This is apparently a shot of the mansion where he was hiding out being burned down. A group of 20-25 American soldiers went in and shot him in the head during a firefight, with no U.S. or civilian deaths, and were able to take out a bunch of hard drives and stuff that they wouldn't have been able to get if they'd hit him with a drone strike.
Word is that he was in a custom-built mansion in Abottabad, a tourist city 75 miles from Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan. We got the tip that he was there back in August.
Bin Laden was in a major tourist city less than 100 miles from Pakistan's capital for six months. No surprise, then, that Pakistan wasn't told about the operation until after it was done, when Obama called up the president of Pakistan and said "Uh, yeah, we just went into your country and found Osama and killed him. Thought you might want to know."
So yeah, decent chance that Pakistan will soon be number four on our list of wars.
I have to say, as a Christian, I don't really like the idea of celebrating and feeling joy over any person's death. Part of me likes it, but... hm. I'll quote some of my friends on Facebook:
"Perhaps it was necessary, but there are larger questions to be asked. Should we rejoice in the sealed fate of an unredeemed soul? Evil has not been destroyed, and the world will continue to be broken. It's a perfect example of how we can't save ourselves. We don't know what's to come of this. It could make things even worse for all we know. It looks like a good thing, but as I said, the "unredemption" of the situation should sadden us as Christians. I guess it makes me long for the time when we don't have to live in a messed up, sinful world."
"not gonna lie and maybe this makes me a bad Christian but I've never been happier over somebody's death I have been crying for joy :) I feel like dancing in the street"
"So how many years, lives, and billions of dollars did it take for US to finally get our revenge for 9/11? There's this moral fibre niggling in the back of my conscience saying 'Vengeance is mine; I will repay.'"
(Granted, it's easy for me and, as far as I know, them, to say we shouldn't be excited about it when none of us lost anyone on 9/11.)
And of course there's the reality that this isn't going to change a [darn] thing. Not for the better, at least. Gas will still be expensive, Al Qaeda will still try to kill us, the Middle East will still hate us, we'll still keep fighting the same endless wars, our rights will keep being curtailed in the name of security, and if anything changes, it'll be retaliatory attacks.
Obama said in his speech basically to not harbor any illusions that this means we're any closer to the end of the war. While my initial kneejerk reaction was to be reminded of Palpatine becoming emperor after Grievous was dead (I hate that I use the prequels to make real-world comparisons; I need to watch better movies), I guess I also have to give him some props for not putting up a Mission Accomplished banner when retaliation's probably coming. But still, yeah.
Also, I still think we as a nation need to seriously examine our role in this whole mess. I don't mean like "WTC7 was demolished intentionally and the Twin Towers are actually still there it just looks like they're not because Halliburton put up giant mirrors!!!"; I mean stuff like
this here thingie from 1998, when bin Laden had just blown up our embassies. But I doubt we'll be able to talk candidly enough for at least thirty years or so without it sounding like blaming victims.
I guess I ended up starting out on sorting out my mixed feelings already. [darnit], why does globo-militaro-politics-is stuff have to be so complicated?
