It's nice being right.
I'll give us all one guess (okay, maybe two) who got him.
Too bad he won't get to see the Freedom Tower completed. But I suppose you can't have everything.
My jubilant reaction lasted about four minutes, which I think is about right. This isn't a cause for celebration. We had to kill a man – several, in fact. It's the Salafist jihadis who celebrate death, not us.
The whole thing was unfortunate – it's unfortunate that bin Laden couldn't just be decadent, wealthy playboy, spending his family's money on nice Lithuanian hookers in London; it's a damned shame he had to kill all those people; and, yes, it's a shame we had to kill him in response.
Watching the celebrations in Lafayette Square, and at Ground Zero, I did think that's nice for the boys in the spec-ops community who accomplished this – that they get to see how much their tireless and masterful work is appreciated, and that it made people happy. (I didn't particularly like how Obama seemed to be claiming personal credit for it, apparently campaigning. Let's be clear: Obama did nothing.)
Anyway, the hope now is that we can now spend a lot of the terror-fighting money and effort on curing disease, and eradicating poverty, and making a $500 tablet device that can run the new Unreal 3 engine:
The Israelis, perhaps, had it best:
I'm sure she would have mentioned the Unreal 3 Engine had she been alive today.
Oh, yeah, look who else is taking it pretty soberly – the Marines in Afghanistan:
It's being reported that the takedown was done by Navy SEALs, pace my guess that it was 1st SFOD-D. I'll make another guess: the SEALs were actually DEVGRU (aka SEAL Team 6) and they were attached to the many-numbered Task Force, or at any rate under JSOC. This was a deliberate, not rushed, op – and I'd be surprised if they would use anything other than Tier-1 SOF. Whether it was Delta or DEVGRU sort of comes down to the theatre and the current rotation. Then again, it's by design that someone like me shouldn't know much about this.
Update: That looks about right:
U.S. Joint Special Operations Command Special Mission Unit (SMU) from the United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group (DEVGRU – formerly known as Seal Team Six) did the shooting. There were other JSOC spotters on the ground, as well as two special operations helicopters and an unmanned drone overhead.
Right now, somewhere, a genre novelist is finishing work on a special forces military terrorism thriller that climaxes with capturing bin Laden – and going, "Well . . . shit." Sorry, dude.
This is nice – Arab Americans celebrating in Dearborn, MI
And another group that has every right to feel okay today:
Right then. Off now to Mayfair, for a quick swing by Grosvenor Square to see if anything is happening outside the American Embassy. Then beers and Lebanese food in Shephard's Market. Life's truly not so bad today.
Okay, here's some photos from our lovely day of celebrating in Mayfair – virtually all taken after a couple of pints in Ye Grapes, and a couple more beers in the lovely Iranian restaurant, both in Shephard's Market . . .
Okay, I wasn't too big on the triumphalism, but this one is hard to resist: it's got spraying champagne, Church Street (one edge of Ground Zero), and spontaneous singing of the National Anthem. There are a range of feelings about having a song about a battle as our national anthem. But it seems very suitable today.
Okay, here's the original late-night video, if you must see it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcLlLc1jRjY
