We Choose the Police Option

Ten years late:

Ironically, and not terribly surprisingly, the Navy SEAL operation that eventually snared bin Laden on May 1, 2011, not quite ten years into the war, was not dissimilar from what might have happened had the international justice approach been chosen. The raid came about through years of examination of data and surveillance of suspects, not exploitation of a battlefield breakthrough; it carefully targeted bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan; it was aimed only at bin Laden’s capture or, more likely, killing. And yet the “moral victory” that many Americans are claiming is illusory, in the sense that few but Americans feel it. President Barack Obama’s administration will neither reap political advantage in the Islamic world nor renew Americans’ claim on global sympathies. Nor will bin Laden’s demise reduce the likelihood or perceived legitimacy of future terrorist attacks, not because of the questions swirling around the official accounts of the raid and disposal of remains, but because of the havoc wrought by the US-led war on terrorism.

 Link.  The whole thing is worth your attention--nothing you didn't know but ne'er so well expressed.