The President Obama Interview

As someone who spent a decade of my military career in the Intelligence Community, I am always intrigued by public reaction to media portrayal of operations.

For those who saw the interview and would care to comment, I have several questions to which I would appreciate your responses.

1. Do you believe this raid was conducted without the full knowledge and permission of the Pakastani government?

2. Do you believe that US or NATO assets independently developed the intelligence pinpointing BinLaden's location within Pakistan?

3. Do you believe that UBL was a critical or even important component to Al Queda's leadership or current operational capabilty?

4. Do you believe that the elimination of UBL will signicantly harm Al Queda or advance the "War On Terror"?

Opinions invited.

i like this. so in response, i've never been an Obama supporter but he has impressed me lately. if Pakistan knew about Bin Laden, the U.S. nor NATO would have asked permission. even back in the 70's, CIA could pinpoint anyone. i often wondered what was the hold up. i'm sure they had good reason. when it comes to terrorism, cutting the head off the snake doesn't matter. it just grows another head. make no mistake, we face an enemy unlike any you've seen before. but on the same side, we shall prevail.

Do you really expect to get unbiased answers, given the particular set of questions you ask and the way you phrase them?

There are no unbiased opinions and it is precisely individual's particular biases and perceptions that interest me.

In epistemically objective facts, there are unbiased answers. This is the nature of 1, 2, and 3. They will either be true or untrue according to whether the belief aligns with the actuality of the situation. Further, these are simple phenomena, not attempts to ascertain the essential cause/s of an essentially complex phenomena - meaning, in these cases, there is a clear true or false answer. In other words, this isn't like trying to determine the relative effect of individual factors in something where many variables are at work such as in economics.

Now, the only reason 4 is not an epistemically objective fact is because the relevant pieces of information to determine whether or not it will be true or untrue have not yet occurred. Thus, this is speculation. There may be well reasoned responses or poorly reasoned responses, responses based on existing information and responses not based on existing information. However, there can be no unbiased answer until some time progresses. At that point, we still face the problem of this being just one event in an essentially complex phenomena so there may not be an unbiased answer. Of course, if the effect of this is large enough one way or another and there is good information to support one viewpoint with no good information otherwise then we could safely come to an unbiased answer - in this case meaning only the answer most likely to be true.

So, the first three can have unbiased answers easily because they are simple phenomena that are true or untrue. The last may have unbiased answers if only if some time has passed to observe the effect, the effect is large enough one way or another, and there is no legitimate information to challenge the apparent effect due to this being an essentially complex phenomena.

EDIT: Anyway, I like that Bin Laden is dead. Probably better if we got Pakistan's permission and gathered the intelligence independently. Don't know if this happened. Currently, it isn't my job to destroy Al Queda so his role in that organization is irrelevant to me.

Pakistan almost certainly had no idea what was happening, since as the helicopters took off, several Pakistani fighter jets were scrambled. Personally, I think that it was the United States that developed the intel, since if it had been NATO as a whole, or even two or three countries in NATO, it probably would have been a joint operation. Although I think that NATO might have had some degree of knowledge about the operation. I neither pay much attention to the news, so I don't know how active al-Qaeda has been, and so don't know how important he was to the organization. If the United States or NATO has the intel available, then a quick strike at several other high-ups in al-Qaeda while they're still recovering might be enough to cause them to collapse. But good riddance bin Laden.

1st) Pakistan had to know where Bin Laden was. For political reasons they looked the other way. I can understand this.

2nd) I'm sure the US told Pakistan to clear a path for the helicopters. Probably told them it was a "training exercise". The scrambling of Pakistan jets was just for show. (This is similar to when Israel bombed Iraq years ago and Jordon looked the other way)

Thumb rule NUMBER ONE:
Never believe what you are told via the mass medias - only half truths are led out to us.

As I see it, UBL had the money to spend on operations, what else did he do???

And where the hell are all the stingers they got from US/CIA under the Russian invasion of Afghanistan..?

Woof woof, not unbiased as in not having a point of view, but unbiased as in not being influenced by the question itself. May as well have just asked "Do you naively believe the official version of events?"

Thank you for sharing your views. More comments are welcome as there are no right or wrong answers, just your impressions and opinions.

@Jojo Of course, I have my own views, which should be somewhat clear from the specific questions. The judgemental use of the word "naive" is yours, not mine. I am not seeking agreement or disagreement, merely viewpoints.

Hellow there Jojo your last post prompted my responce here. I'm actualy not convinced ubl is dead. My guess is that he is very much alive and in a little out of the way prison wounded and a little banged up. The very nature of of the attack on his compound with so little protection makes me think thay just took his ass and now that SOB is crying the blues.