They got Osama bin Laden! He wasn’t living in some cave or out of a camping tent in the wilds of Afghanistan. In fact, he wasn’t even in Afghanistan at all; he was in Pakistan – indeed, about two hours outside the capital city of Islamabad!
It’s too funny, in a way. Far from toughing it out in a camping tent or cave among the rugged mountainous terrain offered by that part of the world, he was living in a mansion-like compound in an affluent garrison town. Yes, that’s right, a garrison town of the Pakistani Army! Practically right next door to an elite military academy, actually. No joke.
Needless to say, a slew of questions arise: how could the Pakistani authorities not have known? And if they did know….
Bin Laden was living quite a spartan existence, however, so he might as well have been living out of a camping tent, for most practical concerns and purposes. He apparently never ventured outdoors, at least not for months at a time, not for the several months from August of last year until May of this one during which American intelligence was monitoring his hideout, still uncertain whether it was him living there until the final moment when DNA tests confirmed that the body was indeed his.
Yes, the body. He was shot, just like that. Like something out of a Hollywood blockbuster. A bit anti-climactic, though. But perhaps that was for the best. Easier that way, at least for most people, it seems.
All that unseemly celebration, though, on the heels of the announcement of his death at U.S. forces…that was really unnecessary. Basically just like when anti-American demonstrators celebrated every U.S. death. Understandable as the expression of emotions may be, it also serves to prove the old adage: “we have met the enemy and he is us.”