Friday, May 13, 2011

A Less Far-Fetched Story: Osama in Pakistan

Well, ever since Obama came out and said he green lighted the killing of Osama, the story keeps changing. Now I'm seeing stories about how Osama lived in this compound without internet or TV service, but had one huge video collection of pornography. I don't know how this plays for people who actually watch TV, but doesn't this contradict the 'mother-lode' of intelligence story?

Something about the way the story keeps changing has me thinking this-

As far as I can tell, the original purpose for this Navy Seal team was extraction, not assassination. I'm talking about the reasons they decided to put together the program years ago. Obviously, they are getting called assassins now, but the media are rather notorious for refusing to do very much homework. So, I think the Seal team went in to extract.

The various stories surrounding Osama's stay at this compound seem heavily spun and internally contradictory, but it does seem like they are just editing what really happened. They eventually had to admit he wasn't armed. They say he had no internet or T.V. There are various other little pieces in the background of these stories which suggest the compound was a prison.

So, my best guess is that Pakistan had Osama confined in this compound and somebody decided to send in a Seal team to take him. The Pakistanis guarding Osama may have actually been the ones who killed him, but in any case, we've got a downed helicopter and various unknown people dead at the scene- most likely the guards meant to keep Osama under house arrest put up a fight.

If the Pakistani's did kill Osama, then the burial at sea suddenly makes sense. Lose the body, lose the evidence of who killed him. Then it is just a matter of deciding what makes the most political sense to say.

The weak spot in this theory is Pakistan. They don't necessarily know what exactly happened in the compound, but if they had guards keeping Osama in, they'd know the official U.S. story isn't true. This doesn't mean they feel it in their best interest to make this known. Even in the version sanitized for our consumption, we heard this whole idea about how Pakistan must have known Osama was there and that they are, perhaps, not really our friends. I believe it would be more accurate to say that the U.S. is not really Pakistan's friend. The strategic aims of each party diverges- indeed, the strategic aims of the U.S. are now basically untenable for all but the most corrupt. The U.S. has been a friend to and turned on Saddam Hussein, Gaddifi, and Osama bin Laden, and I suspect the Pakistanis are walking a fine line- trying not to cause discord, but preparing as they see their relationship with the U.S. unraveling.

As with most things these days, I hardly know if this is worth blogging about, it being conjecture and all. We know they aren't telling us the truth. We don't need to know what happened in order to know they aren't telling us the truth. In many cases, it's just freaking obviously wrong, like everything Bernanke does, or the food pyramid, or Obama's straight faced promise to get speculators for the high oil prices when he's not only responsible for the policies and wars causing it, but he promised higher prices during his campaign!

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