Player of the week: Navy SEAL Team Six

The Navy SEAL team that killed Osama bin Laden on Sunday performed one of the most efficient and impressive clandestine operations in this country’s history.

Details are still emerging on how the two dozen troops from Navy SEAL Team Six conducted the mission of their lifetimes in Pakistan.

{mosads}But some things are clear: The leader of al Qaeda is dead and, despite a fierce firefight, there were no American casualties.

That last fact is simply remarkable, given that bin Laden and his henchmen were battle-tested through years of fighting both the U.S. and Russia.

The decision by President Obama to send forces to bin Laden’s compound near Islamabad was extremely risky. Yet it was important for the president not merely to kill bin Laden but also to retrieve his body so it could be proven that the world’s top terrorist had received justice and the fate he so richly deserved. 

The plan worked; there can be no higher tribute than that fact to the CIA and special forces who undertook it.

Among the rest of us, the appetite for information about the raid will not subside soon. 

Will we ever know who shot the bullets that killed bin Laden?

Will we ever know the names of the members of Team Six, or what they were thinking as their helicopter malfunctioned in the mission’s initial moments, or who carried bin Laden’s corpse out of the compound, or what it felt like to fly out of there with every one of the SEALs unharmed?

The ramifications of bin Laden’s death will be felt for years to come. Politicians of all stripes will jockey for airtime to opine about it, and the death of the Saudi-born killer will undoubtedly be a topic during the 2012 elections.

But for today and for some time to come, before politics wraps these magnificent events in a suffocating embrace, let the whole nation give thanks to those unnamed military personnel who undertook this dangerous and necessary mission, and carried it out to perfection.