We are currently forced, subject-nation-style, to take it on authority, literally. that Osama bin Laden is dead (no body, no pics, no proof). The White House says it is so, and we, American minions, must agree. We don't even get a lousy pdf of a photo, a la the great and weird, unexamined and unseen "birth certificate."

Now, we are supposed to conclude that this death of the face (figurehead?) of "al Qaeda" -- the leading, but hardly unique  jihad brand -- is a transformative moment, either as reason to leave Afghanistan (I'll take it), or reason to fight there even longer. Or reason for President Obama to lay out a "new" Mideast strategy.  Such claims could only be made by those who are determined to ignore or cover up the animating role of Islam itself in Islamic terrorism, whether "affiliated," as they say, with al Qaeda (secret handshake? decoder rings?), or unafilliated (like the Yemeni who screamed "Allahu Akbar" as he attempted to breach a cockpit door on Sunday; he yelled it "at least 30 times" while in custody; family says he was looking for the bathroom).

To those who have deleted Islam from their thinking, Osama bin Laden becomes a comic-book arch villain, a Mr. Big out of James Bond, the Wicked Witch from The Wizard of Oz. In this personification of evil, the person not only symbolizes evil, but also replaces it. Such a blinkered outlook partly explains the elation, the sense of relief,  the misplaced belief that the nightmare was finally over, that drove many Americans out into the streets to celebrate OBL's death. In the end, it was mainly a sugar high. Events since, including the Islamically correct funeral, are more telling markers of where we are in this war. And that's nothing to celebrate.