Osama Bin Laden Killed by US Forces near the capital of Pakistan

Some guy we haven't talked about in ages killed by US forces outside of the capital of Pakistan.

First off:  This is definitely fantastic news!  The goat fucker deserved to die and that it comes at the hands of US forces, bullet to the head form, is a great thing.  Kudos to President Obama for having the balls to authorize the operation, for this must have been a delicate operation, deep inside Pakistan, not a drone strike near the border.

However, as everyone notes: this won't end the war on terror.  It may be a temporary body blow to the terrorists, but, that's it.  It'll be interesting to hear in the next few days, to what extent bin Laden was still involved in Al Qaeda operations.  I've said many times that, living or dead, he's been irrelevent to the war for many years, offering no moral support to the people that would look to him for inspiration.  I don't think he ever was too involved at the tactical level.  Hopefully we'll learn soon to what extent he was still involved with things. 

But, there are some things that make you say "hmmm":

• A covert operation deep inside Pakistan, close to the capital.  This is where Osama's been hiding?  How did the ISI not know about his whereabouts all this time?  Is it remotely conceivable that they didn't know?
• Assuming they did know where he was, did they just recently give up the whereabouts to US intelligence, or is this something US intelligence figured out themselves?
• Obama authorized what, on the surface, would be a very risky mission.  He just doesn't seem like the kind of guy who would do that.

Bud-D's conspiracy theory:  The ISI gave him up in exchange for cancellation or a great reduction in drone strikes.  Pakistan gave tacit permission for the US to go in and snatch him.  Obama will use this -undeniably great event- to justify pulling out of Afghanistan this summer.

And maybe it's time?  What does the RTP&GG community think?

It'll be interesting what we learn in the near future about what really went down.  What if the Pakistanis didn't know anything or didn't give him up?  Then I've got to say that Obama and our Special Forces really kicked ass.  And what about Pakistan?

Taliban Arrests in Pakistan a Bad Thing?

InstaBud-D here again.  The London Times has an interesting take on the spectacular arrests in Pakistan last week.  The gist of their point is that Pakistan is arresting Taliban leaders that were trying to work a deal with the Karzai government, and that Pakistan is arresting them because they don't want the conflict, and more importantly, the billions of dollars in US aid to fight it, to stop.

I have no idea if the leaders being arrested are the more moderate ones or not, but it is odd that Pakistan can roll up all these guys at this time.

Positive News out of Pakistan

I don't know if we can bank on this, but Fox News reports that villages are rising up against the Taliban's awesome technique of winning friends by blowing up mosques. They mention that the villagers get brave when the army remains in the area. Sort of like the The Surge in Iraq.

Maybe it doesn't mean anything, but good news as far as it goes.

Pakistan Collapsing III

Wow, it appears that Pakistan doesn't even want to fight. Long War Journal has the depressing details. Read past the headlines: Rangers for Pakistan doesn't mean the same thing as Rangers for the US.

Pakistan Collapsing?!

A follow on to Melkor's article: Australian Advisor to both Bush & Obama says collapse of the nation of Pakistan is "months away". We are seeing more and more collapsing nations around the world, primarily Muslim nations. Of course Pakistan has never been a fully unified nation. The northwestern part of the country has always been semi-autonomous and now is more or less fully autonomous.

Fun things for Obama:

- Nukes in the hands of militant Islamic fundamentalists

- Reactions of India, China, and Iran to the power vacuum.

- Far more people and territory to recruit and train Islamic fundamentalists

Perhaps persuasive talk and stern letters will help. To be fair though this slow motion train wreck has been coming for a while and it's hard to know what to do about it. However, threatened nations are doing something about it. India is buying an anti-missile system from Israel. See the next article regarding responses of our erstwhile allies as Obama proceeds to abandon them.