By Jim Miklaszewski, NBC News chief Pentagon correspondent, and Robert Windrem, NBC News investigative producer for special projects
The U.S. Navy Seals who killed Osama bin Laden recovered a number of the former al-Qaida leader’s journals at the Pakistan compound where he was hiding, but they were forced to leave behind detailed logs of bin Laden and al-Qaida activity that the Pakistanis have not yet shared, senior U.S. officials told NBC News on Wednesday.
Phi Beta Iota: We doubt that serious forensics and graphalogy will be brought to bear on this “treasure trove,” and consider the “left behind” series of logs to be inherently suspect. It is impossible to know the truth of the matter at this time, the major reason why the Bin Laden Show has been posted in so many pieces, to enable others to connect dots and offer up missing pieces.
Phi Beta Iota: As of 2100 broadcast media are reporting that Chinese scientists have examined the surviving wreckage. We are reminded that the Tomahawk attack on Bin Laden in the Clinton era yielded one dysfunctional Tomahawk arriving in time for Bin Laden to sell it to the Chinese for US$10M. The “true cost” calculations of such misadventures are analytically stimulating.
Phi Beta Iota: Unarmed, no guards, in a stucco hooch not a mansion, out-numbered by US forces, not captured? This all smells like a classic deception operation, the main purposes of which have been to a) boost the President's political numbers; b) panic the uninformed into thinking information was captured, pushing them into chatter mode; and c) justify getting out of Afghanistan sooner. We don't believe it. But then, according to the President, we are not a credible source of informed opinion. Who is? Certainly not the President or his political appointees or the military careerists sworn to uphold the Constitution but preferring to uphold the chain of command and the cover story of the day.
“Glibness, Superficial Charm, Grandiose Sense of Self-Worth, Deceitful, Cunning, Manipulative, Lacks Remorse, Callous, Lacks Empathy, Does Not Accept Responsibility for Own Actions, and Impulsiveness … “
Although the events of Sunday were not a joint operation, a decade of cooperation and partnership between the United States and Pakistan led up to the elimination of Osama bin Laden as a continuing threat to the civilized world. And we in Pakistan take some satisfaction that our early assistance in identifying an al-Qaeda courier ultimately led to this day.
Zardari and Chinese leaders reportedly discussed investment opportunities in numerous sectors, including port development, hydropower, roads, railways, mining and others.
Among the projects discussed between Beijing and Islamabad is a proposed railway to link Kashgar to the southern Pakistan port of Gwadar. If realized, it would give China direct access to the Arabian Sea and provide an alternative route should a naval blockade cut oil supplies from the Middle East.
“All Chinese plans for gaining access to resource-rich Central Asia and building energy pipelines pass through Gilgit-Baltistan,” said Syed. “Gilgit, the northern areas capital, has acquired the status of gateway to Central Asia after Pakistan-China barter trade agreement and accords with Central Asian States.”
Benazir's husband is voted in amid muted rejoicing, but army hostility and militant violence could threaten hopes for stability, reports Jason Burke
Phi Beta Iota: The Op Ed is “party line” stuff. Not in the Op-Ed is the fact that China is the President's primary ally, and the military and the tribes do not like him. Not in the Op Ed is China's enormous success across multiple fronts in Pakistan, including its ownership of the port of Gwadar, previously addressed here at Phi Beta Iota. While the USA has been waging war, badly, without a strategy and without a return on investment in mind, China has been waging peace. We are reminded of how Iran lured the US neoconservatives into Iraq. In the absence of intelligence and integrity at the highest levels of the US Government, China wins, Russia ties, and US loses, across Central Asia, over the next decade. Ultimately this region is about water and rare metals. The region is not conquerable. Brzezinski and his disciple Obama don't get that yet. President Zardari is not the man his wife was (see our review of her book below).
1. Waterboarding produced the first “lead”–waterboarding is good, this is the silver bullet on waterboarding.
2. Intelligence Community nailed it, over the years, and finally did this without Pakistani assistance to include surveilling the courier in what is the equivalent of a denied area.
3. Bin Laden's presence so close to the military academy in Pakistan is proof positive of the duplicity of the Pakistani government and military, the time has come to “get tough” with them.
4. Afghanistan is a much needed base from which to attack Pakistan, we need to do more of that.
Phi Beta Iota: We don't make this stuff up. As skeptical as we are of everything coming out of the White House on this, mindful of the high probability that Bin Laden died years ago, if he does turn out to have been “cornered” in this villa, we are certain he was brought there, put there, by the Pakistanis, as a sitting duck, for the theater operation, with very specific quid pro quos vis a vis US withdrawal from Afghanistan. CIA retirees (Robert Grenier) are now spinning on CNN that the Pakistanis were not aware of Bin Laden's being hidden 1.3 kilometers from the Pakistani military academy. The furniture has been cleared out, the press is not allowed into the compound, and it will probably be refurbished and returned to its original owner, probably a senior Pakistani general who loaned it for the one act play.
As of March 2011, Congress had approved a total of more than $1.2 trillion dollars for costs associated with the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and other post-9/11 “war on terror” operations, the Congressional Research Service said in its most recent update on the subject. See “The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global War on Terror Operations Since 9/11,” March 29, 2011.
Other new or newly updated CRS reports include the following (all pdf).
I'm told this story is in every newspaper and on television in Afghanistan. Most Afghans believe it to be true. Basically, in spite of the Administration's posturing, Pakistan would become the governing power in Afghanistan…..The Administration's statements show a clear lack of understanding about this region….
The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that Pakistan's leaders “bluntly” told Afghanistan's president “to forget about allowing a long-term U.S. military presence in his country,” and urged him instead “to look to Pakistan–and its Chinese ally–for help in striking a peace deal with the Taliban and rebuilding the economy.” According to Afghan officials, at an April 16 meeting in Kabul in which the leaders of Pakistan's military and intelligence also participated, Pakistan's Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani told Pres. Hamid Karzai that “the Americans had failed them both,” and that it was time for Kabul to choose “alternative allies.” The Pakistani delegation also outlined a number of demands to the Afghan leader. Afghanpaper.com, quoting an unnamed Afghan official, lists Pakistan's demands as:
