If North Waziristan is a Lawless Frontier, Then Go Get bin Laden!

Re: Associated Press: US: Osama bin Laden Slips Into Afghanistan Still – News – Air America, By Robert Burns

Osama bin Laden

WASHINGTON (AP) — Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden may periodically slip back into Afghanistan from his remote hideout in neighboring Pakistan, a senior White House official says, adding a new twist to the mystery of the elusive terrorist’s whereabouts.

President Barack Obama’s national security adviser, James Jones, said bin Laden, believed hiding mainly in a rugged area of western Pakistan, may be spending some time in Afghanistan, where he was based while plotting the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

But Obama’s Pentagon chief, Robert Gates, said the U.S. has lacked good intelligence on bin Laden for a long time — “I think it has been years” — and did not confirm that he’d slipped into Afghanistan.

First of all, it is welcome news that those in the highest levels are talking about the whereabouts of bin Laden, the most notorious criminal of our times. I think that the reason they have had, in Gate’s opinion, no good intelligence on OBL is because Bush didn’t want to capture him in the first place. The Bush business connections* to the bin Laden family (who disowned OBL back in the 1990’s) and to the royal Saudi family would have been permanently damaged if OBL had been captured when our troops had a chance. Now? Bush’s wealth and influence, and their past business dealings with foreign enemies is fading into the pages of history.

The Bush’s are irrelevant to the hunt for OBL now and cannot influence state business. Burns also spoke with President Barack Obama’s national security adviser, James Jones.

Jones, a retired Marine general, stressed the urgency of targeting bin Laden and spoke of a renewed campaign to capture or kill him.

Asked on CNN’s “State of the Union” whether the administration has reliable intelligence on bin Laden’s whereabouts, Jones replied, “The best estimate is that he is somewhere in North Waziristan, sometimes on the Pakistani side of the border, sometimes on the Afghan side of the border.”

(snippet) Gates told ABC’s “This Week” that “we don’t know for a fact where Osama bin Laden is,” although he agreed that his likely location is North Waziristan.

That’s part of the loosely governed Federally Administered Tribal Areas of northwest Pakistan where the border with Afghanistan is largely unrecognized and unmarked. There is little Pakistani government or military control in this remote region, and militants affiliated with al-Qaida can move freely across the frontier into Afghanistan.

(snippet) Gates said he does not blame a lack of Pakistani cooperation for the absence of intelligence on bin Laden.

“No, I think it’s because if, as we suspect, he is in North Waziristan, it is an area that the Pakistani government has not had a presence in, in quite some time,” Gates said, adding that although the Pakistani government has its own priorities, any pressure it brings on the Taliban is helpful because it is in league with al-Qaida.

Since the Pakistani government has no control, and no obvious interest in controlling North Waziristan, then what is keeping us from moving in and out of that area of Pakistan in similar fashion?

____________________________________________________________

*I don’t like using Wikipedia as a credible source because the right-wing nut-jobs comb through controversial topics and then re-write the articles to slant them politically to protect their agenda. In this case they have managed to claim that the business connections between the bin Laden family and the Bush family are “alleged”. But, Wikipedia here has a concise account of the connections. Please ignore the implications that those connections are somehow not substantiated. Do your own research.

____________________________________________________________