Yes Osama Bin Laden is dead and while Americans pat themselves on the back and gloat about tracking down the world's most notorious terrorist, there is a downside to all these events of Sunday that may come back and bite America in the backside. It's called blowback. Since the late 1990's, Osama Bin Laden has been able to exist with the assistance of the intelligence community within the Pakistan government. Pakistan is the fundamentalist capital of Islam. I am sure that the extremists within the Pakistan government will be looking for some way to pay back America for making an intrusion into their sovereign territory. The bookies in Las Vegas and Atlantic City may be taking odds today on that event.
Pakistan may be further destabilized by Bin Laden's death at the hands of U.S. forces on a compound so close to the capital in the very heart of its military training region. There was a reason why Bin Laden's house was located there. At this point, the Afghan war is no longer about Afghanistan, which many believe to be a lost cause; it's about the nuclear-armed Pakistan, and maintaining a U.S. presence in a tinderbox region that could launch nuclear missiles at American targets or interests in the region.
Pakistan's President Zardari, already a weak figure whose reputation is unlikely to be enhanced by any role he may have had in allowing the U.S. to conduct a military operation on his nation's sovereign territory. Pakistan according to press reports of 8 months ago, is the conduit for the supply chain of rocket launchers and Kalashnikovs to the Taliban forces in Afghanistan. They are also the pipeline that provides information to extremists as to when and where supplies are being delivered to American ground forces in Afghanistan. That may work against America. "America can't get me alive," bin Laden was quoted as saying in an interview with a Pakistani journalist conducted shortly after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. Bin laden stayed truthful to that statement, but for Bin Laden it was never about just him. It was always about the struggle and that is something that America still has trouble coming to grips with. America has now made Osama Bin Laden a martyr of Islam, whose body has mysteriously disappeared into the sea like the Virgin Mary ascending into heaven body and soul. I am sure that Islamic fundamentalists will use that to their advantage.
But in this part of the world of fundamentalist ideas, where U.S. arms and drones have killed children, and where U.S. history is too often the story of alliances with dictators, the outcome of Bin Laden's death is far less certain. As the saying goes, "It ain't over till the Fat Lady sings""""""
