The SEAL team apparently offered to take him alive but he refused. They obviously kept collateral damage to the minimum, but any person in that compound was complicit and I will not grieve the loss of the human shield woman. To my mind, killing him and ending it was preferable for the reasons Reks mentioned and to put a swift end to that part of this story. They apparently buried him within 24 hours to meet the Muslim law, but did it at sea to avoid creating a grave that would be a shrine for his psycho followers.
On 9/11/01, I was at home getting ready for work when my secretary called me because she knows we never have the TV on in the morning. She was in a panic and could only blurt out "turn on the TV, it's terrible!" before hanging up. I turned it on to see the first tower on fire and was watching live when the second plane hit soon thereafter. I simply could not believe my eyes. My office was across the street from the Pacific Stock Exchange (still operating at that time) and a couple blocks from the Transamerica Pyramid. We didn't know whether SF might be next so we told people to stay home and I never went in that day. My firm had opened its first NY office on 9/1/01, but fortunately we were in mid-town and actually ended up housing some lawyers from a big firm displaced from the WTC.