Ryan Streeter
Sunday night made us all proud to be Americans. What an amazing story. No drones, no missiles fired from a ship at sea, no death-by-computer. It was hand-to-hand combat, guns fired when the whites of the eyes appeared. Osama bin Laden was dropped to the floor by a bullet fired by some American probably younger than me, who grew up never thinking that he would end the life of the world's most wanted terrorist.
It was true heroism. But it doesn't change how things are. Things are precarious. When you think about it, it was bizarre that Americans were deep in hositle territory killing bin Laden right next to the West Point of Pakistan.
A friend of mine, a security specialist on Pakistan and the middle east, writes me this in an email:
I ran into the strategic dialogue team of generals and high ranking military officials from Pakistan at the hotel where I was staying this morning, and they were on the surface quite congratulatory on the successful interdiction and killing of OBL. But there was some tension. One suggested to me that the building that Osama was in is typical of many structures in the area and should not have aroused suspicion...The Pakistanis suspect that the US was only interested in Pakistan in order to find OBL.
We need Pakistan as an ally in the region, and yet it was actually our alliance with Afghanistan, where the SEALs flew in from, that made the operation in Pakistan possible. Who is on who's side?
It is time for an immediate top to bottom review of our relationship with Pakistan.
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