The Joint Special Operations Command, presumably the command responsible for the mission, should get credit for demonstrating its ability to successfully raid targets virtually anywhere in the world. The CIA also gets credit for patiently developing the required intelligence and for reminding everyone of the value of battlefield captures, interrogations, and human intelligence.
Finally, President Barack Obama deserves great credit for taking the risk of ordering this raid. He likely knew that the past record of such high-visibility raids was not good and that much more can go wrong with these operations than go right. He must also have known that another Desert One fiasco could have been disastrous on several levels.
Most notable was Obama's willingness to shatter America's relationship with Pakistan in order to take a gamble on getting bin Laden. For this raid is a black day for Pakistan and its relationship with the United States. As the White House background briefing on the raid makes clear, the United States kept the raid completely concealed from the Pakistani government. Combine this with the fact that bin Laden was found in a highly protected compound in a wealthy town near Pakistan's capital, and a stone's throw from a Pakistani military academy. Americans will be right to conclude that Pakistan was bin Laden's long-time friend and not America's. What little support Pakistan still enjoys in Washington will now likely melt away. Pakistan will have to look to China, its last friend, for the support it will need to survive.
Although the struggle against terrorism will go on, the death of bin Laden will bring a sense of finality for most in the American electorate. Combine that with more evidence of Pakistan's duplicity, the evident breakdown in relations between the United States and Pakistan, and what will likely be the most bloody year yet for U.S. soldiers fighting in Afghanistan. The result could be a final collapse of public support for the war in Afghanistan. That probably won't bother President Obama too much and will bolster his argument to accelerate the U.S. withdrawal from that war later this year.
Comments
I think its a good day for Pakistan too, but in a "long-term" kind of way.
comments on our blog are at http://www.brownpundits.com/2011/05/02/a-really-bad-day-for-bin-ladin-a… (this link completes the circle, since i linked SWJ there).
One of our bloggers has a post saying the Pakistani commandos were much more heavily involved than advertised (http://www.brownpundits.com/2011/05/02/the-osama-card-has-been-played/#… ). I find that plausible. But it seems that in their public pronouncements they have chosen the humiliation of this being a US operation over the dangers of being seen as loyal partners of the infidels? Or is that just more smoke and mirrors?
Whatever the details (and amateurs like me will probably never know), the bottom line is that the Pakistani establishnment will have to gradually get rid of all their old jihadi friends...not just the "bad" ones. The infidel world won't let them keep the "good jihadis" either.
One possibility is that GHQ knows this, but feels insecure and needs time to work things out with the rank and file. The other is that they don't fully know this yet and will only learn over time and with great reluctance. Either way, the end state will be the same. The Pakistani establishment will have to give up its jihadi proxies...even the "good jihadis"; even the ones who only target Hindoos and are not thought to be a major issue for the big infidels with the big bombs. The reason? the jihadis have the bad habit of not keeping the milk and meat apart very strictly. The good ones keep hobnobbing with the bad ones and even the most sympathetic infidels (the Chinese, Anatol Lieven) are uncomfortable with that aspect of jihadi behavior.....one way or the other (one way being more painful than the other) the deep state will have to pull away from all of them. Though they may or may not know it yet..and may go through years of very gradual backpedaling before they get to the promised land.
naifs.
Look at the timing.
The Pak populace was beginning to stage protests against the droning that would destabilize the Pak gov.
Panetta met with his then counterpart about 2 weeks ago, and Panetta insisted the droning would continue, even if the US had to fuel drones from A-stan bases.
I think Lieut Gen Ahmad Shuja Pasha gave OBL up two weeks ago, and this "secret mission" crap is just plausible deniability for the Pak people.
The compound is practically next to <ahref="http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&t=h&msa=0&msid=21367561986…; Pak military academy. </a>
Not that this isnt a good thing.
Now the GTFO drawdown can start in two months on schedule.
;)
I suspect this is a good day for Pakistan as well. From now on there should be far less pressure from the US to act in ways that they cannot given their own vital national interests that we have asked them to subjugate to ours.
Similarly for the Taliban and those who have given bin Laden sanctuary. They cannot give these people up, but I doubt they shed many tears when they get taken away. Hopefully we can now turn down the volume on drone strikes.
Boots on the ground and eyes on the target are almost always best; but hopefully we can now calm down and look to the bigger picture.
Though we do need to consider that bin Laden may well have been a voice preventing major attacks from being executed....that voice is now silent. One never knows for sure who steps up or what changes will occur when such a senior leader is taken out.
The Pak government now has the interesting job of explaining how a compound of this type and size could have been built and maintained in a plush neighborhood, 30 miles from the capital, and situated next to a government military academy, no less.
It also nicely calls into question the mythology of OBL as an ascetic living frugally in the Waziristan hills.
And hiding behind a woman's skirts, resulting in her being killed=--that tells how shabby the AQ are when under pressure.
It is very different from the ideal of Islamic chivalry as exemplified by Antar and Saladdin.
AQ are home wreckers. The leaders used and used others and then disposed of them, then look for new recruits. Thats the message to get across.
OBL's death will fulfill an element of the desire for justice and retribution, but his death in itself has very little strategic relevance.
However, information gathered from OBL's compound could be invaluable. Reports suggest that the building was ransacked by the assaulting US forces - documents will have been seized, and while there may have been no phone or internet connections to the house, computer hardware has been found. Recovered information will be very exciting for the intelligence services. Could it lead the US to other key AQ figures in the near future? Who knows.
My first thought was, whether the US Navy SEALS
participated.
Thank you, gentlemen.
And let us thank the research team for their many years of silent service.
In this celebrity obsessed culture it is a fine thing to remember that there are many top notch scholars and a multitude of world class, Olympic level athletes whose names are never in the newspapers--because they are in the US Armed Forces and various government departments and independent agencies.
Thank you all for giving so generously of yourselves.
Did he have any other option but to get him, Clinton had that option and let it slip pass him resulting in 3000 US deaths, Obama would have done that there would have been calls for his impeachment. Lets be real no one in Washington trust of believes in Pakastan anymore they are on the way out and now the US should take whatever action necessary to destroy the Taliban in Pakastan. Let get on with it stop playing around and do it. Bomb Bomb bomb until they have no place to hide maybe China would let they hide after we get done.