THOUGHTS ON OSAMA BIN LADEN’S DEATH, from Michael Yon.

Other thoughts from Barry Rubin, Ron Radosh, and Roger Simon.

Also, BlackFive, and there’s loads of stuff at The Mudville Gazette.

UPDATE: “A swell of patriotism.”

Plus, “smile, and be grateful.” And, from the comments: “A Nobel peace prize winner carrying out a successful assassination!” Heh. I’m not complaining. As Keith Laumer once wrote, there’s nothing as peaceful as a dead troublemaker.

DONALD RUMSFELD: Intelligence Agencies’ Frequent Turnover “Dangerous.”

THE CARNIVAL OF NUCLEAR ENERGY IS UP!

THIS WEEK in the future.

IN THE MAIL: From Guy Smith, Shooting the Bull.

ILYA SOMIN: “From an international law perspective, it’s worth noting that the operation against Bin Laden is an example of targeted killing. Although we don’t yet know very many details, it’s pretty obvious that the US targeted Bin Laden deliberately, something the President more or less admitted in his speech, where he said that we have been tracking Bin Laden for many months (presumably for the purpose of targeting him as an individual). In the past, such targeted killings have drawn criticism from human rights organizations and others who claim that they violate international law. . . . It’s unlikely that there will be much criticism of the operation against Bin Laden.”

UPDATE: So I guess targeted killings are okay now, right? Well, if international law is really law, there can’t be an exception just for Osama Bin Laden.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Mission was to kill Bin Laden, not capture. “The U.S. special forces team that hunted down Osama bin Laden was under orders to kill the al Qaeda mastermind, not capture him, a U.S. national security official told Reuters.”

TRANSPARENCY: San Francisco Chronicle accuses White House of lying about banned pool reporter.

JAPAN’S TSUNAMI STICKER AFTER-SHOCK: Expect Higher Prices In The Showrooms: “Japan’s biggest automakers—Toyota and Honda—are most directly affected by damage done to the region’s plants and suppliers by the earthquake, tsunami and subsequent nuclear power plant disaster. For example, Toyota’s plants are running at about 30 percent capacity (the company hopes to be producing at full capacity by this fall). But sticker prices are going up industry-wide, Hall says. Simple supply-and-demand equations suggest that these makers’ most appealing cars will cost more as dealers dole out the remaining inventory.”

Other automakers will probably take advantage by raising their prices too. More inflationary pressure — but though higher prices on lower volumes may increase profit margins, they won’t do much for employment.

HOUSE MEMBERS grill Sony on Playstation data breach. If you can’t protect the data, you shouldn’t collect the data.

BYRON YORK: Obama’s Angry Comedy Routine.

TODAY ONLY: Adobe PhotoShop Elements 9 for $59.99.

PAUL RAHE: The Road Ahead: A Third Man Who Can Lead.

WASHINGTON EXAMINER: How adults can discuss the federal budget and debt limit.

TYPO: MSNBC correspondent accidentally reports on Twitter that ‘Obama’ killed.

Well, even Ted Kennedy had problems keeping that straight.

REASON TV: Reaction to Bin Laden’s Death.

UPDATE: Mickey Kaus: “It’s easy to overestimate the significance of Osama’s demise: Remember when we thought finding Saddam would turn the tide in Iraq?” Well, we’ll see.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Afghans warn: “The killing of Osama should not be seen as mission accomplished.” Plus this: “The fight against terrorism is in its sanctuaries, in its training camps and its finance centers, not in Afghanistan and today it has been proved we were right.”

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: More celebration video.

On the other hand, Hamas is not so happy. “We regard this as a continuation of the American policy based on oppression and the shedding of Muslim and Arab blood.” Well, cry me a river.

MORE: Rand Simberg: Don’t Get Cocky. Always good advice. But, from the comments:

I do think this should put to rest one of the enduring myths of our time — a myth which was partly responsible for 9/11, in fact. That’s the idea that democracies can’t stomach a long struggle.

This shows that even with severe domestic divisions, economic problems, etc., the United States could stay the course and nail this bastard. Maybe, just maybe, the next wanna-be warlord will take notice.

You can’t scare us into submission with a devastating strike, and you can’t wear us down, either.

It’ll be interesting to see if this causes Khaddafy to step down. When Saddam was captured, he responded by turning his nuclear materials over. Will the death of Osama have a similar effect? Or his back too close to the wall now?

PROF. JOSEPH CAMPBELL: News media indispensable to democracy? Some evidence would be nice. “The Washington Post ombudsman invokes in his column today the defining conceit of American journalism: That without truth-telling reporters and editors, democracy would be imperiled. . . . But how does the ombudsman, Patrick B. Pexton, know that? What evidence does he offer to buttress the notion that the news media are indispensable bulwarks of democracy and capitalism? None. He presents the self-congratulatory claim about journalism’s value as self-evident.”

READER MICHAEL COSTELLO WRITES THAT OBAMA HAS NOW DISTINGUISHED HIMSELF FROM CARTER: “Carter would have screwed it up.” Yeah, yesterday I wrote that Obama could only wish for such success. Today he’s got it. Good for him. And, more to the point, for America.

And reader Steve Bogdan emails: “For the first time in my adult life, I’m proud of President Obama.”

UPDATE: More praise for Obama.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Rick Reilly emails: “Close: failed helicopter and all.. eerily similar to Carter’s situation.” Better plan — and a military in a lot better shape than in 1979.

ADVICE TO REPUBLICANS on how to minimize the risk of a Third-Party Trump.

CLAIM: Obama Is Losing His Mojo. Gonna be hard to sell today. Check back in a week or two and see if this lasts.

RICHARD FERNANDEZ: “The location of Bin Laden’s hide-out and the use of a U.S. raiding team on settled Pakistani territory raises a number of questions. First, has Pakistan been hiding Osama Bin Laden all along? Second, did the U.S. independently discover the location of Bin Laden? Third, was the information shared by some elements of Pakistani intelligence, assuming that his location was known to them, in exchange from some quid pro quo which has not yet been revealed? Or was the discovery of Bin Laden simultaneous, the result of the mutual and cooperative investigation of the ISI and U.S. intelligence? . . . The chances that Pakistan was wholly innocent were somewhat thrown into doubt by the possible location of the safe house. . . . According to Bob Hennelly, quoting White House officials, the hideout was custom built for the most famous fugitive on earth in an area favored by retired Pakistani military officers.”

Plus this: “Ironically the circumstances surrounding the death of Osama Bin Laden tends to confirm the theory that terrorism, rather than being a spontaneous meme that floats above the planet, is in fact deeply rooted in the intelligence agencies and regimes of certain states.”

UPDATE: How’d we find him? Info from detainees. Sweet Guantanamo irony.

BIN LADEN BURIED AT SEA? On Facebook, Michael Yon writes: “Major mistake. OBL was/is a powerful cult figure who has vanished with no ‘death certificate.’ His body should have been displayed. The only thing more powerful than a living cult leader is one who disappears off the face of the earth. Making his body disappear was a deadly blunder that plays straight into the hero myth. Joseph Campbell couldn’t have written a more terrible ending.”

Will the DNA evidence suffice to convince non-Western audiences?

J.D. JOHANNES REPORTS FROM AFGHANISTAN: Osama Bin Laden’s Death: The Helmund View. “Al Qaida has long since become an organization with no need for a leader–even a symbolic one. In the canal country of the Helmund river, the opium poppies provide more revenue to fuel the Taliban and Al Qaida than Bin Laden’s long since spent millions and fund raising. Opium sloshes billions of dollars around Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Emirates. The Marines and Brits know this, which is why the news, while welcome and gratifying, is not celebrated with cheers.”

UPDATE: Roger Kimball: Osama Bin Laden, Good Riddance.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Ben Samuels writes: “Sounds like a good argument for legalizing the opium trade in the ‘Golden Triangle’ of Burma/Thailand/Laos. It would undercut the Pakistani/Afghans growers a lot. Then offer them a profitable alternative and 90% of the problem is solved. It would surely be a lot cheaper than maintaining a standing army!”

THE DEADLINE IS TODAY: Last chance: let the FDA know why you want direct access to your own genome.

WELL, THIS IS NEW: Crowd Celebrates Bin Laden’s Death For Hours Outside White House. Have we ever had a scene like that?

UPDATE: Reader Robert Morgan writes: “There were jubilant crowds outside the White House on V-J Day, August 14, 1945. Don’t know that it’s happened since.” Yeah, but that’s not quite what I meant. Nobody’s surrendered here — this is just celebrating that we killed a guy. Worth celebrating, of course, but if we’ve ever had anything like that before I can’t remember it.

ANOTHER UPDATE: A military reader emails:

Was watching the news all day from my post here in the greater Afghan theater, and particularly marveling at the reveling crowds. The pattern they seemed to follow was not American in character at all. Mass chanting. Mass singing. Dancing and leaping about. In my office, we were joking that all they needed was to start burning paper flags, hitting photos of bin Laden with shoes, and waving crappy effigies on sticks, and we would have a perfect copy of the archetypal “Arab Street” protest.

Just before I clocked out for the day, they played video of a bunch of frat-boy looking guys in polo shirts lighting photos of Bin Laden on fire. Where did we learn to demonstrate like that?

From watching videos from Gaza, I guess. Maybe they were just trying to speak in a language our adversaries will understand . . ..

MICHAEL BARONE: Obama’s On-The-Job Foreign Policy Training. “Sometimes a sympathetic and perceptive journalist paints a more devastating portrait of a public figure than even his most vitriolic detractors could. A prime example is Ryan Lizza’s New Yorker article titled ‘The Consequentialist’ and subtitled ‘How the Arab Spring remade Obama’s foreign policy.'”