Well,
I suppose this explains why Sheikh Osama was unable to crow about his movement's near-total victory in the Arab world.... he's been under hot pursuit for the last few months.

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Sailer is getting all hotted up about the fact that Sheikh was hiding for 6 years just down the street from the Paki equivalent of West Point. Not highly surprising... it's been clear since 2002 that Pakistan was more of an enemy than Afghanistan or Iraq. During the 2008 campaign, both Hillary and Huckabee were making this point, trying to turn our efforts toward fighting Pakistan. It appears that Obama was able to understand the fact, which is a good thing. McCain didn't understand it.

Overall this is typical of all our post-1989 wars. We've been destroying our natural allies and 'friending' our real enemies in that part of the world. We've been making life harder for the Christians and Jews who were tolerated by the secular leaders we've removed; and we've been helping Sheikh Osama's hard-line Islamists to take over.

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A quick lookup of James Abbott, namesake of Abbottabad, yields an interesting historical echo.

He made a name for himself in the northwest frontier region of India in the middle part of the 19th century. In 1839 he undertook a mission to the Khanate of Khiva as part of the Great Game, the contest for influence in Central Asia between the United Kingdom and the Russian Empire. His objective was to obtain the release of Russian slaves in the Khanate to deny the Russians a pretext for invading it. He failed, but shortly afterwards Richmond Shakespear succeeded.

As part of the terms of the Treaty of Lahore signed after the defeat of the Sikhs in the First Sikh War, Hazara and Kashmir were going to be transferred to Gulab Singh; Hazara however remained under the Lahore government and governed by James Abbott, who pacified it within a year.

And the Great Game continues, with US replacing UK. Sheikh Osama came to power as part of the Great Game, as an American pawn against Russia. He devoted his life to fighting against Westernizing secular leaders. He died in a town that was Westernized by an earlier pawn against Russia.

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I'm curious to hear what the great Scheuer has to say. He was in charge of the search for Osama in the early days, and he's the most acute observer of our successes and failures. So far nothing online, but his publisher has popped in with a relevant quote from Scheuer's biography of Osama:

Finally, the new generation has the advantage of following the modern Saladin, Osama bin Laden. He is their inspiration, whether or not he serves as their model. Indeed, though we still have a potent foe in bin Laden, the West may face a post–bin Laden era generation that is both less visible and more violent. “From what I know of my father and the people around him,” Omar bin Laden told the media in early 2010, “I believe he is the most kind among them, because some are much, much worse.”

Smart marketing. You don't expect the august Oxford University Press to be live-blogging current events!

4:05 AM: Aha! Scheuer is speaking right now on BBC. Says pretty much the same thing as the quote above.

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One big thing that I haven't heard among all the jibber-jabber: Even though he used the same stupid verbiage about "bringing to justice", Obama made it clear that he wanted Osama dead. When Bush "brought Saddam to justice", he prohibited instant death; baby Bush naively believed that a trial was better, for some fairy-tale "???reason???" that I can't begin to imagine. Even after the trial was done, baby Bush tried to commute the death sentence! Obama's mind is not inhabited by sweet butterflies and Tinkerbells; he understands that instant and certain death is the only way to vanquish an opponent of this caliber.

ETAOIN SHRDLU ETAOIN SHRDLU XXXXX
Nope, I take it back.

But another senior U.S. official told CNN the operation included instructions to arrest bin Laden alive if he surrendered -- however, no one involved expected that he would surrender.

Obama is just as idiotic as Bush, and that's saying one fucking hell of a fucking lot.
  ¶ 2:56 AM