Four months and ten days shy shy of the tenth anniversary of 9/11, the word at this hour is that Osama Bin Laden has been killed and that the U.S. military (or CIA) is in possession of his body. I had to smile when I saw the tweet of the political humorist “IowaHawk”:

US has Osama’s body? Good, now we can pour the foundation for WTC II.

This is obviously good news, and for many reasons. Nevertheless, it’s a shame it took so long. It’s unfortunate, in my view, that George W. Bush didn’t get to announce this news before he left office. But it is a great blessing that this nation will not have to mark the tenth anniversary of the attacks on New York and Washington knowing that one of the key architects of those attacks is alive and at large.

And it is some consolation knowing that Bin Laden has surely lived a miserable existence over the last nine years–living in caves and underground bunkers and constantly on the move and scanning the skies in fear of a predator drone strike.

By the way, for understanding of the origins of Bin Laden, Al Qaeda, and the Muslim Brotherhood, the best source remains Lawrence Wright’s The Looming Tower.

Death ultimately puts every person’s faith and theology to the test. Today, Osama Bin Laden’s belief system has collided with the reality of eternity. I suspect it did not fare well.