by Mark Steyn
As my old friends at The Spectator in London pointed out Monday morning, I scooped the entire planet in breaking the news of Osama bin Laden's death: "Osama bin Laden is dead, says Mark Steyn." This was in The Spectator's edition of June 29, 2002, which turned out to be a wee bit premature. I jumped the gun, much like Osama's missus in Abbottabad, but by nine years.
Nor, to be honest, was a teensy-weensy near-decade discrepancy in the date the only problem with my scoop. Much of that Spectator piece was preoccupied with the usual assumptions about Public Enemy Number One – caves, dialysis, remote wild Pakistani tribal lands where Western intelligence hasn't a hope of penetrating unless you turn a cousin of the village headman, etc. All these assumptions prevailed until a few days ago, when it emerged that Osama, three wives and 13 children had been living in town in a purpose-built pad round the corner from the Pakistani Military Academy for over half a decade. Brunch every Sunday with a couple of generals at his usual corner table at the Abbottabad Hilton? Eggs Benedict, hold the ham?
The belated dispatch of Osama testifies to what the United States does well – elite warriors, superbly trained, equipped to a level of technological sophistication no other nation can match. Everything else surrounding the event (including White House news management so club-footed that one starts to wonder darkly whether its incompetence is somehow intentional) embodies what the United States does badly. Pakistan, our "ally," hides and protects not only Osama but also Mullah Omar and Zawahiri, and does so secure in the knowledge that it will pay no price for its treachery – indeed, confident that its duplicitous military will continue to be funded by U.S. taxpayers.Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/05/why_pakistan_knew_it_could_hid.html
Mark Steyn
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1 comment:
Well, let us have hopes that after the absolute pathetic Obama presidency, there will be a very much different manner in which Pakistan is seen and addressed. Of course, Obama is filled with self importance presently, which is nothing new, and he has very little if nothing to crow about. Obama was simply present when the whereabouts of Osama became actually known, and he had to agree with the military in taking Osama out. So let the rooster crow and strut in ignorance, as he has nothing better to do.
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