Given that we have restricted ourselves to covert civilian agents and armed drones inside Pakistan, the question is what were we doing?
The boldness of the thrust fed speculation about the intended target. But it was unclear whether any extremist leader was killed or captured in the operation, which occurred in one of the militant strongholds dotting a frontier region considered a likely hiding place for Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida’s No. 2 leader, Ayman al-Zawahri.
It was only a mile inside Pakistan. Why not a missile strike? Or artillery? Why put American boots on the ground?
Even if we thought bin Laden was there, we could have struck with missiles and then put a team on the ground to scrape up tissue to test.
It sounds like we wanted to capture someone.
Or maybe it was a live practice run to gain experience while killing some of the enemy.
But given the sensitivity of Pakistanis over American forces inside their country, I'd think that the objective had to be pretty important.
So who were we going after? And who did we get?
