Bin Laden finally caught, shot in the head and dumped in the sea by U.S. Military, is good news by any account, followed nevertheless by the jubilation of many as if having won a football match. Yet sadly, since the celebration of violent death has never truly been something I could enjoy, my mind quickly concentrated on the obvious situation of widespread Pakistani collaboration with the prominent figure. Though not a surprise itself, the lack of consequence in the news about it seemed baffling to me.

TEXT: Christiaan Wöhle

Indeed, the corruption of Pakistani officials has long since been recognized as a major problem to fighting terrorism. The fact that the Taliban are a former colonial tool of Pakistan complicates things even further, as does the attested sympathy of the local population for the terrorist members, and their “causes”. Even though in the meantime, this country receives vast amounts of mostly U.S. aid. Aid that if taken away would throw the country back in the stone age, in the few places it managed to crawl itself out of it. A poor country in both the material and the moral, that has been proven a true friend of Osama Bin Laden. The concentration of the popular news on the death of the latter is understandable. The general reaction to the place he was discovered however seems to remain weak admissions in the way of variations of “well, it's Pakistan”.

Abbottabad, in the suburbs deep in Pakistani territory, only 50 kilometers from Islamabad, the Capital, retirement haven for ex-military officers and other government officials. It was here that he lived, but not as an ordinary citizen hiding in the crowd. He lived in a mansion surrounded by walls up to eighteen feet high, topped with barbed wire. Eight times the size of most other houses in the area and the only ones always burning their garbage instead of taking it out... Even going so far as giving children, that accidentally got their ball in the former terrorist's courtyard, cash instead of allowing the children to enter and grab the ball. And all this half a mile from the main Pakistan Military Academy, the place where the country's most prominent military leaders come from...How much of an insult to intelligence does one have to allow to accept the obvious lie that the ISI (Inter-Service Intelligence: Pakistani secret service) had no idea?

Pervez Musharraf, former Pakistan President, has always said he didn’t know where Bin Laden was, even though the Prime-Minister was confident enough to publicly state that he was “sure he was not in Pakistan”. Pervez now states that the “ISI must be stupid to hide him in such a prominent place” as sole defense of the current situation: “way too smart to put Bin Laden in such an obvious location but far too clueless to know he was there, smart enough not to do it, dumb enough not to know”.

This while India, democracy and superpower of the region, has shown to be quite willing to cooperate. Wouldn’t it be a nice change: to fight terrorism without working with other terrorists? No longer having to submit to the doctrine of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” would be quite liberating. Lets also not forget India has had, for historic reasons, broad experience in fighting terrorism before it ever became a problem in the West. Why cling on to and address Pakistan instead of India, I have never understood. Is there any doubt Bin Laden would have been found many years ago had Pakistan not been treated as an ally? I think not.