Pakistan, Now Would Be A Good Time To Shut Up

Google Maps targets the Bin Laden compound.

Here, we can see the Pakistani government pushing back on allegations that they must have known about the Bin Laden compound just 300 yards from the Pakistani equivalent of West Point.

First off, shut up.  Now is a good time to nod weakly, give a shrug and say, "We kind of screwed up on this, sorry.  Good job, Seal Six."  Now is not a good time to complain about violations of Pakistani sovereignty.  Yes, your national sovereignty was violated.  Get over it.  More importantly, your sense of national competence took a hit.  Because you either knew Bin Laden was there and let him live in peace (so that you might live in peace) or you're incompetent boobs.

Now the Hawes General Theory states that when choosing between evil and incompetence, bet on incompetence.  Did the Bush Administration let 9/11 happen so that they could go to war in Iraq?  Or did they just screw the pooch?  The correct answer is B.  It is almost always B.

But my guess is that the Pakistani relationship to Bin Laden is a combination.  I have no doubt certain people in the ISI knew Bin Laden was in Abbotabad, playing a few holes at the golf course, taking in Nacho Night at the Abbotabad Chili's.  But I don't think the conspiracy goes very far.

Pakistanis are no stupider and no brighter than any other people on this planet.  They are smart enough to know that sheltering the World's Foremost Douchecanoe is a really, really bad idea.  But they are also stupid enough to accept the facile explanations of some section head at ISI about that huge new compound with the 14 foot walls.  You know, the section head who used to funnel intelligence to Mullah Omar in Kabul.  That guy.  Bob, I think his name is.

But Pakistan, now is not the moment for righteous indignation about violations of your airspace.  Frankly, if you didn't have nuclear weapons, no one would care about you right now.  (Which is really chilling when you consider how that little nugget of information is digested in Tehran.)

When Saddam was dragged from his hidey-hole, I thought: "Good, now we have a pretext to leave Iraq."  When Zarqawi was killed, I though, "OK, victory!  We can go home!"  But the Bush Administration never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

While the benefits of the raid on Bin Laden's compound are primarily tactical in terms of the intelligence on his hard drives, the psychological benefit of this is apparent.  As I said, 9/11 is finally over.

Strategically, this means very little.

Unless...

Unless, we take this opportunity to extract ourselves from the hellish, corrupt, fractious "Graveyard of Empires" in Afghanistan.  The reasons for staying were tenuous. I heard an officer from the 10th Mountain Division saying if we don't finish the job, we'll be back in 20 years.  To that I say, Hell yes!  Twenty years is a long time to build things in this country rather than try and create stability and security in a country that hasn't known either in my lifetime (if ever).

And if we could somehow insure that Afghanistan becomes a proxy for India and not Pakistan, that would really cheese off the guys in ISI who shielded Bin Laden this long.

You know.  That jackoff Bob.