I love logic puzzles. Each day when I take small breaks from my routine and chores and projects, I rest by listening to music and playing some kind of game. I love Sudoku, Mahjong Solitaire, puzzle books with all sorts of inductive and deductive logic puzzles, and jigsaw puzzles are a particular favorite. Along with this activity, I have been thinking about the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden for all these years. Talk about a puzzle! Right from the beginning I assumed he was hiding in plain sight. Was that logic? Not so much. It was a calculated hunch. This may seem hard to believe, but for some years now I thought he was hiding in a nice home somewhere in Iran or---drumroll---Pakistan.
No, I’m not a CIA operative. But I am a current events buff and I follow cultural/political events as closely as our buffered and filtered news will allow. Years ago when we partnered with him in the conflict against the late Soviet Union over Afghanistan, bin Laden held court in Pakistan and his field of operations took place there. Somewhere between the lines it became apparent to me that he was not hiding in a cave. I’m not alone. Many people with credentials (and not hunches) came to the same conclusions. Many assumed one of our unfriendly countries was keeping him in comfort hidden somewhere that might be difficult for us to reach. Some even thought it could be a friendly country. We wouldn’t dare invade a friendly country and take him; right? He could flaunt his existence and live well forever; right? Wrong.I’ve been researching satellites because I’m preparing a novel and satellites play an important part in my story. We have satellites circling the planet that can zoom into my back yard and determine what color my fingernail polish is. It is unreasonable to think that various secret agencies haven’t been checking every square inch of the areas where he might have been living. (Doesn’t anyone watch spy movies?) In fact, the news reports indicate that they found his hiding place in August. I’m not a conspiracy theorist but I suspect they’ve known for a lot longer than that. Finding him was one thing. Finding him hiding within an “ally” (and I use that term loosely) nation was another.
Pakistan’s President Zardari was miffed and expressed controlled outrage that we would dare do this without permission. What about our outrage to discover he was even there? Everyone is always critical and outraged about what Americans do. When do we get to be outraged about the abhorrent behavior of our “allies”?Osama bin Laden lived comfortably while his soldiers did not. His soldiers live in caves and tents. He had money to build a compound and for all we know at this point he had other financial help building the compound. When I bought my little house I was one of the first ones in the neighborhood and was fully aware of construction of the houses here and knew everything about the occupants as they moved in. And I didn’t need a satellite.
As a nation we need to stop pussy footing around that part of the world and play hard ball. We must stop giving money to countries who back-bite us, we have to stop giving money to quasi-military organizations who profess to be our friends (remember: bin Laden was our friend once and we gave him millions [billions?] of dollars to help us in Afghanistan against the Russians, uh, I mean the Soviet Union, which he did from---Pakistan.) How did he repay us? How do any of them ever repay us?Now that we’ve “got” him, we need to let that part of the world fight their own battles. Lately they are doing a great job but NATO nations are helping tremendously. I checked this morning and noted Pakistan is not designated as a NATO member nation. They have nuclear capability yet they are not NATO members? Jimmy Carter said this morning that because Pakistan has over 100 nuclear weapons we need to be cautious in accusing them of duplicity. They are a powerful world force because of their nuclear capabilities. What about us? Aren’t we a force to be reckoned with? When my dog pees on the carpet she cowers before me. I’m bigger. It’s time other nations stop peeing all over us. It’s time for a little cowering.
Once various countries in that region attain their freedom I’m not certain the democracy they say they desire will happen for them because of so many extreme political and religious ideologies in that part of the world. But our main goal has been, I thought, to get bin Laden. And we did. Now we’re done. Let’s bring all our soldiers and money home and take care of our economy, our schools, our failing health care system, our homeless population, our mortgage catastrophe, our corporate manipulation of Congress, our deplorable employment tragedy, our energy compromises and disasters and dependence on foreign energy, our horrific crime problems, our bankrupt municipalities, our drug and gang problems, our failing air traffic systems, our less than effective FEMA group, our blind eye to child sex trade slavery (sex trade slavery period), our equally blind eye to child neglect and abuse, our divorce statistics, our foster care system, our foreign policies generally, our ugly foreign trade agreements, our neglect of seniors, our neighbor to the south which keeps its citizens in abject poverty so no wonder they flock to live here, and countless other issues we so desperately need to address now that we finally “got” Osama bin Laden. We engaged in three wars to get him. We got him.
I’ve been told my views on bringing our troops and money home is simplistic. Yep.[No part of this content may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author. Blog series began in March 2009.]
