[Billthedrill]

The commission's 336-page report is scathing, holding both the government and the military responsible for "gross incompetence" leading to "collective failures" that allowed both Bin Laden to escape detection, and the US to be able to violate Pakistani sovereignty by carrying out an attack on its soil without the knowledge of the military or the government.

That's actually a little unfair. A government kept from the awareness of a high-value target can hardly be blamed for failing to protect it. It is questionable how high the knowledge that OBL was present percolated within the Pakistani government, but it was nearly certainly in the hands of the ISI. What is equally certain is that the ISI is thoroughly compromised by agents sympathetic to al Qaeda, who can scarcely be considered honest brokers in the matter.

The brutal truth is that the raid would not have been necessary were the Pakistani government in control of its own territory and its own intelligence assets. It isn't.

[nickcarraway]

Richard Armitage should be in jail for multiple reasons.

would not have been necessary were the Pakistani government in control of its own territory and its own intelligence assets. It isn't.

And the Himalayas should be made out of candy. Pakistan and Afghanistan are geopolitically ungovernable. The U.K., Russia, and the United States couldn't control Pakistan. The U.S., India, or Pakistan can't control Pakistan. That's the way it is.

[Marine_Uncle]

Ernest. I think Bill's closing sentence in #11, described what I would have wrote:

"The brutal truth is that the raid would not have been necessary
were the Pakistani government in control of its own
territory and its own intelligence assets. It isn't."