Worm Food.

As I'm sure you've heard, Osama Bin Laden, figurehead of Al Qaeda, is now worm food.

With the death of the Bush Administration's favorite boogieman (I do believe he is dead, but I really wish they'd release some photos), at least two other things are made clear:

1) The aforementioned Bush administration's incompetency.

2) The schizophrenic nature of Pakistan's government, military, and intelligence apparatus toward the U.S.

Why am I calling the Bush administration incompetent? They had about seven years, beginning with the American incursion into Afghanistan, to capture or kill this man. They didn't get the job done. I have my disagreements with the Obama administration, but Obama the president kept a pledge that Obama the candidate had made: to capture or kill Bin Laden whenever the chance arose, even inside of Pakistan itself. I guess he kept that promise.

As per the complicated, convoluted relationship that exists between Washington and Islamabad, nothing is more indicative of a lack of trust than carrying out the Seal team mission without Pakistani knowledge or approval. Later, however, the Pakistani government issued a statement basically saying that they should have been included in the planning and logistics of the mission. They had absolutely no idea.

On the other hand, some U.S. sources claim that the mission HAD to be kept a secret, as it might have been compromised had they taken a more inclusive route.

Bin Laden's body was washed, wrapped in a white sheet (in accordance with Islamic law), and buried at sea.

Did he really deserve all of that consideration? Probably not. He never gave any of the same to any of his victims. But anything less would have been inappropriate, as we're not a bunch of barbarians. We're better than that. The peanut gallery should stop complaining.

What's intriguing about this whole ordeal is where Bin Laden was actually found hiding compared to where most experts believed he was. He was found in a compound just north of Islamabad, not along the Afghan/Pakistani border region. He was less than a mile away from Pakistan's version of West Point, in a military town. It is inconceivable to me that no one in the Pakistani military and intelligence communities had any idea that he was hiding out just outside the capitol.

We've sent $20 billion in aid to Pakistan since September 11, 2001. Maybe we ought to re-examine both our relationship with the Pakistani government as well as think twice about how U.S. tax dollars are being spent. Has sending aid to Pakistan made us any safer? What are the true aims of the Pakistani government?

I can only hope that the success of this raid will serve as an example for future dealings: relying on solid counterterrorism, intelligence gathering techniques, and precision strikes instead of counterinsurgency techniques, nation-building, and hundreds of thousands of troops on the ground.

It's the only cost-effective way to accomplish our security goals, and I hope we can focus on that going forward. Taking out only individuals who are genuine threats to our nation's security.

Doing more with less.
Working smarter, not harder.