Osama

General Musharraf's neighbor, was killed.

All these years while we were trying to find Osama in N.W. Waziristan, lo and behold, he was General Musharraf's neighbor, and President Zardari's hometown boy, an Islamabadi! He was not hiding in a filthy cave, he was living in a million dollar mansion! I knew it all these years! I remember just like yesterday: Dave Russell, a radio talk show host here in Seattle, in December of 2001, asked me in an interview, "Where do you think we can find Osama?" I answered, "Under Musharraf's desk!" Yes, that is why I call myself an Afghan expert. I even have a website, Afghan-expert.com. 

Should we celebrate Osama's death? Of course! After ten years and six hundred billion dollars? It deserves a huge celebration. But wait a minute, stop the music for a moment, and let's ask why it took ten years? And why 600 billion dollars? That is exactly the reason why Pakistan was not informed about this whole operation until it was over. Finally we realized that if we want to do something serious against Al Qaeda, we should not inform ISI. 

This operation raises yet another question about Pakistan, a nuclear power: Two American helicopters fly from a military base in Afghanistan, go through Pakistani N.W. Waziristan, all the way to the capitol of this nuclear power country in Islamabad, attack a compound, kill Osama, take his body and leave as fast as they came. Only after all of that does Pakistan's army get a call from Americans that "the operation is over!" and only then do they discover it! Yes, now the question is "Is Pakistan's arsenal of nuclear weapons safe?" If their army was not able to detect this whole operation on their own, then why should we believe that the extremists don't have access to nuclear material? That is why Pakistan is the most dangerous place in this whole world for the entire human race.

As Americans, we can celebrate Osama's death, because at least it brings some small measure of closure to the 9-11 tragedy, and at least symbolically we believe that justice was taken to the mastermind behind the 9-11 attacks. However, as Afghans, we should not expect any relief for Afghanistan and the Afghan people, because after all, Osama, while we would love to believe that he was the mastermind, the plain fact is that he was only a puppet at the hands of ISI who quite simply used him and his resources for their express evil purposes. ISI is intact, Taliban will be intact and no changes should we expect.