Bill P., you refer to my post of October 18th, in which I noted that various agencies and governments, while steadfastly professing the contrary, do not want bin Laden killed or captured. I also noted that, as the price to pay for not finding him, whittling away daily our 5-year, $9 billion aid package to Pakistan where bin Laden is living would motivate Pakistan's government to capture or kill him -- rather than hide him.
Why am I so skeptical? Here's something you never saw on the nightly news:
In 1989-1990, I was traveling through Latin American writing columns for the El Paso Times. With great difficulty, I managed to get into El Salvador where a guerrilla war was raging.
I checked into the El Camino Real hotel, unpacked my bags, and went downstairs to eat. I struck up a conversation with a woman who worked in the hotel. She motioned at the bar. Was I aware, she asked in a hushed tone, that the guerrilla leader, Joaquin Villalobos, and government officials frequently hobnobbed in there?
What?
I felt like I saw the earth rotate. The equivalent would be seeing Afghan President Hamid Karzai sipping tea in the Hilton with bin Laden. I tell you what, I said: I'm going to be here for 3 days. If Villalobos shows up, call my room.
Other employees corroborated her story. I cased the bar, and found a way to take photos without being seen.
Villalobos never came, but the point had been made.
Men who supposedly were mortal enemies were actually in cahoots. Utter nonsense, you say? Well, think of it this way: they had many reasons to run a scam -- 7 billion of them.
During the Carter, Reagan, and Bush Senior administrations, the U.S. sent $7 billion in foreign aid to El Salvador. Population (2008): 7 million. During the Reagan Administration, tiny El Salvador was the third biggest recipient of U.S. aid (behind Israel and Egypt).
In 1992, the 13-year-old guerrilla war ended. Villalobos went to Oxford. Today, in US aid, El Salvador no longer wins, places, or even shows.
Contrary to everything Americans were told, shown, or even imagined, the El Salvador government wanted the guerrilla war to continue. Military victory would have been a defeat. This absurdist, Ionescu theater play was put on at a catastrophic cost: beside the $7 billion, the war killed over 70,000 people.
I'm not saying a scam explains everything. I am saying it explains some things.
Today, Pakistan is engaging in the same shameless shakedown. Ditto Afghanistan. Americans are paying for it in lives and jobs; no wonder they are outraged and enraged. No wonder Tuesday's midterm election was an earthquake.
Well, more bad news is on the way. Poor little Yemen is now eyeing the sea of green that once emptied into El Salvador. Talk about a role model.
UPDATE: November 12, 2010. Dr. August Hanning was Germany's intelligence chief when the Afghanistan war took place and bin Laden was running for his life. According to a CNN report,
Dr. Hanning, who was appointed State Secretary in the German Federal Interior Ministry at the end of 2005 -- one of the country's most senior counter-terrorism positions -- retired late last year.
He says he agrees with recent comments by an unnamed senior NATO official to CNN last month that bin Laden is alive and well in Pakistan.
"I think there are still a lot of hints that he is in Pakistan, and according to my estimates he is in the tribal areas in the region near Peshawar: the border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan," Hanning told CNN.
Pakistani officials consistently deny bin Laden's presence on their soil. Hanning believes rogue elements in their intelligence service, the ISI, are hiding him.
"It's hard for me to believe that they know nothing," he said, and in some ways the al Qaeda leader is useful to Pakistan. "So long [as] bin Laden is in Pakistan so Pakistan will get support from the Americans' fight against terrorism."
Why am I so skeptical? Here's something you never saw on the nightly news:
In 1989-1990, I was traveling through Latin American writing columns for the El Paso Times. With great difficulty, I managed to get into El Salvador where a guerrilla war was raging.
I checked into the El Camino Real hotel, unpacked my bags, and went downstairs to eat. I struck up a conversation with a woman who worked in the hotel. She motioned at the bar. Was I aware, she asked in a hushed tone, that the guerrilla leader, Joaquin Villalobos, and government officials frequently hobnobbed in there?
What?
I felt like I saw the earth rotate. The equivalent would be seeing Afghan President Hamid Karzai sipping tea in the Hilton with bin Laden. I tell you what, I said: I'm going to be here for 3 days. If Villalobos shows up, call my room.
Other employees corroborated her story. I cased the bar, and found a way to take photos without being seen.
Villalobos never came, but the point had been made.
Men who supposedly were mortal enemies were actually in cahoots. Utter nonsense, you say? Well, think of it this way: they had many reasons to run a scam -- 7 billion of them.
During the Carter, Reagan, and Bush Senior administrations, the U.S. sent $7 billion in foreign aid to El Salvador. Population (2008): 7 million. During the Reagan Administration, tiny El Salvador was the third biggest recipient of U.S. aid (behind Israel and Egypt).
In 1992, the 13-year-old guerrilla war ended. Villalobos went to Oxford. Today, in US aid, El Salvador no longer wins, places, or even shows.
Contrary to everything Americans were told, shown, or even imagined, the El Salvador government wanted the guerrilla war to continue. Military victory would have been a defeat. This absurdist, Ionescu theater play was put on at a catastrophic cost: beside the $7 billion, the war killed over 70,000 people.
I'm not saying a scam explains everything. I am saying it explains some things.
Today, Pakistan is engaging in the same shameless shakedown. Ditto Afghanistan. Americans are paying for it in lives and jobs; no wonder they are outraged and enraged. No wonder Tuesday's midterm election was an earthquake.
Well, more bad news is on the way. Poor little Yemen is now eyeing the sea of green that once emptied into El Salvador. Talk about a role model.
UPDATE: November 12, 2010. Dr. August Hanning was Germany's intelligence chief when the Afghanistan war took place and bin Laden was running for his life. According to a CNN report,
Dr. Hanning, who was appointed State Secretary in the German Federal Interior Ministry at the end of 2005 -- one of the country's most senior counter-terrorism positions -- retired late last year.
He says he agrees with recent comments by an unnamed senior NATO official to CNN last month that bin Laden is alive and well in Pakistan.
"I think there are still a lot of hints that he is in Pakistan, and according to my estimates he is in the tribal areas in the region near Peshawar: the border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan," Hanning told CNN.
Pakistani officials consistently deny bin Laden's presence on their soil. Hanning believes rogue elements in their intelligence service, the ISI, are hiding him.
"It's hard for me to believe that they know nothing," he said, and in some ways the al Qaeda leader is useful to Pakistan. "So long [as] bin Laden is in Pakistan so Pakistan will get support from the Americans' fight against terrorism."