friends:
i am not serving as apologist for the sins and omissions of the pakistani’s when it comes to their behavior with regard to the terrorists on their home soil, and in neighboring afghanistan. but, it should be noted that they are not the first country/society/body politic to be confronted with exceptionally complicated politics and divided loyalties.
one need think only to the realities of our own civil war, and the era’s leading up to and following that conflict, to appreciate the complex problems presented by political, religious and theological conflict. and, the divided loyalties that spring from this complexity.
in this regard, i print the following exchange between a friend and i, after she had excoriated the paki’s for presumptively ”hiding” bin laden in plain sight.
but, none of this should cause any of us to apologize to the pakistani’s for being suitably prudent in going this operation alone, and saying nothing to them about it. it is one thing to have historical perspective, it is quite another to be so foolish as not to take proper precautions operationally, and in this situation, it was very wise not to have told the pakistani’s. it very well might have leaked to bin laden. it is probably a miracle that it didn’t leak out of washington d.c., no less a hot bed for subversion now than in circa 1860—1864.
given all this, it is no mystery to me that bin laden may have been hiding under the noses of those searching for him. and, it is entirely without surprise that bin laden may have been hiding in such manner with the connivance of those in pakistan trying to protect him. lots of persons high placed in the taliban and al queda have hidden in that very region before, and lots apprehended and killed there.
john jay @ 05.03.2011
p.s. the letters are in sequence.
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_____________ wrote:
[john:]
There’s no way we’ll know the whole truth about the death of Osama bin Laden – but one truth is already evident. Pakistan had nothing to do with it.
Stratfor has this to say: “The United States did not inform its counterterrorism partners about Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts in advance of the operation that led to his death, an unnamed senior U.S. defense official said May 2, Reuters reported. The operation was a unilateral one, the source said. A senior U.S. intelligence official said there was no evidence that Pakistani officials knew bin Laden was hiding in the Abbottabad compound.”
Note the last sentence above in which a defense official insists there’s “no evidence” to prove Pakistan had any idea the diabetic dear was underneath their very noses. Unfortunately for that official, however, a high-ranking Congressman in D.C. isn’t buying that one bit. As Stratfor quotes, “Pakistan’s army and intelligence service have many questions to answer after the death of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin said May 2 at a news conference, Reuters reported. Levin said there are lots of questions about bin Laden’s location, the length of time he had been there, the “apparent fact” that the compound was built for the al Qaeda leader and the facility’s proximity to the Pakistani army’s central location.”
Excuse me? Osama’s multi-storied luxury high rise was built specifically for him? Good Lord! I was already having difficulty with the fact that Pakistan’s military was so incompetent they couldn’t find a guy who was literally living right under their noses but to now be told that the house they couldn’t find was built specifically for Osama is too much. Pakistan isn’t incompetent, it’s corrupt.
No wonder our guys went in alone.
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[dear] _______________:
obasma & family made their money in construction. osama had lots, enough to build that house. that doesn't mean he told the paki's who was building it, and they may not have known.
the paki's are in a tough spot, between a rock and a hard spot, any number of ways. have a little compassion.
i will remind you of something.--
during our own civil war, even in those states nominally in the "north," the federal union did not have everything and everybody just under control. we are all pretty familiar with draft riots in new york, and plenty folks in new england availed themselves of canadian safe haven, just as individuals did during viet nam.
now, to illustrate the paki's problem. in the union, the states of maryland & kentucky & west virginia were hotbeds of rebellion, sedition, plotting and planning. those states were filled not only with southern sympathizers, but also southern agents, provocateurs and outright guerrilla bands doing what they could to hinder the war effort.
and, i haven't even mentioned washington d.c., probably at that time the most southern of northern cities. you ever hear of bloody kansas, well, it was plagued by people like cantrell's raiders, who spawned the younger brothers and jesse james, and any number of post war outlaws.
obamasama's compound was designed to be secure. when built, it was out in the country, and the neighborhood has since come to it. osama was communicated with only by two couriers.
they have secure houses like that all over the world. just as they did in medieval italy, where people built towers, so that attackers could be met on the bottom floors, and forced to fight their way up circular stair cases that wended along the walls counter clockwise, to impede the swing of their right hands, the sword hand.
nothing is new. including intrigue that goes on downstairs in your parlor, while you snooze. have some understanding for the paki's.
john
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______________wrote:
Point well made, John. Very well made! Thanks.
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[dear] ___________:
it's a hard world, full of currents, and back eddies, and pools that whirl. laughing.
when john brown raided harper's ferry arsenal, the commanding officer who led the attack to retake the arsenal from brown was robert e. lee. in lee's command at the arsenal was j.e.b. stewart.
they were at brown's hanging. so was john wilkes booth, and several other notables, in the military assemblage.
the whole thing was, as they say "pregnant with irony." the accounts all make wonderful reading.
i am sending you a wonderful wikipedia article on mary surratt, who was [later] hanged for her role in the assassination of abraham lincoln. it is pretty good reading, quite enjoyable and sprightly, and i think that you will get a kick out of it. it is also very informative. and, throw in islam and the hill tribes of pakistan and afghanistan, and i think the whole thing would boil of intrigue.
but it was wild enough and woolly enough in maryland, in the 1860's. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Surratt
people have passion, and will, and sometimes those things are controlled by calculation, sometimes by reason, and in the control of neither, and the most deadly of circumstances, reason and will and intellect are subsumed by passion and will.
and, then there is islam.
john
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