Asides

The guy’s good but what the hell? The superstar and go-to guy on the Thunder is Kevin Durant. It seriously doesn’t make sense that Durant sometimes doesn’t even touch the ball for long stretches and in clutch time. And you see Westbrook not making a single pass and driving in (and missing). It’s just plain dumb really. Someone put him in his place. Read.

I find it really strange that someone like Bin Laden didn’t have some type of rapid escape plan for exactly the type of raid the United States conducted that ended with his death. You would assume the most wanted fugitive on the planet would expect that some day the U.S. might figure out where he is and go in after him. So maybe some type of underground tunnel or something. I mean they even built that whole compound he was living in. The fact that he did not have such contingencies makes it seem like he felt safe there, which would indicate the Pakistani government or elements in the government and its intelligence agencies knew he was there and and were providing safe haven for him. Something tells me the Pakistanis didn’t really believe the U.S. would go in unilaterally or at least would notify Pakistan beforehand, giving them time to warn Bin Laden.

But of course, this is all speculation and conspiracy theory stuff. Just wondering out loud. For Bin Laden to be surprised in the middle of the night with just 3 men with him, he must have felt relatively safe and did not expect a raid like that to happen. Very odd.

Wow. Well 10 years later, we finally got Osama Bin Laden, the founder/leader of Al Qaeda, responsible for the 9/11 attacks. By most accounts, in recent years he had very little operational control of Al Qaeda and its affiliates, but nevertheless he’s major symbol in the war on terror. This is what happens when you put pressure where you should be putting pressure on. Not to be a cynic, but Afghanistan is turning into a unwinnable scenario. Think of all the resources we wasted in Iraq that could’ve been put into Afghanistan, we probably would’ve caught bin Laden years ago.

Having lived in NYC practically my whole life, the 9/11 attacks hit home, literally. I still remember vividly rushing back from math class freshman year at Cornell to watch the news and call (or try to call) everyone back home to make sure everyone was okay. It’s never a good thing to celebrate someone’s death but at least all those who lost loved ones back then can feel some type of closure knowing that this evil man responsible for the attacks is now gone.

P.S. You know what’s weird? Just a night before Obama and Gates were laughing at a joke by Seth Meyers about no one noticing that Bin Laden hosts a show on C-SPAN. While unknowingly to the public, an operation had been going on for 8 months and at that point Obama had already given the go-ahead to capture/kill Osama Bin Laden. I don’t know, the juxtaposition of the events is eerie.

NY Times: Syrian Troops Open Fire on Protesters in Several Cities. We don’t particularly like Syria either. Say the protests escalate as protesters arm themselves. Syrian military clashes with civilians and responds the same way Libya did. Do we also start bombing Syria? If so, when does it stop exactly? What about Yemen too? You can see why Defense Secretary Gates is opposed to further intervention in the Middle East. Things are never simple and it’s a slippery slope. Why not bomb Laurent Gbagbo’s force over in the Ivory Coast while we’re at it?

I’ll leave you with this, countries like Yemen, Syria, Ivory Coast, don’t have the same vast oil reserves as Libya. The United States has a strategic interest in a Libyan government that is favorable towards us. Like I said before, no country does something major without its own self interests in mind. Sure, we partially do want to protect Libyan civilians, but are they somehow more important than civilians being gunned down by their government in other countries?

Happy Friday and have a good weekend. Over and out.