Video dramatization of Bin Laden raid.
Wednesday, May 4
Updated: Bin Laden Raid Video
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| Live: the Obama Admin. watches the raid |
The raw video stream was fed real-time to the the Obama National Security team (pictured right in the White House situation room) during the bin Laden compound raid.
With confirmation yesterday from CIA Director Leon Panetta that an official death photo of bin Laden will be released, the next question becomes whether WikiLeaks or some other outfit will be able to obtain the actual footage of the bin Laden compound raid?
In the meantime below is an ABC dramatization, and more details on the raid and the extraordinary Seal Team Six which conducted the raid here.
Bin Laden's Gold Connection
Nick Robertson of CNN observed on Twitter that neighbours say the "Osama entourage" passed themselves off as gold merchants.But as discussed on this blog previously, when it comes to smuggling neither cash nor gold can match the advantages of diamonds.
Updated: Photo of Amal Ahmed Abdul Fatah, bin Laden's Young Wife Wounded in Raid
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| Amal Ahmed Abdul Fatah, Bin Laden's wife |
She is 29-years old and Yemeni, and was a gift by a Yemeni family to bin Laden when she was only a teenager. She is bin Laden's fifth wife.
During the raid she charged a member of Seal Team Six, unarmed, and was then shot in the leg. While it's unclear whether she took a bullet from the same Navy Seal who killed bin Laden, it would seem probable.
From ABC News:
Amal and bin Laden and their three young children, a daughter and two sons, lived on the second and third floor of the compound's main house. Bin Laden apparently felt safe enough in the compound, which was surrounded by high barbed-wire topped walls, to keep his family with him.The above photo was taken from her below Yemeni passport.
Video: Afghanistan's Next President?
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| Amrullah Saleh, former Afghani Spy Chief |
An interesting video interview from PBS's Frontline of Amrullah Saleh, the former head of espionage for the Karzai-Afghanistan government.
Some of the points made by Saleh, who served with the deceased Northern Alliance leader Ahmed Shah Massoud killed by Al Qaeda right before 9/11, include:
- He believes the U.S. Obama administration does not currently possess a grand strategy or vision for how to proceed in Afghanistan/Pakistan, and the wider region.
- He broke with President Karzai and resigned his spy chief position after Karzai pivoted towards trying to strike a "deal" with the Taliban. In general believes no lasting peace can ever be achieved through deals with the Taliban ; the only lasting peace will come by integrating the Taliban into a peaceful Afghanistan democratic process.
- On the question of how long will the U.S. need to stay in the region, "How long did it take to defeat communism?" (answer: 50 years).
- Believes the U.S. needs to step up raids into Pakistan and should effectively deal with the Pakistani's who are proving Al Qaeda and Taliban, namely Pakistan's ISI espionage arm.
- On how the Taliban and Al Qaeda are earning income, "they collect taxes, and they collect part of the (wheat) harvest", in addition to heroin (the Taliban has "diversified")
- He won't confirm or deny whether he will run for office against Karzai, but he has been making the rounds in Washington, and this interview would seem to serve.
- He appears to live out in the open in the Panjshir valley north of Kabul. And yes, he has bodyguards.
Other interview highlights not covered in the video after the break.
Tuesday, May 3
Updated: New Bin Laden Death Photo Also Fake; No Photo Will Be Released
Today President Obama announced that a photo will not be released.
The below photo is the second prominent fake post-mortem shot that's been flying around the internet.
WARNING: graphic
The below photo is the second prominent fake post-mortem shot that's been flying around the internet.
WARNING: graphic
Analysis: Bin Laden's Hideout Strategy and Pakistan's Lack of Credibility
Osama bin Laden was living and killed about 100 kilometers outside Pakistan's capital of Islamabad in a relatively posh part of Abbottabad, Pakistan called Bilal Town.
The compound itself was located a short distance from the Pakistani military academy (the "West Point or Sandhurst of Pakistan" as it's being characterized). Detailed maps, satellite imagery and the CIA's diagram of the compound can be viewed here.
The Lair
His five-to-six year old property, believed to have been purpose built to hide the ultimate 'High Value Target' (HVT), was three stories tall and approximately eight times larger than any other nearby dwelling. Other key details:
Yet bin Laden's "mansion", as it has been characterized, did not have a phone line or internet. The couriers, Afghans brothers named Arshad and Tariq who were also gunned down by ST6, did not report any income and had no visible source of wealth. They also burned all their own trash. Neighbors also reported that the women who were living inside the house spoke in Arabic and not the local dialect.
Bin Laden's Hideout Strategy
Bin Laden's choice to hide near Pakistani military installations and in a residential community of retired Pakistani officers strikes me as both intriguing and suspicious. Less wise, perhaps, were some of the activities noted above, like burning the trash and not having a phone or internet line.
In short, Bin Laden stopped just short of hiding in veritable plain view. Did his failure to go all the way here do him in? One thing we do know is that the U.S. was only able to locate bin Laden by trailing his courier back to the compound in August 2010, and the whole reason bin Laden had to employ the services of a courier was due to his aversion to phones and the internet.
This location at least gave bin Laden some chance as the first assassination option considered by President Obama, employing B-2 Stealth Bombers, was abandoned due in part to the likelihood of collateral damage.
Was bin Laden's thinking on where to locate influenced by his correct calculation that the U.S. was unlikely to drop a bomb or conduct a Predator drone strike on this particular location? In turn, was bin Laden expecting a tip from Pakistani intelligence should any planned U.S. Special Forces assault to be attempted?
Who Does Pakistan Think They're Fooling?
Bin Laden apparently lived in this compound for the last 5-6 years. This raises very important questions about how much Pakistan, or elements of Pakistan's military and intelligence service, knew about the whereabouts of bin Laden. The U.S. has sent billions of dollars to Pakistan over the past several years to help find and kill people like bin Laden, and the American public should insist on an answer.
Pakistan has publicly denied knowing that bin Laden was within its borders. But if that's true it makes Pakistan look incompetent, particularly in light of the fact that Pakistan's most powerful man, General Ashfaq Kayani, the chief of staff, was within shouting distance of bin Laden last week giving a talk at the military academy on how Pakistan had broken the back of terrorism. More from The Economist on on the logic behind why Pakistan may have been providing bin Laden safe harbor:
From 2002 to 2010, the U.S. gave $13.3 billion in military aid to Pakistan, and $6 billion for economic development. Over $3 billion has been requested for 2011. Calls for U.S. forces to pull-out of Afghanistan will only grow, which will have a destabilizing effect on Pakistan and the wider region. It's no surprise to see that Congress is already moving to cut Pakistan's billions of dollars in annual U.S. economic and military aid.
As Pakistan plays their double-sided game, the U.S. Congress and President Obama need to think seriously about how much good all this aid is really doing in the fight against terror.
The history between Pakistan, the U.S., and the region is long and complex and for those familiar with it it really shouldn't come as a surprise that Pakistan was harboring bin Laden. For further reading I highly recommend Legacy of Ashes, by Tim Weiner, and in particular Ghost Wars, by Steve Coll. You can find both books in the 'Good Books and Film' section on the right side of this blog, and here is a recent interview with Steve Coll, David Ignatius of the Washington Post, and Dexter Filkins of the New Yorker.
The compound itself was located a short distance from the Pakistani military academy (the "West Point or Sandhurst of Pakistan" as it's being characterized). Detailed maps, satellite imagery and the CIA's diagram of the compound can be viewed here.
The Lair
His five-to-six year old property, believed to have been purpose built to hide the ultimate 'High Value Target' (HVT), was three stories tall and approximately eight times larger than any other nearby dwelling. Other key details:
- 12-to-18-foot walls, topped with barbed wire
- Internal walls sectioned off different areas of the compound
- Access was restricted by two security gates
- Closed-circuit cameras positioned around the property
Yet bin Laden's "mansion", as it has been characterized, did not have a phone line or internet. The couriers, Afghans brothers named Arshad and Tariq who were also gunned down by ST6, did not report any income and had no visible source of wealth. They also burned all their own trash. Neighbors also reported that the women who were living inside the house spoke in Arabic and not the local dialect.
Bin Laden's Hideout Strategy
Bin Laden's choice to hide near Pakistani military installations and in a residential community of retired Pakistani officers strikes me as both intriguing and suspicious. Less wise, perhaps, were some of the activities noted above, like burning the trash and not having a phone or internet line.
In short, Bin Laden stopped just short of hiding in veritable plain view. Did his failure to go all the way here do him in? One thing we do know is that the U.S. was only able to locate bin Laden by trailing his courier back to the compound in August 2010, and the whole reason bin Laden had to employ the services of a courier was due to his aversion to phones and the internet.
This location at least gave bin Laden some chance as the first assassination option considered by President Obama, employing B-2 Stealth Bombers, was abandoned due in part to the likelihood of collateral damage.
Was bin Laden's thinking on where to locate influenced by his correct calculation that the U.S. was unlikely to drop a bomb or conduct a Predator drone strike on this particular location? In turn, was bin Laden expecting a tip from Pakistani intelligence should any planned U.S. Special Forces assault to be attempted?
Who Does Pakistan Think They're Fooling?
Bin Laden apparently lived in this compound for the last 5-6 years. This raises very important questions about how much Pakistan, or elements of Pakistan's military and intelligence service, knew about the whereabouts of bin Laden. The U.S. has sent billions of dollars to Pakistan over the past several years to help find and kill people like bin Laden, and the American public should insist on an answer.
Pakistan has publicly denied knowing that bin Laden was within its borders. But if that's true it makes Pakistan look incompetent, particularly in light of the fact that Pakistan's most powerful man, General Ashfaq Kayani, the chief of staff, was within shouting distance of bin Laden last week giving a talk at the military academy on how Pakistan had broken the back of terrorism. More from The Economist on on the logic behind why Pakistan may have been providing bin Laden safe harbor:
Let's be clear about Pakistan's motive: the longer bad guys like Osama bin Laden, Mullah Omar, and the presume new Al Qaeda boss, Ayman al-Zawahiri, are kept alive, then the longer the billions in U.S. dollars in development and military aid will keep flowing to Pakistan.More likely, but no more attractive for the likes of the ISI, is that at least some in power in Pakistan knew that Mr bin Laden had been forced by American drone attacks to shift from a mountain hideout to this urban shelter. On this score Mr bin Laden (and probably others, such as the Aghan Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, who was reported earlier this year to have been taken by the ISI to Karachi for medical treatment following a heart attack) was being afforded some measure of protection by Pakistani officialdom. Why? Perhaps so that he could be used, one day, somehow to promote Pakistani interests among fighting groups in Afghanistan, or perhaps so that he (bin Laden) could be used as leverage over the Americans on a “rainy day”, as one Afghan intelligence officer speculates.
Something's wrong with this picture
From 2002 to 2010, the U.S. gave $13.3 billion in military aid to Pakistan, and $6 billion for economic development. Over $3 billion has been requested for 2011. Calls for U.S. forces to pull-out of Afghanistan will only grow, which will have a destabilizing effect on Pakistan and the wider region. It's no surprise to see that Congress is already moving to cut Pakistan's billions of dollars in annual U.S. economic and military aid.
As Pakistan plays their double-sided game, the U.S. Congress and President Obama need to think seriously about how much good all this aid is really doing in the fight against terror.
The history between Pakistan, the U.S., and the region is long and complex and for those familiar with it it really shouldn't come as a surprise that Pakistan was harboring bin Laden. For further reading I highly recommend Legacy of Ashes, by Tim Weiner, and in particular Ghost Wars, by Steve Coll. You can find both books in the 'Good Books and Film' section on the right side of this blog, and here is a recent interview with Steve Coll, David Ignatius of the Washington Post, and Dexter Filkins of the New Yorker.
Bin Laden's 9/11 ROI: a 2,514,000:1 return (and counting)
Al-Qaida pulled-off the Sept. 11 attacks for approximately $500,000, according to the 9/11 Commission report. By the end of fiscal 2011 the U.S. will have spent $1.3 trillion, or 9% of the national debt, fighting the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq according to the Center for Defense Information.
But when it's all said and done the total cost of the wars will make Bin Laden's 2,514,000:1 return at the time of his death multiply dramatically. It has been projected by Nobel prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and others that the lifetime cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars will run to approximately $3 trillion, or over 20% of current federal public debt, when long-term medical care for the wounded and other costs are factored.
Bringing Bin Laden at long last to justice represents a real victory, and since 9/11 Al Qaeda has not executed a successful terrorist attack on American soil. However, in assessing the economic war Al Qaeda has conducted against the U.S. one can't help but conclude that Osama bin Laden has received fantastic bang-for-the-buck.
“We, alongside the mujahedeen,” bin Laden was reported to have said in a speech delivered right before the 2004 presidential election, “bled Russia for 10 years until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw [from Afghanistan] in defeat. So we are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy.”
“Every dollar of al-Qaida defeated a million dollars, by the permission of Allah, besides the loss of a huge number of jobs,” he added.
How Do You Bring Down the Most Powerful Nation in History?
In his biographies of the Rothschild banking dynasty, as well as The Cash Nexus and The Ascent of Money, Harvard Professor Niall Ferguson makes a strong case that a nation's ability to borrow in the bond market is a reflection, and perhaps key wellspring, of the state's power.
For example, the British Empire's ability to borrow more, and at cheaper rates of interest, was key in its defeat of Napoleonic France. In contrast, her crippling post-WWII debt signaled the dawning of a new era for Britain which consisted of economic malaise, military impotency, and periods of currency instability which resulted in dramatic devaluations of pound sterling in both 1949 and 1967.
Today the U.S. Treasury market is the deepest, most liquid bond market in the world. It also serves as a cornerstone of the U.S. dollar's privileged reserve currency status. In times of panic, as we saw in the 2008 financial crisis, the world flees other assets for U.S. dollar denominated securities such as T-bills.
Whether or not the U.S.'s bond market is in fact the key pillar of American power is open to debate. What is irrefutable, however, is that displacing the dominant role played by the U.S. dollar and treasuries in the world's financial system would deal a huge, perhaps even mortal, blow to what remains of America's hegemonic power.
There are perhaps several different approaches, but one surefire way to weaken a nation state's currency and ability to borrow is for its government to run persistently large deficits, just as the U.S. has done for the past decade.
Whether Osama bin Laden's original aim for 9/11 was to entice America into engaging in protracted and costly Eurasian wars is revisionist history or fact is unclear. Regardless, Al Qaeda deserves at lease some of the credit for the U.S.'s large deficits, crippling debt load, and weakening currency.
In short, how the financial blow struck by Bin Laden and Al-Qaida will play out over the long-term for the U.S. remains to be seen.
But when it's all said and done the total cost of the wars will make Bin Laden's 2,514,000:1 return at the time of his death multiply dramatically. It has been projected by Nobel prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and others that the lifetime cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars will run to approximately $3 trillion, or over 20% of current federal public debt, when long-term medical care for the wounded and other costs are factored.
Bringing Bin Laden at long last to justice represents a real victory, and since 9/11 Al Qaeda has not executed a successful terrorist attack on American soil. However, in assessing the economic war Al Qaeda has conducted against the U.S. one can't help but conclude that Osama bin Laden has received fantastic bang-for-the-buck.
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| Meet the New Boss. Same as the Old Boss |
“Every dollar of al-Qaida defeated a million dollars, by the permission of Allah, besides the loss of a huge number of jobs,” he added.
How Do You Bring Down the Most Powerful Nation in History?
In his biographies of the Rothschild banking dynasty, as well as The Cash Nexus and The Ascent of Money, Harvard Professor Niall Ferguson makes a strong case that a nation's ability to borrow in the bond market is a reflection, and perhaps key wellspring, of the state's power.
For example, the British Empire's ability to borrow more, and at cheaper rates of interest, was key in its defeat of Napoleonic France. In contrast, her crippling post-WWII debt signaled the dawning of a new era for Britain which consisted of economic malaise, military impotency, and periods of currency instability which resulted in dramatic devaluations of pound sterling in both 1949 and 1967.
Today the U.S. Treasury market is the deepest, most liquid bond market in the world. It also serves as a cornerstone of the U.S. dollar's privileged reserve currency status. In times of panic, as we saw in the 2008 financial crisis, the world flees other assets for U.S. dollar denominated securities such as T-bills.
Whether or not the U.S.'s bond market is in fact the key pillar of American power is open to debate. What is irrefutable, however, is that displacing the dominant role played by the U.S. dollar and treasuries in the world's financial system would deal a huge, perhaps even mortal, blow to what remains of America's hegemonic power.
There are perhaps several different approaches, but one surefire way to weaken a nation state's currency and ability to borrow is for its government to run persistently large deficits, just as the U.S. has done for the past decade.
Whether Osama bin Laden's original aim for 9/11 was to entice America into engaging in protracted and costly Eurasian wars is revisionist history or fact is unclear. Regardless, Al Qaeda deserves at lease some of the credit for the U.S.'s large deficits, crippling debt load, and weakening currency.
In short, how the financial blow struck by Bin Laden and Al-Qaida will play out over the long-term for the U.S. remains to be seen.
Monday, May 2
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