Pay Your Enemy, Big Time - USA and Pakistan.

Hating the United States—which funds Islamabad’s army and nuclear program to the humiliating tune of $3 billion a year—Pakistan takes its twisted, cowardly revenge by harboring the likes of the late Osama bin Laden. But the hypocrisy is mutual, and the shame should be shared.

So writes Christopher Hitchens in the July, 2010 edition of Vanity Fair 

One has to wonder, as Hitchens writes, why The USA continues to pay for mad, bad and downright evil states. In the case of Pakistan, one has to be completely amazed that the US fell for the myth of Bin Laden hiding out in the wilds of the Afghan and Pakistan border lands.

He was in Abbottabad along, and Pakistan knew from the word go.

The Oil Price Collapse and Bin Laden

An interesting take on the recent collapse in the oil price from Christopher Joye writing in the (Australian) Business Spectator.

Normally I would say this was a conspiracy theory, and my view on them is they are bunk. In this case the story is very good and the timing of the alleged US Government trades and intervention, especially concerning the raising of margin requirements on the CME (Chicago Mercantile Exchange).

Who knows?

My take? It's a good story!

see Did the US government short oil prices? (free sign up is normally required to read articles)

chart © Bloomberg Finance LP

The Pakistan ISO or Who Was in My Backyard.

"...claims that Pakistan’s blundering spies had no idea that the world’s most wanted terrorist had been living, probably for years, not in a remote cave on the Afghan frontier but cradled in the arms of retired and serving generals in the pleasant, hillside town."

...'are hard swallow'.

So starts this article from The Economist blog Banyan.

Someone in the Pakistan spy community knew, as I mentioned in Bin Laden or Death in Plain Sight.


The other questions for Pakistan are:

• Who was paying who to turn many blind eyes?
• And how much was those blind eyes worth, seeing as they remained blind for so many a year.

Days and nights included.

Bin Laden or Death in Plain Sight.

Image via WikipediaThe New York Times has this well written article on the hunt and execution of Bin Laden.

The best place to hide is always in full sight, and of course the someone in the Pakistan security apparatus knew all along where he was hiding. If you believe otherwise then you are just as naive as the Yanks.

see Behind the Hunt for Bin Laden