We Know Where He Is?

There's a lot of jive talk on the net about who should get credit for nabbing UBL (besides the actual people who did the nabbing). Much of it is nonsense--Obama gets credit as CIC regardless of how horribly his administration bungled the end zone dance of information after the fact. And yes, Bush gets some too for setting things up. Even if he once said he wasn't concerned about bin Laden anymore. After all, so did Obama. Just words.

The question is whether the Bush folks could have acted but didn't. Harken back to 2005 when Porter Goss was running the CIA... he was asked about bin Laden:

Mr Goss said it was unlikely Bin Laden would be brought to justice until "we strengthen all the links" in the chain in the US-led hunt for terror suspects..."We have to find a way to work in a conventional world in unconventional ways that are acceptable to the international community."

Asked if he had a good idea where Bin Laden is, he said: "I have an excellent idea of where he is. What's the next question?"

No doubt he was talking about Pakistan. But wonder what he meant by 'weak links'? Michael Moore, Judge Napolitano or Rashard Mendenhall would probably see it another way but others more connected to reality would likely figure it had to do with certain deterrents of the nuclear variety in the hands of an Islamic state who've long played a double game.

Since we've now called their bluff a question arises--have those links been strengthened or have we upset the apple cart? Was that why Brennan referred to it as a 'gutsy call' when a chance to grab bin Laden is more an expected call? Is Obama throwing a terrorist Hail Mary (sorry for the religious and pigskin football references) in hopes of taking out AQ once and for all so we can all focus on domestic issues again?

PREVIOUS ADDRESSES-- The NY Times is reporting the following:

Two Pakistani officials with knowledge of the continuing Pakistani investigation say that Bin Laden’s Yemeni wife, one of three wives now in Pakistani custody since the raid on Monday, told investigators that before moving in 2005 to the mansion in Abbottabad where he was eventually killed, Bin Laden had lived with his family for nearly two and a half years in a small village, Chak Shah Mohammad, a little more than a mile southeast of the town of Haripur, on the main Abbottabad highway.

In retrospect, one of the officials said, this means that Bin Laden left Pakistan’s rugged tribal region sometime in 2003 and had been living in northern urban regions since then. American and Pakistani officials had thought for years that ever since Bin Laden disappeared from Tora Bora in Afghanistan, he had been hiding in the tribal regions straddling the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

In other words, before he lived in his cushy compound in the heart of Pakistani officer country he lived just down the road the two years previous. Somebody had to know this. Did Goss? Chances are he was just guessing and didn't know exactly where he was because if the Bush folks knew they would have probably tried a take down in 2007 or 08 (and nobody on the left would have believed it without pictures). But wait--they did try. Someone most likely tipped off UBL cough Pakistan because the bombers had to overfly their airspace cough, and nobody showed up. Kind of funny--the Pakistanis could have driven down the street and told bin Laden in person, it turns out. Not this time.

Perhaps the bigger catch was the treasure trove since the US couldn't have interrogated a captured bin Laden with anything but reruns of the Love Boat, so the info is likely producing a thrill a minute for the exploitation team about now. And it's a good bet a lot of people are scrambling for cover too (and not just al Qaeda members).

Ironically, Hollywood Bob Woodward has some backstory on finding the magical courier and quotes a US official on where it all began:

“This is where you start the movie about the hunt for bin Laden,”

Well again, go back to Goss' 2005 cryptic comment, did we know but couldn't act? How much did we know? Hell, Bill Clinton tried harder than anyone to catch him, maybe the movie should start there.

BTW, Woodward provides yet another contradiction as to what the participants were so closely watching in the Situation Room:

In the White House Situation Room on Sunday night, the president and his national security team watched a soundless video feed of the raid.

When bin Laden’s corpse was laid out, one of the Navy SEALs was asked to stretch out next to it to compare heights. The SEAL was 6 feet tall. The body was several inches taller.

Hmm, just the other day Leon Panetta said:

"We had some observation of the approach there, but we did not have direct flow of information as to the actual conduct of the operation itself as they were going through the compound."

And people wonder why we can't trust official statements. For the record the picture likely wasn't a fake--it's hard to manufacture those facial expressions--so they're probably trying to pretend they were watching reruns of the Love Boat due to some silly diplomatic or legal reason. Or maybe since most of them are liberals and believe in a law-enforcement approach to terrorism they're afraid of being harassed on the DC cocktail circuit.

MORE 5/7/11

Re Woodward's last book about Obama:

-- The CIA created, controls and pays for a clandestine 3,000-man paramilitary army of local Afghans, known as Counterterrorism Pursuit Teams. Woodward describes these teams as elite, well-trained units that conduct highly sensitive covert operations into Pakistan as part of a stepped-up campaign against al-Qaeda and Afghan Taliban havens there.

-- Obama has kept in place or expanded 14 intelligence orders, known as findings, issued by his predecessor, George W. Bush. The orders provide the legal basis for the CIA's worldwide covert operations.

For the record Seymour Hersch and others didn't like the CPT thing. As to Woodward, he also scribbled that O was demanding an exit plan. Nothing wrong with that, but it goes back to the Hail Mary question. Time is running out before 2012, was that part of the gutsy move?

River Rise

Here's what the Mississippi at Memphis normally looks like in early summer, looking out towards the south end of Mud Island:

There is a long bank from Riverside Drive to the area where the paddle boats are boarded. Notice the flags on the end of Mud Island.

Here's what it looked like today:

The boats are at street level now.

Here's another shot from the end of Union Avenue as it intersects Riverside drive, which is closed going southward due to water on the road at the Beale Street light..



Water at 45 feet, heading to 48 feet by next week. Speaking of Beale Street, it's well above the flood (in case you have a trip planned soon)..

The good news is that local rivers feeding the Mississippi are down below flood now that the rain has stopped, which has cut in half the number of homes and businesses they expected to be susceptible to flooding. Here's hoping..

Explaining bin Laden

The only bad thing amidst all the euphoria over the United States sending bin Laden to the ugly truth about the virgins has been the way the United States has tried to explain it. For those scoring at home here's the scorecard, and it ain't pretty. Yesterday they threw up their hands and said "that's all folks". Maybe a good decision.

But shutting the door leaves nothing but a shut door. Aside from the hoopla over the bin Laden death photo there's another photograph that WAS released and might need some explaining--the White House Situation Room photo.

Obama is shown still in his golf shirt (and even his golf spikes according to early reports) as if he just arrived from the clubhouse. He looks neither presidential nor happy. He doesn't have a command seat at the big table. Biden actually looks more presidential. Besides, why did he go to the golf course at all knowing the signature raid of his presidency was about to go down that day? Was it just to fool the press or does AQ keep tabs on his tee times? Very strange.

Hillary has a look of anxiety, as if she was watching Godzilla appearing across the wall of the compound. She came out this morning and explained that her hand to mouth was probably just an attempt to suppress an allergic cough. Interesting. That doesn't comport with this description:

"It demonstrates the intensity and emotion for the nation's key leaders, who carry the burden of these decisions," said Juan Zarate, a top White House counterterrorism official under President George W. Bush and now a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "This was a very risky operation. And the risk is evident in the eyes of the president and the gestures of the secretary of state."

Why would Hillary be trying to undermine that message?

But wait, Leon Panetta is now saying there was a Nixonian-like gap in the video of about 25 minutes. That might explain why they can't just show a snippet of the raid where bin Laden is on tape just before his head gets blown off (making him much less recognizable). Assuming special ops tape can be screen-capped, that would prove we got him and reduce the number of riots on the Muslim street.

So at what point in the raid was the picture taken? Are they inferring the photo was taken during the tape gap; that Hillary was just kind of bored, trying to suppress a sneeze while Obama just ticked because they lost video? And Gates' look of seasoned bemusement was just a testament to the old cliche "close enough for government work"?

The crisis photo matters because it's not only for the American internet audience, it's being seen all over the world (and picked apart by foreign governments). It will be shown for a long time in conjunction with stories about getting the world's top terrorist. Yet all of the above is probably easily explainable--photos only capture a snapshot of time and can often be misleading. Why release this photo and not others?

Combined with the overall messaging failure it certainly smacks of a regime so concerned about exploiting a victory they threw careful analysis out the window in the name of political expediency, which is now coming back to bite them. Granted, other administrations might have done the exact same thing in a short time frame. And this is not to undermine the outcome--a dead bin Laden. But other administrations have never had such genius at the helm.

Cat in the Bag

It's interesting that the ISI raided the Hotel bin Laden in 2003 looking for KSM's replacement, al Libi. Earlier this year, the ISI raided another house in Abbottobad to grab a notorious Southeast Asian AQ terrorist:

The run of good luck had ended for Umar Patek, an Al Qaeda-linked Indonesian militant who for 10 years had been on the run from a $1 million American bounty on his head, for allegedly helping build the bombs used in the 2002 bombings of nightclubs in Bali that killed 202 people.

Pakistani officials had kept Patek's detention on Jan. 25 secret until two weeks ago, when the Associated Press first revealed word of it. But until now, where or how one of the biggest terror arrests under the Obama administration went down was not publicly known.

Add to that the Wiki Leak document mentioning Abbottobad and it's clearly evident the place was about to get noticed and Obama's decision time was running out. Whether it required blowing off the last nine holes to do so is anyone's guess (accusatory stories without known sources are often slanderous, such as ones mentioning plastic turkeys and GD pieces of paper, so grain of salt warning).

The more interesting thing about the Hotel bin Laden raid might be the treasure trove of intelligence garnered in the sweep. What would happen if something on those files pointed the wrong way, say towards the 1998 indictment the feds now want to quietly retire?

Turning to a trusted source--Wiki Leaks--(presumably unfiltered), how about this nugget from one of the recent Gitmo leaks:

A former Guantanamo detainee “was identified as an Iraqi intelligence officer who relocated to Afghanistan (AF) in 1998 where he served as a senior Taliban Intelligence Directorate officer in Mazar-E-Sharif,” according to a recently leaked assessment written by American intelligence analysts. The former detainee, an Iraqi named Jawad Jabber Sadkhan, “admittedly forged official documents and reportedly provided liaison between the governments of Afghanistan and Iraq.” Sadkhan’s al Qaeda ties reached all the way to Osama bin Laden, according to the intelligence assessment. He reportedly received money from Osama bin Laden both before and after the September 11 attacks.

Similar to other ex Iraqi military officers working with AQ this guy could have dumped Saddam for the cause. Then again maybe not:

An Uzbek named Oybek Jamoldinivich Jabbarov, told authorities that Sadkhan “admitted working as a liaison between [the] Taliban Intelligence Directorate and Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein.” Jabbarov explained that Sadkhan and another Iraqi once held at Guantanamo, Hassan Abdul Said, “traveled between Iraq and Afghanistan ferrying unidentified supplies from Iraq through Iran on multiple occasions.” Sadkhan “would receive money from the Taliban in exchange for these supplies.”

The 9/11 Commission surely couldn't find any of these ties but surely all involved would have gone to great lengths to hide any if they existed. Including a few commissioners, perhaps.

They also couldn't find any overt ties to Iran but hinted that some might have existed. Apparently that 1998 indictment mentioning an arrangement with Tehran wasn't enough to dispose them of their "rootless, stateless" description of AQ. Wonder what they think about bin Laden spending the past 6 years a hop-skip-and an RPG round away from the Pakistani West Point? Does rootless and stateless also include proxy for hire?

Just imagine some sort of state-sponsor ties getting revealed in the UBL trove, especially to Iraq. Wouldn't it spell big trouble for the One going into 2012? Such a cat would be very hard to walk back, seeing as how the same man rose to power largely on the premise that Iraq was a dumb war and later doubled down on that to beat Hillary. He is of course the man in charge of the classification. But he's not in charge of Wiki Leaks. A certain cat might enjoy watching that.

Gutsiness

John Brennan described the president's call to send a Seal team after bin Laden "deep inside" Pakistan as one of the "gutsiest" presidential decisions in our lifetime.

It was gutsy no doubt. Definitely gutsy for the Seals and their support units. But was it more gutsy than say knowing bin Laden's whereabouts and doing nothing to get him? When the Army comes and says, "we think he's here, what should we do?" and you're the president, what would YOU do?

Reports say he waited 16 hours before giving the go-ahead, which isn't surprising (there's nothing wrong with sleeping on big decisions) but the interesting thing is the timing. He took Friday night to think it over with the mission originally planned for Saturday--the same day as the White House correspondent's dinner and Trump Roast. Cloud cover apparently prevented a go on Saturday, which is strange since the helicopters supposedly flew at tree top level to avoid the Pakistani radar, but imagine them announcing this at the dinner or just before? Huge cheers. But imagine the news of a botched raid coming in as he was roasting Trump?

Perhaps another reason they say he pondered this decision was the potential reaction of his liberal base over an extrajudicial kill mission against a potentially unarmed man. No rights, no Army Field Manual. No messy question of where to house a captured bin Laden--Gitmo. Big messy question about why the guy who issued an executive order closing Gitmo because it was creating more terrorists just sent the world's biggest terrorist to Gitmo. Sounds awfully warmongerish.

Also to ponder--no part of an extrajudicial killing comports with previous rhetoric about torture and the US court system's ability to handle anything and everything. If KSM can't be tried in New York there's no way bin Laden could, leaving a commission at Gitmo. Burial at sea!

Prior to UBL the two biggest capturees were Ramzi Yousef and KSM, both taken alive by previous presidents. Ramzi Yousef was never interrogated by the Clinton folks to anyone's knowledge (although they found a laptop) so he never told us about the upcoming planned 9/11, and no press members ever made it a story. The press did report that KSM was waterboarded 1,335 times (estimated), causing 1,336 more gray hairs on Bush's head while giving his opponents a convenient political hammer with which to bludgeon those gray hairs. So, while killing bin Laden might leave him a martyr to the extremists and even some moderate Muslims, UBL's latest poll numbers were down. Perhaps it was a risk worth taking.

On the flip side NOT going after him--after vowing to send him to hell then having a good location on his whereabouts--would end Obama's political career instantly. Such decisions must have loomed large in that fit of restless sleep. He managed to somehow make the right call.

Perhaps Brennan was actually trying to tell us the gutsy part was in not telling the Pakistanis due to a sovereignty violation and the potential can of worms it would create going forward. That is, if they really never told Pakistan. Hillary seems to think they were partnered with us. As the summer fighting season begins and the Taliban suddenly show up at the table willing to sue for peace perhaps it'll be a sign of something (General Betrayus heading for Langley already sounds like a sign of something).

So we'll see if this the greatest victory so far in the Overseas Contingency Operation transmorphs itself into the great withdrawal from Afghanistan at some point. With bin Laden gone many on both sides might finally be ready to support it. Surely Pakistan would.

MORE 5/3/11

This is a must-read in trying to understand the relationship between Afghanistan, Pakistan, the United States/NATO, and al Qaeda-Taliban. No doubt such a dynamic is partly what kept Obama tossing and turning in making his decision.

The End of Bin Laden

The 9/11 families finally get some justice and the rest of us get some revenge. And yes, props to Obama for fulfilling his pledge, he gets the glory. Bigger props to the CIA and our clandestine services and Special Ops folks, they got some payback, too, and a little well earned glory as well.

The backstory on this will be fascinating. The event already sounds strange--killed outside a compound "deep inside" Pakistan, which doesn't look too good for the Pakistanis. It's hard to believe they acted alone, although that weird Raymond Davis incident comes to mind. Was he on the trail? We also haven't heard much about Mullah Baradar, Taliban Two, lately either. Must have been some deal struck to get this done. Hopefully it helps start a turning point in Afghanistan.

Anyway....this makes a tri-fecta of AQ/terrorists taken down in Pakistan, from Ramzi Yousef to KSM, and now bin Laden. Gun battles in safe houses. Very weird allies, these people. Now, what about the body? What do we do with it? Who will take it?

MORE 5/2/11

This raid seems to bring up a lot more questions about Pakistan than existed before, the main one being this--how does bin Laden manage to move into a fortress right down the street from Pakistan's version of West Point without the Paki's help or knowledge?

It might help to first determine their complicity in this raid. On the one hand we are being told they were involved:

Speaking to reporters at the State Department on Monday, Clinton thanked Pakistan for its cooperation and said the country "has contributed greatly to our efforts to dismantle al-Qaida." She said that "in fact, cooperation with Pakistan helped lead us to bin Laden and the compound in which he was hiding."

While on the other we are being told they weren't:

The raid by elite US troops was kept secret from the government of Pakistan. Only a tight circle within the Obama Administration knew of the operation.

Former president Musharraf also seemed to indicate there was no coordination, for what that's worth. So UBL is dead but we're back to square one as to information, with the Paki's denying and the administration contradicting itself.

Among the speculative possibilities: the chaos is by design in order to allow Pakistan to keep getting their payoff and fool their militant population into believing they are so incompetent as to not know we were coming, while in reality they led us to the compound for some kind of trade. Another is that they were really taken by surprise and are now quaking in their boots over what comes next. If they harbored UBL (after allowing A.Q. Khan to roam around the Islamic world passing out nuke secrets) that sorta puts them squarely into the Axis of Evil category, doesn't it?

F Trump

From Senator Lindsay to hell with free speech this is a war Graham on Fox News Sunday this morning:

"Most Americans don't want their president to go around saying the f-word"

What's the big effin' deal? Biden is only a heartbeat away.

As to the reporters' ball, once again the president finds it impossible to sit back with humility and let himself be roasted and instead decides to seize the event for to slam Trump and run a pseudo campaign commercial. Not that the Donald didn't deserve some scorn, but in public, from the president? With our fair and balanced media booing the Donald?

Geez, we know the reporters were last seen above ground in 2008 but how many Americans want a president who uses his bully pulpit literally to slice and dice 'enemies' while they're sitting in the room without voice, and sometimes at his own invite? Is that really better than saying the f word?

And does Trump really deserve such levels of ridicule from a man who advertised the most transparent presidency ever while in reality delivering one of the more secretive, while managing (via Trump) to turn any further curiosity about some of the still unanswered questions about his past (that those who booed Trump refuse to answer) into the ravings of partisan loons for his minions to devour? In fact, Obama's actions to date have made the rise of a Donald effing Trump possible, and most Americans should be concerned about that.