Osama Bin Laden - Wanted Dead or Alive! Well, it's dead now

Killed in a compound not a cave!

So Osama Bin Laden is finally cornered and killed. Not in the Afghan hills. Not in the sandy deserts of Saudi Arabia. Not even in a cave in the Caucasus Mountains. No, he was found in PAKISTAN!! Right under the noses of those dozy "democrats" that the Americans trusted all these years. 35 miles away from Islamabad in a fortified compound enjoying some status as a recluse and a reject.

You'd think in a country as garrulous as Pakistan that somebody would have talked. In fact, it is unbelievable that the country's bigwigs did not know. Right now the president and prime minister are huddled together concocting some get-out clauses to put in a statement. Thank goodness the US authorities saw fit not to tell the Pakistanis what was going on. Pakistan has been a loose cannon ever since it was created. Anyway, they now know the world knows they can't be trusted. Since 2005 Bin Laden has been stuck in this compound, sipping mint tea and talking turkey with passing vagrants. Obviously somebody spoke up in order for the special forces to do the ultimate deed. But it's all grapevine stuff in order to put a stop to the wild goose chase that Bin Laden started. Don't ask the Pakistani president on a duck shoot. He'd fire off at the first flutter he saw.

With Bin Laden at rest, if not at peace, the world can move on. Hopefully the al-Queda franchise can go bust. Let them fade away. Today is a good day for President Obama. He stuck to the hunt for Bin Laden without fanfare and futile gestures. And he was not afraid to do the right thing. Sticking to diplomatic niceties would have been crazy. He ordered the raid and he got a result.

Osama Bin Laden killed. The White House releases information that public enemy number one is killed.

More terror plots likely

The New York Times is in a quandary. They are trying to answer this question - "Does the United States need a large and growing ground force in Afghanistan to prevent another major terrorist attack on American soil?" - and they don't seem any nearer the answer.

The trouble is that the powers-that-be have completely muddled up the Taliban with al-Queda. It is rather like linking Hitler's Lebensraum with Mussolini's prancing fascism. Mussolini was only tenously linked to the Nazi war effort. The British described the Italians as being "co-belligerents" as if they could be conveniently unhitched from Hitler's bandwagon without too much trouble. "Let the Eyeties sort it out after the war" seemed to be the slapdash approach.

Similarly the Muslim fighting forces that are the Taliban and al Queda have very different agendas. If I live to be 1000 I doubt very much if I will be bothered by a Taliban bomber in Solihull. al-Queda is another matter. But they are not in Afghanistan, but in that terrorist haven that is Pakistan. Trouble is that Pakistan is a former British colony and loads of Pakistanis live in Britain. Whereas the Afghan Taliban gets shot at for causing an anti-democratic regime to have been created (and for wanting it back!), the Pakistani al-Queda groups just get a wigging from half-hearted Pakistani generals (always with one eye open for a possible coup in Islamabad).

It would be totally inappropriate to invade Pakistan and root out the real terrorists, wouldn't it? Expensive trials that have convicted demonic would-be bombers have proved the point. Not one Afghan has been lifted by the Metropolitan police for being a terrorist in action.

So what are we doing in Afghanistan? It appears we are hopelessly inadequate when it comes to checking up on the democratic process. Ballot stuffing under our noses! We are woefuly inadequate in destroying the poppy crops, so the cocaine trade carries on as usual and we have not found a single al-Queda terrorist in Kabul or the whole of Afghanistan. The Taliban may be a cruel and crazed mob, but they are just that and keep to the hills. It is the terrorists in Pakistan, linked to the "home-grown" bomb plotters that we have to be concerned with.

So maybe the answer to the question that the New York Times poses is this. Look for the terrorists in Pakistan and not Afghanistan. Tell the Pakistani government they've got a month to clean up or they face a desert storm. That's the real answer. However, I suspect this present cloud-cuckooland battle will continue and we will all be the worse for it.