Five More Things…

1. Winning - After a week of non-stop traveling I’m finally back in my village. Now I have 24 hours to figure out what I’m supposed to be presenting at tomorrow’s Takeo Province Teacher Training Workshop.

Time to get back to work…

2. More Pictures - A few more highlights from in and around Kep, Cambodia…

3. The Hunt for Bin Laden – This story just keeps getting more and more interesting. Check out this Bob Woodward Washington Post article: (Death of Bin Laden)…

It seemed an innocuous, catch-up phone call. Last year Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, the pseudonym for a Pakistani known to U.S. intelligence as the main courier for Osama bin Laden, took a call from an old friend. … When U.S. intelligence officials learned of this exchange, they knew they had reached a key moment in their decade-long search for al-Qaeda’s founder. The call led them to the unusual, high-walled compound in Abbottabad, a city 35 miles north of Pakistan’s capital. ‘This is where you start the movie about the hunt for bin Laden,’ said one U.S. official briefed on the intelligence-gathering leading up to the raid … The exchange and several other pieces of information, other officials said, gave President Obama the confidence to launch a politically risky mission to capture or kill bin Laden, a decision he took despite dissension among his key national security advisers and varying estimates of the likelihood that bin Laden was in the compound. …
“The main three-story building, which had no telephone lines or Internet service, was impenetrable to eavesdropping technology deployed by the National Security Agency. U.S. officials were stunned to realize that whenever Kuwaiti or others left the compound to make a call, they drove some 90 minutes away before even placing a battery in a cellphone. Turning on the phone made it susceptible to the kind of electronic surveillance that the residents of the compound clearly wished to avoid. As intelligence officials scrutinized images of the compound, they saw that a man emerged most days to stroll the grounds of the courtyard for an hour or two. The man walked back and forth, day after day, and soon analysts began calling him ‘the pacer.’ The imagery never provided a clear view of his face. Intelligence officials were reluctant to bring in other means of technical or human surveillance that might offer a positive identification but would risk detection by those in the compound. The pacer never left the compound. His routine suggested he was not just a shut-in but almost a prisoner. … Specific orders were issued to the SEALs not to shoot the women or children unless they were clearly threatening or had weapons. … The longer such raids take, the greater the risk to the SEALs. One senior official said the general philosophy of the SEALs is: ‘If you see it, shoot it. It is a house full of bad guys.’ …
“[O]ne of the Black Hawk helicopters stalled, but the pilot was able to land safely. The hard landing, which disabled the helicopter, forced the SEALs to abandon a plan to have one team rope down from a Blackhawk and come into the main building from the roof. Instead, both teams assaulted the compound from the ground. … A senior Special Operations official said that [t]he individuals who took part in the raid … would not grant interviews and had signed nondisclosure agreements about their classified work. ‘They are interested in closing ranks and getting on with business,’ he said. SEALs scooped up dozens of thumb drives and several computer hard drives that are now being scrutinized for information about al-Qaeda, especially an address, location or cellphone number for Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden’s second in command. But officials said the delicate process of sifting this intelligence bonanza is made more challenging because of worries that using the wrong passwords could trigger a pre-planned erasure of digital information. In the White House Situation Room on Sunday night, the president and his national security team watched a soundless video feed of the raid.”

And I appreciate Maureen Dowd pointing out today that killing evil (and celebrating the death of evil) doesn’t make us evil…

Those who celebrated on Sept. 11 were applauding the slaughter of American innocents. When college kids spontaneously streamed out Sunday night to the White House, ground zero and elsewhere, they were the opposite of bloodthirsty: they were happy that one of the most certifiably evil figures of our time was no more…

Morally and operationally, this was counterterrorism at its finest.

We have nothing to apologize for.

4. The Manny – Being able watch the Pack Man fight live (for free) on a Sunday morning is about as good as it gets.

What a fight. What a beast. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an athlete more dominant in my life. (Maybe Tiger? Maybe Lance? Maybe Jordan? Not sure though.)

5. Happy Mothers Day – And finally I’d like to wish a special Happy Mothers Day to TenThingsIThink’s top commentor and chief Lisa Knowtlon. This blog wouldn’t be the same without you. You’re the best!