Afghanistan

That felt good, didn’t it?

There are plenty of reasons – both analytical and moral – to stifle euphoria at the news of Osama bin Laden’s killing. It is unlikely to make a material difference in the operational capabilities of the loose federation of terrorists operating under the al-Qaida banner. A death, no matter whose, is a dubious cause for celebration. Things could get dicey with Pakistan. Vengeance isn’t a healthy craving. Yadda yadda yadda.

And yet: that felt so good. Go with it, embrace the catharsis.

The killing of Osama bin Laden has greater potential to change the Democratic Party's reputation on national security than any single event since Vietnam. It almost perfectly rewrites the narrative of Democratic weakness that Republicans have labored decades to build.

No human's death is ever a blessing. But this comes close. Many modern revolutionaries have committed terrible crimes in pursuit of a vision that, at least in theory, had moral value. Osama bin Laden's vision, by contrast, was both totalitarian and parochial. And he murdered freely in its pursuit. He was evil in both ends and means.

When the al-Qaida attacks on 9/11 were followed by a debate about whether the campaign to defeat Osama bin Laden and his network should be thought of as police work or war, I was surprised. The idea of a "war on terror" seemed obviously inappropriate, even as a metaphor. In its structure and modus operandi, al-Qaida and other terrorist networks were and are more like international criminal organizations -- drug smuggling or prostitution cartels, for example -- than like states. The U.S.

When I got to ground zero at 10 minutes past midnight Sunday night, a few hundred people, mostly   young men, were hooting and hollering in the direction of two kids waving a 3' x 4' American flag with a black-and-white image of Marilyn Monroe emblazoned on it.  Scores of people were thrusting their camera phones in the air taking pictures of the swirling crowd, and complete strangers were shooting one another friendly glances.

In the decade since 9/11, many senior al Qaeda leaders and operatives have been killed in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and elsewhere, yet still all of these countries remain fragile at best and collapsed at worst.

For Osama bin Laden's assassination to become a turning point rather than a Pyrrhic victory, the narrative of the event must be dramatically shifted away from rhetorical overtones about a "war of ideas" or "struggle for soul of Islam" towards a more neutral and universal appeal to a global rule of law.

No doubt there will be time to reflect more deeply about the news announced by President Obama last night. For now, I thought it might be useful to annotate some of the initial headlines.

On where he was found:

The first words that were used to describe Tim by almost anybody who knew him were "humble" and "modest."

Yet, Tim was a guy who had great talents. He took highly artistic photos and had released a photography book "Infidel," which consists of his portraits of American soldiers fighting in the Afghan War.

He was also someone who would go out in the field and take the grittiest pictures of combat.

At this day-long National Security Studies Program conference, the experts listed below assessed the durability, vulnerability, and threat posed by al Qaeda and its affiliates, ten years after 9/11.

The best-selling author of "Three Cups of Tea" and another book that cast light on the need to educate girls in Pakistan and Afghanistan may face a legal battle and a review from the book's publisher amid allegations that key stories in the books are false.

Greg Mortenson shot to worldwide fame with the book "Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Fight Terrorism and Build Nations ... One School at a Time," which describes his getting lost in an effort to climb K2, the world's second-highest peak, being rescued by Pakistanis in the village of Korphe and vowing to return there to build a school for local girls.