Pakistan Hiding Osama Bin Laden?

The “Arab Spring” for all intents and purposes has totally de-legitimized al-Qaida. So I am not sure of the significance of the death of Osama Bin Laden in terms of terrorism and fundamentalist Islamist international aspirations. However the attack on his compound demonstrates our ability and willingness to conduct surgical strikes in questionable areas with great sophistication, minimum loss of life and success. (Remember our rescue, also using Seals, of the Captain from the Somali pirates?)

Since the killing of Osama Bin Laden, there has been much debate about the competence or complicity of Pakistan. The suspicion is that someone in their government must have known of Bin Laden’s whereabouts. I heard a commentator on BBC say that with the corruption in Pakistan, Bin Laden would have never trusted anyone in that government with his whereabouts. I tend to agree with this observation.

Back in the 70s, France sent a communiqué to our government complaining about our recruitment of their military officers stating that one half of the senior military staff was on the CIA’s payroll. I suspect that one half was a gross exaggeration but nevertheless, if a significant number of France’s senior military staff was working for the CIA, the portion of a third world country’s must be much larger. Surely Bin Laden was aware of this and would expect that the probability was very high that any information in the hands of any Pakistani official would get to the US. So in hiding from us, he would not dare enlist the aid of Pakistan. “Hiding in plain sight” is a risky but sound strategy.

As with a number of Pakistani officials working for us, I suspect that a number are also working for al-Qaida. Because of this, both sides are very cautious in their dealings with Pakistani officials. We demonstrated this clearly by not including Pakistan in the loop regarding this operation and Bin Laden would have by not allowing them to hide him.