Cynics say there's no black and white, just shades of grey. They're wrong. The death of Osama bin Laden - surely the most evil man of modern times - is nothing but a good thing. For nine years and 232 days, he cast his malevolent shadow over us all. Now his reign of terror is over, ended by a crack team of American fighters in a flawless operation. At last, the good guys win.
Anyone who visited the makeshift shrine near the rubble of the Twin Towers knows how personal this was for the Americans. The wounds stayed raw for years. Osama destroyed their sense of invincibility and goaded them into two flawed, misguided and horrendously expensive wars. He helped to make American politics more vicious and dysfunctional than ever. And he ushered in the Security Age, where borders are thicker, six-year-olds are body-searched and air travel is a misery.
Some argue that, as al-Qaeda's influence waned, Osama was seen more as a symbolic threat than as a real one. But symbols matter. His escape from Tora Bora was a humiliation for the Americans. His elusiveness became a joke. The U.S. failure to catch him was a constant reminder of its impotence. His death sends another message - you can run and you can hide, but they'll get you eventually. Some jihadists will be discouraged by that. As Osama liked to say, people prefer to bet on the strong horse.
Osama's death is a triumph for Barack Obama. The eerie coincidence of their two names did much to fuel the theory that Mr. Obama is (a) not really an American, (b) secretly a Muslim, and (c) soft on terror. But now Mr. Obama's warrior credentials are secure. For the first time in a great while, he looks both presidential and effective. Even Rush Limbaugh is showering him with praise. Best of all, his Sunday night television speech pre-empted the unspeakable Donald Trump - whose big announcement on Celebrity Apprentice was that he'd decided to bring back LaToya Jackson.
For me, modern history will always be divided into Before Osama and After Osama. Before Osama, the world was reaping a peace dividend. All the wars were small, obscure and far away. No one knew a thing about Islamic extremism. Although the U.S. was by no means universally popular, democracy had broken out in large parts of the world. The arrow of progress seemed to point in only one direction. We had no clue that a poisoned ideology rooted in medieval times was about to rain down fire and brimstone on us.
I've no idea whether a catastrophic attack on the West was inevitable, or whether Osama just got spectacularly lucky. What we do know is that "the global war on terror" can safely be declared over. Barack Obama can declare the mission accomplished and wind down Afghanistan. Terrorists will never leave us alone. But their failure to disrupt the West since 9/11 is reassuring evidence that they're just a well-contained nuisance, not an existential threat.
Today, the security theatre of the absurd that plagues our lives - the confiscated water bottles, the forbidden tubes of toothpaste, the ritual removal of the shoes - seems like a ridiculous overreaction to the primal fears that Osama unleashed. Now that he's safely dead, perhaps his grip on our daily lives will wane. I suppose it's too much to hope he'll rot in hell (sans virgins) for all eternity. But if anyone deserves it, he does.