It really is ashame they didn't have the benefit of your advice and never thought of how cool it would be to take them all alive ( not to Gitmo of course but to an American prison where their rights could be respected and they would have proper legal representation ) I am sure if we appealed to their better natures they would have confessed their sins and offered whatever information we asked. <s>

And of course no one in Pakistan would have notice 300 Americna non-Urdu speaking commandos coming through by land and if they did they would not have mentioned it to the bad guys.

I know you are smarter than this, so I assume you are just throwing out alternative scenarios for the sake of argument.

But really, in this case the success makes it pretty obvious this was carried out by people who *really* knew what they were doing and got exactoly what they came for... parts of which we won't know if and until we see the results.



>>>
>>>>My heartfelt thanks to the watchers on the wall.
>>>
>>>But why do all that ?? Since they knew where he was, why they did not simply arrested him more quietly and alive ?
>>
>>He had no intention of being taken alive. It was well known his own bodyguards had instructions that was not to happen.
>>
>> "Arrested him more quietly" ??? are you serious. By whom -- Pakistani police? The UN? Do you really believe *anyone* in Pakistan was told that this was going to happen? I'm sure if they could have taken him alive they would have ( perhaps they did <s> ) but the important part of the mission was more than his dead body ( or whatever body parts are now on ice in Langley )
>
>No, by the same commandoes, but dressed in civilian clothes going there by land, during the night without making way to much noise.
>I bet you they could have arrest most of them alive. Then take them into custody etc etc.
>
>
>>Intelligence agencies and especially the portions of them that do stuff like this, are not in the business of public relations - except in that is serves their purposes. Information will be very structured and very controlled. And they will probably never mention what they learned in 8 months of knowing he was there and who in Pakistan was enabling him, and what information they gathered in the compound.
>
>Does that beats, how much could they learn had they arrested them alive ?