Almost ten years ago, 20 muslim guys hijacked planes on American soil. Two crashed into the World Trade Center causing them to collapse. A third nicked the Pentagon. A fourth plane, Flight 93, was hijacked but semi-reclaimed by the passengers and crashed into a field in Pennsylvania. Even on the same day of the initial attacks, Americans were ready to fight back (once we knew what was going on).

Within a week, we knew who was responsible for the terrorist attack: a militant muslim group called al-Qaida with a leader called Osama bin-Laden. We knew who did it. I repeat, we knew exactly who did it. A little over a year later, we invaded Iraq and captured its leader Saddam Hussein. We did not capture Osama bin-Laden. We invaded Afghanistan a little later, attacking al-Qaida at "the source.

We still did not find bin-Laden.

President Bush had six and a half years to bring the mastermind of the Trade Center attacks to justice or put a bullet in his head. Neither of those things happened, and by the end of his presidency, he didn't even seem interested in doing that at all.

Two and half years into the Obama presidency, the American special ops whizzed down into a fortified compound in Pakistan and put a bullet in Osama bin Laden's head. Almost exactly the kind of result I (and most Americans) wanted almost ten years ago. Mission Accomplished. Finally.

I'm not a big fan of assassinations or the death penalty, but bin-Laden admitted to the Trade Center attacks. So, no need for a trial. He ran from the authorities, which in my hometown of Albuquerque can get you shot and killed. Not to dwell on the morals of killing folks, but even I would say the guy had it coming.

I never thought we needed an army or war to fight terrorists. You needed professionals. If the enemy wants to sneak around and plant bombs to kill innocent targets, America might as well use their secret agents, James Bond-style crack squads, and super killers to respond. We do have all those things at our disposal, by the way.

On 9-11, 20 terrorists took over four planes. A crack squad of 1000 of America's scariest professional killers should have been able to methodically pick apart the high command of some bush league terrorist network. Instead, we mobilized the tanks & planes & guns & people to take over and occupy big chunks of desert on the other side of the world. Places most of us have never seen in person.

This has been going on for almost eight years. It is still going on. We really took the long way around to get our guy.

I think if you asked most Americans, they would have been happy if we could have had the special ops moment on May Day without all the WMD lies or "exaggerations," the Saddam Hussein trial and hanging, the Afghanistan quagmire, or the billions of dollars spent every day for eight years to keep the war machine going. And we wonder why we're trillions of dollars in debt. Raise the ceiling? How about End The Occupation?!

We finally got the guy behind it all, but the means to get to the end will baffle me for the rest of my days.

Chris Jungle has never been to Iraq, Afghanistan or Pakistan.