his New York Times column is titled The Force of the Deed and it is, imo, masterful. Consider the opening paragraphs:
NEW YORK — Watching the talk shows, thinking about the tumultuous last American decade, reflecting on the death of Osama bin Laden, I feel grateful for many things but not least this: the invisibility of the heroes.
For once it is the deed itself that speaks. The deed, so often lost in this age of celebrities and reality shows and Donald Trump’s monumental ego, stands unadorned. In its daring, its professionalism and its effectiveness, the deed is there, making words look cheap.
I understand that not all who read it will agree with his conclusions. I don't expect that. I don't think Cohen does.
He is, again in imo, on point when he says that for the commandos on the read, which he numbers at 79 - which would have been sufficient to fight their way out with a captured Bin Laden if necessary - "secrecy is their covenant.
Like Cohen, I am glad we do not know their individual names. I am glad that we see it as a team effort, because most of the good that is accomplished in the face of difficult challenges is the result of people working together for a common purpose. Perhaps were we as a nation to better understand that, we would not have such problems with the idea of fair, shared sacrifice, aka "taxes." We would also recognize that the government - whether in our military and intelligence arms or in the bureacrats who process our applications for Social Security and collect our taxes - is our servant and not our scourge.
But there is more to be drawn from Cohen.
This column is so rich. There is too much to offer without violating fair use. So again I tell you to read it.
Cohen dismisses those who criticize the commandos killing Bin Laden as a planned assassination. He reminds us that they had to make split second decisions in an unknown setting, where conceivably the building was wired. I remember that one of the first doors they opened was a false door, with a wall immediately behind it.
He also tells us he is grateful that Bin Laden has been humanized, or if you prefer, demythologized. We see him not as the self-invented emir of all Islam, but rather as an older, graying man watching himself on TV.
In between those two points comes a blunt paragraph well worth considering:
More than 1,000 bodies were so pulverized on 9/11 that no trace of them was found, leaving the downtown air filled with their souls. And we are supposed to worry that this killer — of many Muslims, too — may not have gotten appropriate Muslim rites before sliding to his watery grave.
Reading that brought me up short. I knew 3 people killed in the Towers. I know that for at least 1 the body was never recovered. I remember how many funerals /memorials were done in the absence of a recovered body. I think of those who lacked the ability to feel they had lain their loved ones to rest, or who in the absence of a body hung on desperately to hope that somehow the loved one might still appear alive.
It is not that I would have sought vengeance. I personally get no satisfaction from vengeance.
There is a remarkable close to this piece. Go to the end. Count up three paragraphs, going backwards, short, longer, short. Ponder that middle, longer paragraph, with references to an artist and poetry.
Then the final words of the piece, the short paragraph, will make sense in lots of ways. It will explain why so many - especially those young people whose lives have been dominated by the image of the mythical Osama Bin Laden - reacted as they did.
The words will also inform us that while our struggles against terrorism in general, and Al Qaeda and its offshoots in particular, may not be complete, we have now entered a new phase. Those words are these:
For America, long starved of the satisfactions sustained purpose brings, the decade-old work is done.
We tend to want to personify evil. Bin Laden was a mere man, one who was responsible for great damage and harm, much of which unfortunately continues.
Bin Laden is now dead. His death was neither heroic nor noble. His body was given more respect than he ever offered to those victims of his plots, many of whom around the world, as Cohen notes of those in New York, were themselves Muslim.
Bin Laden is no longer a distraction from our larger purposes.
For America, long starved of the satisfactions sustained purpose brings, the decade-old work is done.