The fortified compound that was built in 2005 to eventually keep safe UBL and his entourage, family, and couriers away from the coalition aligned to capture him and stop him from expanding al Qaeda. [ctrl-click image for additional compound images] Image Credit: The New Yorker Usama bin Laden is depicted being captured and dispatched by elite United States forces under the nose of his Pakistani protectors. This action happened yesterday, under the cloak of darkness and within a 100 yards of the Pakistani Military Academy ... the equivalent of United States' West Point ... much to the embarrassment of many military and government officials in Pakistan.
This excerpted and edited from The New Yorker -
Notes on the Death of Osama bin Laden
Posted by Steve Coll, New Yorker - May 2, 2011
Abbottabad is essentially a military-cantonment city in Pakistan, in the hills to the north of the capital of Islamabad, in an area where much of the land is controlled or owned by the Pakistani Army and retired Army officers.
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The city is most notable for housing the Pakistan Military Academy, the Pakistani Army’s premier training college.
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Looking at maps and satellite photos on the Web last night, I saw the wide expanse of the Academy not far from where the million-dollar, heavily secured mansion where bin Laden lived was constructed in 2005. The maps I looked at had sections of land nearby marked off as “restricted areas,” indicating that they were under military control. It stretches credulity to think that a mansion of that scale could have been built and occupied by bin Laden for six years without its coming to the attention of anyone in the Pakistani Army.
The initial circumstantial evidence suggests that the opposite is more likely—that bin Laden was effectively being housed under Pakistani state control. Pakistan will deny this, it seems safe to predict, and perhaps no convincing evidence will ever surface to prove the case.
If I were a prosecutor at the United States Department of Justice, however, I would be tempted to call a grand jury. Who owned the land on which the house was constructed? How was the land acquired, and from whom? Who designed the house, which seems to have been purpose-built to secure bin Laden? Who was the general contractor? Who installed the security systems? Who worked there? Are there witnesses who will now testify as to who visited the house, how often, and for what purpose?
These questions are not relevant only to the full realization of justice for the victims of September 11th. They are also relevant to the victims of terrorist attacks conducted or inspired by bin Laden while he lived in the house, and these include many Pakistanis, as well as Afghans, Indians, Jordanians, and Britons. They are rightly subjects of American criminal law.
[Reference Here]
Other disturbing reflections in all of this come from the "politics" shown by President Barack Obama during his announcement and later, in the description on how careful our military was in disposing of the body of Usama bin Laden.
In his speech last night, the 44th President used the word I in a very distinct way (as he normally does when he is talking about the expanse of bureaucracy in Government) when he talked about the events leading up to the capture and destruction of UBL. He talked about it in a way that was used to exclude any hint of a history that our military had an ongoing special forces presence in the pursuit of UBL before this 44th President ever took office.
This excerpted and edited from Reuters
Text of President Obama's statement to U.S. people
President Barack Obama said on Sunday that the mastermind of the September 11 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people has been killed in Pakistan by U.S.-led forces
Reuters - Mon May 2, 2011 2:51am EDT
And so shortly after taking office, I directed Leon Panetta, the director of the CIA, to make the killing or capture of bin Laden the top priority of our war against al Qaeda. Even as we continued our broader efforts to disrupt, dismantle and defeat his network.
Then last August, after years of painstaking work by our intelligence community, I was briefed on a possible lead to bin Laden. It was far from certain. And it took many months to run this thread to ground.
I met repeatedly with my national security team as we developed more information about the possibility that we had located bin Laden hiding within a compound deep inside Pakistan.
And finally, last week, I determined that we had enough intelligence to take action and authorized an operation to get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice.
Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abad Abad [Abbottabad], Pakistan. A small team of Americans carried out the operation with extraordinary courage and capability. No Americans were harmed. They took care to avoid civilian casualties.
After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body.
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Over the years, I've repeatedly made clear that we would take action within Pakistan if we knew where bin Laden was. That is what we've done.
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These efforts weigh on me every time I, as commander in chief, have to sign a letter to a family that has lost a loved one or look into the eyes of a service member who's been gravely wounded.
[Reference Here]
On the disposal of UBL's dead body in accordance with Muslim tradition and, further, not wanting to bury his body on land (it was buried at sea) for fear of this place becoming a shrine where people could make a pilgrimage to help martyr his efforts and memory.
We, at MAXINE believe, these same people who think this is a good idea to bury UBL at sea are, for the most part, the very same people who do not have a problem with a mosque being established at "Ground Zero" in New York.
Glenn Beck, on this afternoon's broadcast, suggested that we should have brought the body back to Meadowlands Stadium, wrap it in bacon, and bury it on the 50 yard line and beg people to try to turn this into a shrine.
This could be the least we could do for the man who terrorized so many throughout the world ... and this includes the bringing down the twin towers of the World Trade Center.
All victims of Islamic inspired terrorism thank you ... President Barack Obama and the United States military for not giving in and giving up on the resolve to get and destroy UBL.
