Elvis Presley pleads that truth is like sun. You can shut it out for a time but it ain’t going away. The election fever is running high in the United States of America and the heat is felt by the statements emanating from the offices of both the Presidential candidates, President Donald Trump and his rival Joe Bidden who is presumptively reckoned to be more popular then Trump. With Biden’s leads in national polls, all conventional political understanding says he should win. But, the landscape feels like experiencing reiteration of the previous election results for pundits who remember former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s poll-lead in the run-up to the 2016 election.
The democratic candidate Joe Biden doesn’t seem to have missed any opportunity to reveal facets of Trumps Presidential tenure with one or the other loophole as manipulated to his advantage in presidential debates and public campaigns. In turn the republican candidate Donald Trump pleads to be assaying Biden’s party’s erstwhile President Barrack Obama’s flaws during his rule till 2016.
Amidst attacks and counter attacks in the highly charged political ambience of America these days, Donald Trump has recently tweeted that Abbottabad hunt down of Al Qaida Supremo Osama bin Laden was stage managed and a fake operation by US maritime forces that was orchestrated by Democrats under the influence of then Obama’s Vice president Joe Bidden in 2011. The move was aimed at Obama’s victory in the elections, he further tweeted. It was on 1st May 2011 when the US mariners stormed Abbottabad in Pakistan in a locality close to the Pak army cantonment and claimed to have killed Osama bin Laden, then most wanted person in the US.
The authorities in Pakistan, both civil and military, were aghast and appalled by the incident for her image of a partner in war on terrorism was badly tarnished. More pressures were experienced by Pakistan to do more against terrorism for Pakistan was construed to be the safe haven of terrorism. Nothing was truly known about the operation to the world and also to then Pakistan regime which ran short of options other than to accept the US state version that Osama’s dead body was thrown in the Arabian Ocean, instead of burying it. It had taken years to come out of what was not less than a nightmare for Pakistan.
In point of fact this event paved a way for US and her allies facing guerrilla warfare in Afghanistan to launch the doctrine of “do more” tactics that mounted tremendous pressure on Pakistan’s fight against Taliban. It is widely believed today that Trump being the President in harness, his revelation of the inside story of Abbottabad operation could not be easily brushed under the carpet.
Albeit his confession of the reality of 1st May 2011 was laden with political motivation in face of elections to be held only two weeks from now, must have brought a respite in Islamabad to regain her confidence in the world as a responsible State, although not commenting on it officially. The Ex- Premier of Pakistan Late Benazir Bhutto had earlier unraveled in a press statement that Osama’s death was confirmed in the cluster bombing of Tora Bora hills in 2006 and that he was buried in Afghanistan along with his 20 year old militant son.
Mid night execution of the US military operation in Abbottabad along with the claims of Osama’s dead body having been thrown in the sea, and sheer lack of a documentary evidence of Osama’s dead body raised questions in many diplomatic and media circles. Some sane voices from the investigative media in the US like Robert Kith had questioned the cogency of the claims of Osama having been killed in Abbottabad.
Trump’s disclosure of the reality of Abbottabad operation is asserted to strengthen Islamabad’s claims of fighting terrorism for a long time without having betrayed its ally. In other words it would serve a clean chit to Islamabad although at the moment it will be serving no significant purpose to place Islamabad in comfortable position in particular reference to coming out of FATF grey list. Nevertheless it is a closed chapter in Pakistan now for the country has entered the Chinese block and left the American orbit.