Eric was complaining about Pakistani duplicity and his case was solid. Pakistan is at war with itself and has been for decades. Its Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI is the common acronym) is at war with itself. A faction in the ISI promoted the Taliban. The ISI promotes several militant Islamist organizations that focus on Kashmir and India (eg., Lashkar –e-Taiba).

Eric asserted that some Pakistanis had to know about Bin Laden’s hideout.

No kidding. A pad like that in one of Islamabad’s upscale suburbs gets noticed. Besides, Attabad is packed with military facilities, include a military academy.

But before I laid out the scenario, Eric and I discussed what we know about special operations and intelligence operations. A commando raid in a high mountain valley is a risky operation. Combing rugged mountains and jungles –any difficult terrain, really—for one man is tough. Better to coax him out of the mountains, if you can do it, right?

We also know Bin laden was a rich kid.  A lot of extremist militants are privileged types. He likes the guerrilla tropes (camouflage, AKs, macho posturing) but bet he ultimately prefers soft mattresses . A luxury compound beats a cave hands down. Ask Bill Ayers.

And by the way, we know Pakistan is corrupt. Make that CORRUPT in big letters.

So roll it together. Is ISI capable of putting together an operation to bring him out of the cave and give him clean sheets? Yes. Especially if Bin Laden’s willing to pay lots of money to corrupt intelligence officers. The bad intel boys get an extra boost, too – the contractors who build the compound toss them a kickback.  Win-win.

The truth is, CIA has creative intelligence officers capable of promoting this ruse.  Not executing without some ISI collaboration, but capable of envisioning it. It coaxes Bin Laden out of the hills and away from the protection of tribal chieftains. It also plays upon Bin Laden’s megalomania. Visualize Bin Laden grinning as he snuggles between a couple of wives and reads reports of Predator attacks in the hills. God sure is great. The plush life –not lush because he isn’t drinking—but plush. What a rich kid plugging for Caliph status deserves.

I dubbed Bin Laden’s compound “The Honey Pot.”

Eric chuckled. I asked him if I should put this on the blog and he said yeah. All right, I laid on some novelistic details and added a little sex.

Fantasy scenario? I don’t think so– at least not quite pure fantasy. I don’t think Ralph Peters thinks it is utter fantasy, either. On Monday night (May 2, on Fox News’ O’Reilly Factor), Peters called the Attabad pad a “gilded cage.” Peters angle is that Pakistani insiders built the compound and provided protection, but were really keeping Bin Laden on ice – to sell out at the appropriate moment.

Win-win-win — if you’re the sly conspirator in ISI.

I’m not disputing the public narrative  – CIA gets wind of a courier based on interrogations. Intelligence agents stay on the case for years. They get a break. They notice the compound. That’s the shoe leather on the street reality., the kind of persistence it takes to bring down a criminal network or nail a terrorist kingpin. Then we send in the commandos.

But there is a back story to that compound. And a back story to Bin Laden’s decision to come down from the hills. I made up a back story, one that dovetails nicely with Ralph Peters’ suspicions.  My back story –The Honey Pot– is speculative fiction, at least for now.

UPDATE: Fox just confirmed that the US has OBL’s body. The America haters will rage — let them. Here’s the bottom line lesson: Don’t attack the US.

ANOTHER THOUGHT: Would that we had him in Fall 2001. However, time has worked against Bin Laden. He dies tarnished. A man who hides in a cave for ten years is no martyr. He quickly lost the aura of divine sanction — he was driven out of Afghanistan, and the US stayed. Moreover, the US took it’s counter-terror war into the heart of the politically dysfunctional Arab Muslim world. What’s the choice between tyrant and terrorist? Iraq provides a choice. Al Qaeda made Iraq a battleground and lost — lost to the Iraqi people and the US.

The US Army has been experimenting with weapons firing a “smart grenade” for quite some time.

The video at ABC News link (from military.com which got it from DOD) is well worth watching.

This VOA report broke a couple of hours ago.

The lede:

Libyan rebels say a NATO airstrike hit a rebel position near the eastern town of Brega Thursday, wounding several fighters.

Rebels have been battling forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi to retake control of the oil town, which has gone from rebel to regime control and back again several times during the conflict.

Rebel leaders have recently criticized NATO for failing to protect civilians and for not striking military forces quickly or forcefully enough.

Gadhafi’s forces have changed tactics to limit the effectiveness of coalition airstrikes and to sow confusion on the battlefield.

Gadhafi’s forces are now using trucks instead of tanks and armored personnel carriers for transport and combat. This shift was forced upon them — coalition air power has turned Gadhafi’s tanks into death traps. However, another new tactic his thugs are employing — so-called human shields — is a war crime, pure and simple, and an example of the tyrant’s calculated depravity.

Michael Yon takes note.

Michael calls the Rolling Stone editors and writers involved in this article literary criminals –petty word and image manipulating crooks sensationalizing tragic crime for filthy lucre.

We used to call it yellow journalism. Tabloid!!!

Does anyone really think Rolling Stone Magazine is cool? Anyone, anywhere, anymore?

1. 2301: Col Gaddafi’s words in front of his damaged Bab Al-Aziziya compound in Tripoli: “I do not fear storms that sweep the horizon, nor do I fear the planes that throw black destruction. I am resistant, my house is here in my tent [...] I am the rightful owner, and the creator of tomorrow. I, I am here! I am here! I am here!”.

You can’t make this stuff up.

BBC on its Libya coverage website has a tweet up from Lindsey Hilsum, Channel 4 New’s International Editor

1. 0103: Lindsey Hilsum, Channel 4 News’s international editor, tweets: “Around the burnt out tanks destroyed by allied bombs near #benghazi, everyone rushes up to say ‘thank you’ to western journalists. New chant heard around #Benghazi #libya: 1,2,3 – Sarkozy merci!”

Now think about it. The rhyme requires English (one, two, three) and French (merci) to complete the rhyme. For a ditty, this is rather comprehensive. The British and French are leading the free world. Very bon.

Like I wrote on Saturday, Sarkozy and Cameron ought to get Nobel Peace Prizes. And note the Nobel Peace Prize post (from Saturday afternoon, March 19) insists the Libya operation is regime change. That’s beginning to dawn on folks. This article by Anthony Ventre gives a pretty good record of “regime change” entering the discussion on Sunday March 20 and Monday March 21. Wesley Clark said it on March 20 in the Washington Post.

Key quote:

Given these rules, what is the wisest course of action in Libya? To me, it seems we have no clear basis for action. Whatever resources we dedicate for a no-fly zone would probably be too little, too late. We would once again be committing our military to force regime change in a Muslim land, even though we can’t quite bring ourselves to say it. So let’s recognize that the basic requirements for successful intervention simply don’t exist, at least not yet: We don’t have a clearly stated objective, legal authority, committed international support or adequate on-the-scene military capabilities, and Libya’s politics hardly foreshadow a clear outcome.

I disagree with his analysis –except that this is, indeed, regime change. And I’m quite willing to say it. And did.

UPDATE: Yes, General Clark wrote the forward to my new book on Kemal Ataturk. He does for every book in the Palgrave/Macmillan generals series.

At the Weekly Standard blog.

From today (AFP):

The United States condemned on Monday Syria’s crackdown on anti-government demonstrations over the weekend, accusing the government of using “disproportionate force” against protesters.

“We call on the Syrian government to allow demonstrations to take place peacefully. Those responsible for the violence over the weekend must be held accountable,” said White House spokesman Tommy Vietor.

Reports indicated the Syrian government used “disproportionate force” against civilians, both protesters as well as mourners of those killed in earlier demonstrations, Vietor added.

At least one person was killed and more than 100 wounded Sunday when Syrian security forces fired on protesters who went on the rampage in the southern city of Daraa, rights activists said.

Some background on the protests (The Guardian):

A series of small-scale and isolated but audacious protests developed into much larger ones after Friday prayers in a string of Syrian cities.

One, in the in the southern city of Dera’a, was particularly serious. It had been triggered by the arrest of 15 schoolchildren accused of scrawling anti-government graffiti on city walls, among them that trademark slogan – “the people want the overthrow of the regime” – of the uprisings elsewhere. It was a peaceful gathering but the security services opened fire, killing three. The next day a much larger, angrier crowd – estimated to number as many as 20,000 – turned out for the burial of the previous days’ victims.

Stay tuned.

The lede from the Wall Street Journal:

“Egyptians eagerly awaited the results Sunday of a referendum on constitutional changes a day after millions of jubilant voters turned out in surprisingly large numbers to cast ballots the historic vote, which stood as an early test of Egypt’s emerging democracy.

People lined up for hours Saturday at many of the more than 50,000 polling stations across the country. Many said they were voting for the first time in their lives, spurred by the prospect of finally taking part in an election in which the outcome was not effectively predetermined.

“This is the beginning of the end of the dictatorship we suffered under since 1952,” said Miro al-Zaidi, a 72-year-old retired civil engineer casting the first ballot of his life. “Today, I believe it will be a free vote.”

The largely enthusiastic and peaceful voting offered a glimpse of how much has changed in Egypt in the weeks since President Hosni Mubarak stepped down amid widespread unrest, ending decades of single-party, autocratic rule.”

A fascinating time to be alive. Unless, of course, you were a Saddam Hussein restorationist like Jonathan Chait. Hey, the New Republic essay he wrote is no longer available on the web, but its tracks are.

A few of the fossilized lefty dinosaur tracks are found at Reason (a David Weigl commentary):

[Chait, quoted from the Reason archive]:

“Restoring the expectation of order in Iraq will take some kind of large-scale psychological shock. The Iraqi elections were expected to offer that shock, but they didn’t. The return of Saddam Hussein–a man every Iraqi knows, and whom many of them fear–would do the trick.

The disadvantages of reinstalling Hussein are obvious, but consider some of the upside. He would not allow the country to be dominated by Iran, which is the United States’ major regional enemy, a sponsor of terrorism, and an instigator of warfare between Lebanon and Israel. Hussein was extremely difficult to deal with before the war, in large part because he apparently believed that he could defeat any U.S. invasion if it came to that. Now he knows he can’t. And he’d probably be amenable because his alternative is death by hanging.”

Despicable. Despicable then, despicable now.

Weigl also links to fossil tracks at antiwar.com. Remember the 2006 coup to topple Iraq’s Maliki? Neither do I. I wonder if the antiwar.com of October 21, 2006, will (like Chait’s TNR classic) soon “no longer be available.”

ELECTION RESULTS UPDATE: From the NY Times:

Egyptian voters overwhelmingly approved a referendum on constitutional changes on Sunday that will usher in rapid elections, with the results underscoring the strength of established political organizations, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood, and the weakness of emerging liberal groups.
More than 14.1 million voters, or 77.2 percent, approved the constitutional amendments; 4 million, or 22.8 percent, voted against them. The turnout of 41 percent among the 45 million eligible voters broke all records for recent elections, according to the Egyptian government.
“This is the first real referendum in Egypt’s history,” said Mohamed Ahmed Attia, the chairman of the supreme judicial committee which supervised the elections, in announcing the results. “We had an unprecedented turnout because after Jan. 25 people started to feel that their vote would matter.”

Wall St Journal report adds some details.

More later.