In this 1998 file photo, Osama bin Laden speaks to the journalists in Khost, Afghanistan and made available Friday March 19, 2004. A person familiar with developments said Sunday, May 1, 2011 that bin Laden is dead and the U.S. has the body. (AP Photo/Mazhar Ali Khan, File)The raid by American special forces on Osama bin Laden's hideout in Pakistan was a spectacular success. But that success was not guaranteed. A thousand things could have gone wrong!
We rejoice that our Navy SEALs were able to do their amazing job and return safely - and that bin Laden, after years of doing evil, finally has been eliminated.
But we cannot help but ask some questions, such as:
What if bin Laden had not been in the building in Pakistan at the time the raid took place?
What if the mission had failed? (One of our helicopters had a hard landing.)
The negative possibilities make the success of the mission all the more gratifying.
But what's next? Will someone else rise to bin Laden's evil stature? Our troubled world is, after all, full of terrible organizations and individuals, eager to do harm.
For the moment, however, we stand in awe and appreciation of our courageous armed forces and of our intelligence agents. They face horror and danger in their efforts to maintain our freedom - and to protect us from those who seek our destruction.