Putting holes in Osama . . .

THE NEW YORKER has a detailed account of the planning and activities that culminated with Osama's acquaintance with a couple of .223's — Eugene Stoner would have been so pleased. The article, "Getting Bin Laden", by Nicholas Schmidle, reads like a Tom Clancy oeuvre.

Interestingly, to the distress of the feckless, corrupt Pakistanis who are either unwilling or incapable of dealing with obstreperous Muj, it seems that the US SOCOM outfits do these midnight rambles all the time. Compared to the stumbles and fumbles of abortive rescues and raids in the past, it appears that SOCOM has its shit together, so to speak.

This was one of almost two thousand missions that have been conducted over the last couple of years, night after night.” He likened the routine of evening raids to “mowing the lawn.” On the night of May 1st alone, special-operations forces based in Afghanistan conducted twelve other missions; according to the official, those operations captured or killed between fifteen and twenty targets.

Like SOCOM says, "we own the night". This can be frustrating for those who love a heaping helping of schadenfreude. Anyway, here's an appropriate sound track, with the inimitable Mick Taylor and Keefer at their best.

Marty's perspective . . .

Like a bastard in the sand, indeed — thanks, Marty.

"Sudan will be your Guantanamo" CSIS told Abdelrazik

Abousfian Abdelrazik spoke out this morning about his exile, his torture, the false charges against him, the harrassment of his dying Canadian wife and her family by CSIS before he returned to Sudan to care for his ailing mother in 2003.
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He could identify by sight, he told us, the Canadian agents who questioned him while he was in captivity in Sudan, including the one who told him "Sudan will be your Guantanamo" and that he was never coming home.
He describes being interrogated in Sudan in 2008 by Foreign Affairs parliamentary secretary Deepak Obhrai, who questioned him about Osama bin Laden and what he thought of Israel.
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I watched it on tv.
Paul Koring, Dr. Dawg, and Kady were there.
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There's a sense in which this case is more important than that of Maher Arar in terms of how Canadians, at least Muslim Canadians, can expect to be treated by our government, and whether CSIS can legitimately be said to be under anyone's control any more.
There was no US middleman here, no wiggle room in which Canadian intelligence agencies could claim to have been overpowered or misled or shut out of the proceedings by US security forces.
This one is all ours.
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In the meantime, Abdelrazik is still on that 1267 UN blacklist : he cannot work, he cannot receive money or medical attention, he cannot fly, he cannot receive gifts.
He is currently an exile in Canada.
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UPDATE : "NDP foreign-affairs critic Paul Dewar called on the government to launch a public inquiry even more far reaching than the judicial probe into the imprisonment and torture in Syria of Maher Arar. ... there was no middle man," Dewar said.

Deepak Obhrai is currently away in Asia.