The World Trade Center attacks on Sept. 11 2001 drew a line in the sand for the U.S. the entire country crossed together, and it's a line no one has been able to find since. It's difficult to remember a time when the U.S. wasn't "the sworn enemy of international terrorists," hunting down Osama bin Laden representing justice, rhetoric, and political posturing simultaneously. "The Finish: The Killing of Osama Bin Laden" by Mark Bowden goes beyond the politics of the situation we all already know, searching for the human drama behind the killing of the most notorious murderer of the last decade.  

We've already heard an ex-Navy SEAL team 6 member's account of the raid that killed bin Laden, in "No Easy Day," by Mark Owen, but Bowden goes deeper into the political fray than Owen can possibly muster. His account of the events behind the scenes both contradicts, and fleshes out some of Owen's story. Bowden finds that President Obama actually hoped to put Osama bin Laden on trial to show U.S. commitment to due process under law, if the al-Qaeda leader had surrendered during a U.S. raid in Pakistan last year.

U.S. officials have said the Navy SEALs were ordered to capture bin Laden if he surrendered, or kill him if he threatened them. Owen's version of events says that the SEALs climbed a stairway inside the compound and opened fire when bin Laden poked his head around a doorway, he wrote that bin Laden's hands were concealed and the SEALs presumed he was armed, so they shot him. Bowden asserts the opposite. In "The Finish" he concludes that the SEALs could have taken bin Laden alive, but had no intention of doing so.

While the story has been told time and again, Bowden finds there still plenty wisdom to be tilled from the seemingly arid soil. Following a dual narrative, "The Finish" traces the final stages of President Obama's determined manhunt for the terrorist kingpin, and bin Laden's last year as the disgruntled leader of a jihadist movement that eventually mostly ignored him.

Bowden quotes President Obama as saying he thought he would be in a strong political position to argue in favor of giving bin Laden the full rights of a criminal defendant if bin Laden went on trial for the Sept. 11 attacks. But Bowden says Obama expected the terrorist leader to go down fighting. A team of Navy SEALs raided bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in May 2011 and killed him.

The revelation that Obama hoped to capture bin Laden may provide political fodder for Republicans who have criticized the Obama administration for trying to bring terrorists from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and overseas to trials in U.S. courts.

"Frankly, my belief was if we had captured him, that I would be in a pretty strong position, politically, here, to argue that displaying due process and rule of law would be our best weapon against al-Qaeda, in preventing him from appearing as a martyr," Obama is quoted saying in an interview with Bowden.

Obama believed affording terrorists "the full rights of criminal defendants would showcase America's commitment to justice for even the worst of the worst," Bowden writes.

Obama had expressed similar views as a presidential candidate.

Many see Bowden as one of the most respected writers covering the U.S. military and Special Forces today.  "There wasn't a meeting when someone didn't mention 'Black Hawk Down,'" a senior Obama administration official said in The New York Times, 5.2.2011.

"The Finish: The Killing of Osama Bin Laden" will be released Oct. 16.