It’s been one year since that strange evening in May 2011 when
President Barack Obama reported that Al-Qaeda head Osama Bin
Laden, so long mysteriously absent from the world stage, had been
found and killed by U.S. forces. One year later and the U.S.
government still refuses to release photos or video to
prove Bin Laden really died in the way described, but the
latest Time has the action-packed pages
that relate just how the raid went down (for real this time!).
No photos because the risk is too great that pictures of Bin
Laden’s body would incite violence. Even though Al-Qaeda is,
according to senior U.S. officials, “essentially gone” and
with lesser affiliates capable of doing minor harm to U.S.
interests. Except that, according to recently-released documents
found with Bin Laden in his Pakistan hideaway, Al-Qaeda was trying
to make a come-back and had considered such bold schemes as
assassinating President Barack Obama. 

So, writes Associate Editor Lucy Steigerwald, which is it? Have
we won, or is the risk still dire enough to justify more drone
strikes in more countries, as well as the potential for the
indefinite detainment of Americans?