(no subject)
OFF MY CHEST
[wherein your humble narrator reveals his crankdom]
I was in my car listening to the radio when the news of Osama bin-Laden's killing came on. I was on my way to a downtown bar, and while I was there I heard both of the dominant political positions expressed, each driven to their strident, alcohol-soaked extremes. All I could think about it was, that's going to alter the game a bit.
What I am unable to understand is the veritable ORGY OF EVIDENCE that has poured forth from the government & the news media regarding this operation. Details which would normally deflected and doused in secrecy are instead paraded forth, with just enough withheld to arouse the casually curious in idle speculation. It's been more than a week, and STILL more details are forthcoming. I know most of my Dear Readers are too young to remember the 1979 effort to rescue the hostages in Iran (under the title Operation Eagle Thrust or some such bombast), but it took dedicated reporters an awful long time to piece together that A) there was an operation, and B)it somehow managed to fuck itself in the ear.
Now, maybe my trust in the public dissemination of information has been irreparably tarnished by the fact that said providers of information regularly spin the truth so hard that it staggers around afterwards & ends up puking on its shoes. Maybe I've heard too many lies issued regarding paramilitary operations that were later revealed in all their venomous, squirming glory. But this deluge of normally confidential data sounds like a new method for fashioning a cover-up.
Don't get me wrong. Osama is dead. We dumped him in the sea. Some Navy SEAL probably shot him in the eye.
What I'm saying ~ and what I can't believe no one else has even postulated ~ is that he was dead when we got there.
Occam's razor alone points glaringly to this. You have a man who has chronic kidney disease (to the point where he needs dialysis on a regular basis) who has been living as a fugitive for nearly a decade. You have an American state department desperately trying to create a back-channel line of reliable intel with a reluctant Pakistan, with almost no success, for nearly as long. You have an American military who is chronically unable (not allowed?) to find Osama. You have a Pakistani intelligence community unable (unwilling?) to locate him, & fully aware of the support he garners in certain sectors of the country. What changed? Under what circumstances would it no longer matter if the Pakistanis "discovered" Osama's whereabouts & made that information available for the Americans to discover?
If he was already dead.
There. I've said it. I would like to believe the story that is being enthusiastically and comprehensively shovelled into my craw. In the long run ~ legalistically, operationally, geopolitically ~ it doesn't make any difference. But I can't shake this feeling.
[wherein your humble narrator reveals his crankdom]
I was in my car listening to the radio when the news of Osama bin-Laden's killing came on. I was on my way to a downtown bar, and while I was there I heard both of the dominant political positions expressed, each driven to their strident, alcohol-soaked extremes. All I could think about it was, that's going to alter the game a bit.
What I am unable to understand is the veritable ORGY OF EVIDENCE that has poured forth from the government & the news media regarding this operation. Details which would normally deflected and doused in secrecy are instead paraded forth, with just enough withheld to arouse the casually curious in idle speculation. It's been more than a week, and STILL more details are forthcoming. I know most of my Dear Readers are too young to remember the 1979 effort to rescue the hostages in Iran (under the title Operation Eagle Thrust or some such bombast), but it took dedicated reporters an awful long time to piece together that A) there was an operation, and B)it somehow managed to fuck itself in the ear.
Now, maybe my trust in the public dissemination of information has been irreparably tarnished by the fact that said providers of information regularly spin the truth so hard that it staggers around afterwards & ends up puking on its shoes. Maybe I've heard too many lies issued regarding paramilitary operations that were later revealed in all their venomous, squirming glory. But this deluge of normally confidential data sounds like a new method for fashioning a cover-up.
Don't get me wrong. Osama is dead. We dumped him in the sea. Some Navy SEAL probably shot him in the eye.
What I'm saying ~ and what I can't believe no one else has even postulated ~ is that he was dead when we got there.
Occam's razor alone points glaringly to this. You have a man who has chronic kidney disease (to the point where he needs dialysis on a regular basis) who has been living as a fugitive for nearly a decade. You have an American state department desperately trying to create a back-channel line of reliable intel with a reluctant Pakistan, with almost no success, for nearly as long. You have an American military who is chronically unable (not allowed?) to find Osama. You have a Pakistani intelligence community unable (unwilling?) to locate him, & fully aware of the support he garners in certain sectors of the country. What changed? Under what circumstances would it no longer matter if the Pakistanis "discovered" Osama's whereabouts & made that information available for the Americans to discover?
If he was already dead.
There. I've said it. I would like to believe the story that is being enthusiastically and comprehensively shovelled into my craw. In the long run ~ legalistically, operationally, geopolitically ~ it doesn't make any difference. But I can't shake this feeling.