down in 1943.
Another lesson that ought to give our enemies great pause was seen in the cheering crowds that spontaneously gathered in the early morning hours in front of the White House Ground Zero in New York and other places around the nation including the U.S. military academies. There were thousands of Americans of all ages political views and walks of life cheering and singing the national anthem and the Marines Hymn From the Halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli.
Such scenes do not happen in a nation riven by political division weakened by a lack of purpose or receding into the mists of time with other dead empires of the past. Hitler thought America was weak as did the Japanese before World War II. So did the Soviets during the Cold War. They found too late how wrong they were about this country just as bin Laden discovered in a flash Sunday night. Today we cheer tomorrow we get on with completing the job of winning the war on terror.
