Bin Laden was killed in a surprise night-time raid on what unnamed officials are calling a "luxury" million-dollar compound in the northwestern Pakistan town of of Abbottabad. He was "shot in the head." He and his guards "resisted his attackers." His body, now in U.S. military custody, was "handled in accordance with Islamic tradition." Who knew that meant being "buried at sea."

Sing out, patriots! Yeah! Our long nightmare is over. America is avenged! Obama scores! And he's ready to collect at the box office.

"His death does not mark the end of our effort,'' Obama said during a surprise late-night announcement at the White House. "There's no doubt that al-Qaida will continue to pursue attacks against us. We must and we will remain vigilant."

Americans rushed last night to celebrate the welcome news. Celebratory New Yorkers rushed to the site of the former World Trade Center when the news broke. Notoriously grumpy Phillies fans' erupted in cheers of "USA! USA!" at the end of a 14-inning game between the Phillies and the New York Mets. Washingtonians rushed to the White House to sing their praises in chorus.

This is great news. But I can't help thinking that in our 10-year slog to this celebratory moment that we've lost a bit of ourselves along the way.

The values that America stood for worldwide have been trampled in our decades-long war on terrorism. The Patriot Act has drastically scaled back our civil liberties, turning our nation into electronically-surveilled police state. Guantanamo Bay has become our national purgatory where we've locked suspected terrorists up, tossed out the Geneva Conventions, twisted our own definition of ethics to allow torture, and misplaced the legal keys to release them.

Two wars have cost 5,885 American soldiers' lives and the lives of as many as 1.2 million civilians.

There's been the horrifying physical, mental and sexual abuse at Abu Ghraib which pricked our self-deception as the "good guy." The embarrassment of the sadistic "kill team".

Then there's the financial cost of the two wars -- $1.2 trillion dollars -- neither of which have gone as planned (though, what war does?) or seem to have an end point.

Is this it? Will Bin Laden's death finally end the Afghanistan and Iraqi wars? Our halt our slant to imbalance?

Because I really want to go home.