“there is always the possibility that the ISI was not aware that Osama Ben Laden was their neighbor.”
There is just no way in hell that can possibly be the case. Nope, no way.
“Who dealt with seller, the contractors, the neighbors, and the local authorities? Laden, one of his wives, one of the other men or other women, or someone else? What name did Laden go by locally at the time of his death? How did he come to the area? Did others locate there and then he came along months or even years later in the middle of the night? Did the local authorities even know that a male individual of his description was staying there? If they did, did they know it was him?”
Sorry but those are lame questions. Real question is where did the money come from? Did it come from Bin Laden’s personal accounts? How was it channeled? Did it come from overseas or did OBL have local bank accounts in Pakistan? How did such large transfer of funds and such a large construction project in a relatively modest township go totally unnoticed by the ISI or local authorities? The stories just don’t add. Sorry.
“If a family moved in three blocks from me, I wouldn't know about it. If they claimed they were the Giraffe family, I wouldn't know they were really the Elephant family. I wouldn't know if they said they were the Smiths and then allowed the Joneses to move in serveral months later, and especially if the Joneses claimed to be the Johnsons.”
Have you ever lived in the sub-continent? Probably not. I HAVE. So take it from me. This isnt a quiet little farm country in the mid west. The cities there are densely populated and congested. Apartments, housing complexes are so close to each other that everyone knows everyone else’s business. And even here in US, I don’t know what hood you live but I happen to know all my neighbors pretty well.
“It wasn't the ISI’s top priority.”
If for annual $1.5 billion dollars plus weaponry to fight India, if catching Bin Laden wasn’t there “top priority”, then maybe WE got our priorities wrong. WTF are we giving them $1.5 billion a year for if OBL wasn’t their top priority!
“Even if it had been, they didn't have access to the prisoners we did.”
I don’t know how you manage to get that kind of BS out of your rear but they have plenty of Taliban prisoners of their own and more robust ground intel of their own. And very often they deny us access to their prisoners. Of course now we know why.
“If you'll think about it, even in the United States, people who have been wanted for decades sometimes show up right under everyone’s nose. It happens here. It can happen there.”
Lets get some perspective here. We aren’t talking about a cold case fugitive who happen to slip past the radar, We are talking about the world most well known terrorist fugitive. Every street kid in the world knows his name and has seen his face. Governments, militaries and intelligence agencies of the world are hunting for him. Do you really think he could stay so secure for so long without a little “help”.
Look Ravager, we’re going to disagree on this.
You’re vision of this completely misses the fact that U. S. troops were located in a safe-house near Obama’s compound.
If the ISI had to know Laden was there, then they had to know our troops were there too.
You can’t have it both ways.
You have decided to buy into the worst case scenario, and that’s your right. Take care.