Most Dangerous Week Ever

Most dangerous week ever? In one sense, it?s the least dangerous week ever, or at least since this blog came into existence: Osama bin Laden is dead. Even al-Qaida admits it. Not just dead, but killed by men in American uniforms. I got to write that headline on Sunday night and it just doesn?t stop being awesome to read, over and over again.

But there was extreme danger in the successful plan for SEAL Team 6 to fast-rope down from helicopters, fight their way into bin Laden?s Abbottabad compound, and kill the leader of al-Qaida. Their leader at the Joint Special Operations Command wrote a blueprint for managing that danger. They left behind trace evidence of a secret stealth helicopter that took them there. They used CSI-like forensics to confirm their kill. They leveraged satellite imagery, drone surveillance, electronic intercepts and old-fashioned snitching, which proved to be way more valuable than any torture. Their dogs may not have titanium teeth, but they?re pretty awesome too. And now the U.S. has all this intel from bin Laden?s thumb drives and computers to sift through and use for guiding the next wave of drone attacks on al-Qaida.

Other things happened this week ? John Ashcroft joined Blackwater; what? ? but the death of bin Laden is a singular event. Its impact on the exhausting war in Afghanistan remains a mystery. And we don?t know exactly what Pakistan?s official relationship with bin Laden was. But bin Laden?s death is the most hopeful development for American national security since his henchmen knocked down the Twin Towers. Between the loss of its leader and the reformist revolutions rewriting the Arab world, al-Qaida may not be done as a terrorist entity, but as a geopolitical force? This is lights out.

Thank you, Joint Special Operations Command. Thank you, President Obama. Thank you, Unknown SEAL who put two through bin Laden?s face. You made the world a less dangerous place this week.

Spencer Ackerman is Danger Room's senior reporter, based out of Washington, D.C., covering weapons of doom and the strategies they're used to implement.
Follow @attackerman and @dangerroom on Twitter.

Source: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/05/most-dangerous-week-ever-26/

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