Thank You, Mr. President

As many of you may know, I am not a big fan of Barack Obama. But let me just say that I could not have been any prouder of my President for what was accomplished in Pakistan on Sunday.

Obama took a huge risk in sending in 40 Navy Seals to get Bin Laden. It could easily have gone sour, with Americans getting killed and that terrorist escaping again. He did what George W. Bush and Bill Clinton could not do. The mission went off nearly flawlessly, and that is a great credit to the American military.

I remember back in 1980 when President Jimmy Carter authorized a secret mission to Iran to try and free the American hostages there. Unfortunately, the mission was never accomplished as seven servicemen died in a crash in the desert before it could even get started. I always respected Carter for going up before the American people and saying the responsibility for the mission's failure laid at his office alone. Obama would have been in the same position had this mission failed as well.

It was a long and painstaking mission to get Bin Laden, but the courage shown by the people in the intelligence community and shown by the Navy Seals (the ones who went in are reportedly known as "Team Six") is simply awe-inspiring. I wish we could know the names of those men who put their lives on the line like that, but they will (and should) remain anonymous, if just for their own safety.

I've still heard people whine and complain about Obama even through the success of this mission, but this is a time where our President deserves all the accolades for accomplishing catching the world's most wanted man. He showed courage and resolve, something that is sadly lacking from many of our leaders these days.

When I got the news on Sunday night, I wasn't cheering. I can understand the collective outburst from the nation, with Bin Laden running around free after engineering the 9/11 attacks was a thorn in the American side. But for me, tears came to my eyes after I heard that terrorist was dead. I could only think of the 3,000 other innocent victims of 9/11, and especially their loved ones who have suffered so much in the last ten years. This isn't closure for them by any means. The death of Bin Laden won't bring back any of their loved ones.

And the killing of Bin Laden wasn't revenge. It was justice.

Of course, the war on terror goes on, and it will whether Bin Laden is here or not. But the world is currently less one terrorist, and that's a good thing.

And I close by saying that I'm glad the last thing Bin Laden saw before he met his Maker (and I'm sure that meeting didn't go well for him) was Navy Seals with guns. I preferred that to just some bomb that went off and he had no idea what had happened.

Again, thank you, Mr. President. And to all of those anonymous Navy Seals as well. You have my eternal gratitude.