party in the USA

Well, its been two days since Osama Bin Laden, Public Enemy #1, was found & killed by a NAVY Seal Team. The Al Qaeda leader & one of the masterminds behind the 9/11 attacks was hiding in plain sight living in a three story house with fortified walls in the town of Abbottabad in Pakistan. Abbottabad is home to a prestigious military academy virtually Pakistan's own Westpoint Academy. That the CIA tracked him to Abbottabad and not to some remote cave in Tora Bora is perhaps furthering suspicions of an already wary American government that the Pakistani Military and/or Government knew more about the whereabouts of the Al Qaeda leader that America had been hunting for close to a decade than they were letting on. The fact that the American government did not notify the Pakistani government beforehand of the mission is evidence of America's distrust of Pakistan. The suspicions that Pakistan colluded with Al Qaeda and more specifically Osama Bin Laden and purposefully withheld vital information from the United States might prove to be problematic to future relations between the two nations.

The death of Osama Bin Laden has added credence to the Obama Administration at an especially pivotal time as the Administration is gearing up for the re-election campaign. During his 2007 Presidential Campaign he had promised to refocus efforts to capture Osama Bin Laden. About 2 .5 yrs into his presidency, President Obama has accomplished what he had promised and we'll wait to see how much of a boost this will be to his popularity & approval ratings. However, it is debatable whether the capture of Osama Bin Laden can be attributed to the Obama Presidency alone as it is quite possible that the controversial counter terrorism policies & interrogation methods put in place during the Bush Administration afforded the CIA the information & data needed to eventually track the courier that ultimately led them to Bin Laden.

All political musings aside, the American public went wild when greeted with the news that we had been eagerly anticipating for nearly a decade. There were impromptu parties being held on the streets of NYC and outside of the White House. Revelers remarked that they had felt the immediate urge to rush over and celebrate with others who had also imagined & longed for this very day. The man that most Americans held responsible for the the death, destruction, & chaos on that fateful day nearly 10 years ago was now gone from this earth.

To quote Mark Twain, "I've never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure."