I think finding Osama bin Laden (no matter what the strategic advantage that would be at this point), the power of those images of him in handcuffs under a US flag, is so valuable to the US at this point that perhaps anything can be justified within the machine created to find him. I believe the political shift in what has become a war w/o conclusion would be significant, even though it is probably the strategic equivalent to arresting a homeless guy outside Karachi at this point. I could see being convinced that not finding him means the continued deaths of Americans, therefore, the harshest of punishments could be justified in the prisons.