I opened up my iPhone this morning and the Top Story on my feed was: Pakistan officials adamant that 'hero' doctor who helped capture Usama bin Laden remain behind bars.
WHAT?
I knew a little bit of the story of the doctor that tipped off the military to Osama bin Laden's location. This is what I thought I knew: There was a doctor in Pakistan who gave America a heads up that Osama bin Laden lived in his neighborhood in suburban Abbottabad. The doctor was briefly detained by Pakistani officials and collected a reward after bin Laden was killed.
Apparently there's a LOT more to the story. According to Fox News: The 54-year-old (Dr. Shakil Afridi) played a crucial role leading up to the May 2, 2011 Navy SEAL raid that killed the Al Qaeda leader, running a fake hepatitis B vaccination program to collect fake DNA samples used to authenticate bin Laden's presence in the Pakistan compound, despite repeated denials from the country's authorities that he was there.
So I didn't know how much the doctor actually did, I didn't know he was STILL in jail, and I didn't know that they guy who was most responsible for catching Osama still faces 25 more years in jail.
We don't talk too much about Barrack Obama here at Beacon of Speech, I didn't like a lot of his policies, but I did like his temperament and the way he carried himself. I think that killing Osama bin Laden was universally characterized as one of the crowning achievements of his presidency, whether scrutinized from left or right wing historians.
At the end of the day, he is the one who called the shot to finish bin Laden's reign of terror. But he was compensated and rewarded for his decision. History will nod approvingly of the way he closed the door on the bin Laden threat.
Robert J. O'Neill, the U.S. Navy Seal who pulled the trigger on bin Laden, parlayed his part in history into a book deal.
What is underreported in the American Media currently is: What the hell was going on, on the ground, in Pakistan in 2011? Osama bin Laden wasn't in a cave, he wasn't hiding in a tent, he was in a million dollar compound in Abbottabad. I had though Abbottabad was another war-torn, remote outpost in rural Pakistan, but nothing could be farther from the truth.
A picture from Pakistani Tour Guides: Abbottabad
You can sue me right now, but Pakistan HAD to know bin Laden was there. This from the Times of India earlier this year: Many Pakistanis were infuriated by the US raid to grab bin Laden in the military garrison town of Abbottabad, just a two-hour drive from Islamabad, the capital. Continued from the Times: Pakistan has accused the doctor of running a fake vaccination campaign in which he collected DNA samples to help the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) confirm bin Laden's identity.
Let me get this crystal clear. Today, our strategic military partner, Pakistan, has one of its citizens in its jail because he worked in conjunction with the CIA? All under the guise that Dr. Afridi had undermined the sovereignty of Pakistan?
Afridi undermining Pakistani sovereignty is Pure Fiction.
What really happened is the corrupt-ass bastards in Islamabad knew bin Laden was in their country and they protected him. There is no feasible explanation for them not knowing. That would be the equivalent of an international terrorist, name any one, living in a million dollar house in Baltimore and the FBI & CIA in Washington claiming that they had no idea he was there. So either individual Pakistanis in the government were paid to "not know." (Plausible.) Or they knew and hated America more than they hated Al Qaeda. (Also Plausible.) Or they knew and in no way wanted U.S. troops in Abbottabad. (Most Plausible.)
Or D, all of the above. Colleagues at The Times began questioning officials in Washington about which high-ranking officials in Pakistan might also have been aware of Bin Laden’s whereabouts, but everyone suddenly clammed up. It was as if a decision had been made to contain the damage to the relationship between the two governments. “There’s no smoking gun,” officials in the Obama administration began to say. - NY Times
If Pakistan was truly in it to win it, you judge them by their actions and not by their words. Dr. Afridi being in jail for even more than a minute shows you they could care less about American policy and American wishes. By all accounts, Dr. Afridi was an upper-middle class Pakistani who was not a soldier. The government of Pakistan has reduced him to a pawn.
Since we're in Trump's America (for better or for worse), the time for Donald Trump to put his money where his mouth is now. Before being elected, President Trump made a promise he said would take “two minutes” to fulfill. - Washington Post
Donald Trump was 100% correct when he said it would take 2 minutes to solve the problem. In 2015, Pakistan received a billion dollars of American aid. All Trump would have to do is call Pakistan and say, "starting tomorrow you get no more aid." Then, magically, Afridi would be on a plane to Washington. But that hasn't happened yet either, because Trump cares about Afridi about as much as Obama did. Trump wasn't Afridi's champion, he was using Afridi to make Obama look bad. For the record, Pakistan is belligerent every time Trump mentions Afridi, “Pakistan is not a colony of the United States of America....(Trump) should learn to treat sovereign nations with respect." - Washington Post
With Trump recommitting resources to the War in Afghanistan, the optics here appear to be that we are appeasing Pakistan to keep them on our side in the Afghan conflict.