We won! Right?

Whoopie doo! Bin Laden is dead! We finally got him!

Now, as I see it, is a perfect time to declare victory and get the hell out of Afghanistan — and, while we're at it, the rest of the way out of Iraq as well. Yes, the death of Osama bin Laden is more of a symbolic victory than a military victory, but what the hell... as long as we won.

Our president has to be feeling pretty chipper today, as he should. If you're president, symbolic victories go a long way. How it all happened remains more than a little vague, so I don't mind indulging myself in a little pure conjecture, just for fun, mind you. I have no direct evidence for anything that follows, but it sounds good.

From what we've been told to date, there was only one mansion with eighteen foot walls in the upper-middle class neighborhood of Abbottabad where bin Laden was staying — and given what we know about the pervasive penetration of Pakistan by its security agency, we should assume that ISI knew who was living there. CIA operatives, on the other hand, may have been in the dark — since ISI doesn't make them especially welcome in Pakistan. It follows that the US got the tip about bin Laden from ISI.

It also follows that ISI wanted something in return for giving such politically valuable information to the Obama administration. One hopes that what ISI wanted was an expedited withdrawal of the US from Afghanistan, so that Pakistan can reassert what it considers its "natural" influence over its neighbor. Add that to the US foreign policy/military shuffle discussed in my two previous posts, and it seems that the troops just might be home well before the announced date of 2014.

Rejoice, ye progressives! Perhaps you weren't totally screwed. ("Hope" springs eternal, especially in the run-up to an election.)

In the meanwhile, expect to hear demands for Osama bin Laden's long-form death certificate from the usual quarters.

Unsubstantiated conjecture

Raymond Davis, the CIA operative, claims he shot two Pakistanis on motorcycles because they were attempting to rob him. The Pakistanis say he shot both of them in their backs, through the windshield of his car, for no particular reason — although it has been suggested that the two were "assets" who had turned against him.

Washington maintains that Davis is entitled to diplomatic immunity. Islamabad says he's a murderer, pure and simple.

So here's my unsubstantiated conjecture: the two dead men were agents of ISI, the Pakistani intelligence agency, and the killings were the outcome of some kind of "spy vs. spy" conflict that neither government cares to discuss. What kind of conflict? How the hell would I know? Clearly, the CIA and the ISI have not always worked and played well together, and the last people to find out about it are citizens of the US and Pakistan.

Let's just wait and see what emerges.

Sunday, 2/27, 9:40 AM — Unsubstantiated conjecture substantiated

Well, we didn't have to wait long! Here's the latest update!

Afghanistan, again

Now that the US has been in Afghanistan longer than the Soviet Union was — which also makes our fumbling around there the longest war in our history — it seems like a good time for a review of what's going on over there. The Obama administration is planning to release a "December Review" shortly, but we already know what it's going to say. According to Petraeus and crew, we'll be "making good progress" — military leaders just hate losing wars, possibly more than even presidents do.

On the ground, though, all we're doing is propping up a corrupt government, lining the pockets of warlords and military contractors, and creating a great deal of misery at very great expense. We already know that whatever remains of the original Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden included, is in Pakistan — probably guests of the Haqqani Network, under the protection of Pakistan's ISI. Yes, it's a shame that so many lives had to be lost so that a pack of rich, sleazy bastards could get even richer, but that's what happened, and throwing more lives and money at an impossible situation won't bring any of them back.

Some are concerned that the Iranians will go into Afghanistan if the US pulls out "too soon." If they do, it will be a damned shame for Iran. Afghanistan is not called "the graveyard of empires" for nothing.