The Petraeus revolution in the US army aims at changing the way of war by bribing the enemies instead of fighting them.

Ten years later, the US DHS has come to a similar conclusion.

One-man attacks may be disgusting, but they claim statistically few lives: what’s a few dozen dead for a country? Large attacks usually aim at a country’s symbols and infrastructure. The 9/11 attacks cost Americans $40 billion in government subsidies, tens of billions in the tourist industry and airline losses, and hundreds of billions in security and military efforts.

But painting lone-wolf terrorists as the major threat to national security allows the government to further crack down on personal freedoms and expand totalitarian control over its citizens.

According to the logic of power-grabing, former terrorists create armies (Yemen) and political forces (Lebanon, Gaza). The West, on the other hand, restricts its application of force to precision strikes against terrorists and enemy rulers.

Bush and Obama had been receiving credible hints about Osama’s whereabouts since 2005, but chose not to act. One reason was that they feared a backlash from Muslim terrorists (highly unlikely, in our opinion). Another was that Osama’s death would have suggested that it was time to begin withdrawing  NATO troops from Afghanistan, which neither Bush nor Obama were then ready to do.

Now Obama has to get out of Afghanistan quickly, before Karzai signs an accord with the Taliban on his own. Here is Obama’s gambit: First, killing Osama allows him to claim he has achieved the war’s goal. Second, Washington misrepresents Osama’s killing as having been achieved by the CIA alone, without  help from Pakistan’s ISI. Thus Obama is able to demand that top ISI officials be ousted. Incidentally, those are the people who support the Taliban, if only to create trouble for India and keep Afghanistan in check. Ousting them would send a signal to the Taliban that they must negotiate with America directly (a dubious assumption, in our opinion). The White House expects, accordingly, to preside over a Karzai-Taliban reconciliation ceremony and get out of Afghanistan with some dignity.

To date, the only available photo confirming his death is fake. MSN published an earlier photo of Osama, which is an exact copy of his postmortem image. Of course the death photo is unofficial, but why hasn’t the US government published a credible photo of its own?

The official line has it that the commandos identified Osama by multiple means, including some hinted-at high-techies like facial recognition, which does not work reliably with such a heavy beard.

A hasty burial at sea is the worst way to do PR. It would have made more sense to show the corpse to journalists instead of allowing the creation of an Osama-is-alive myth.

The story of Osama’s pursuit, as told by the government, is incredible. Supposedly Obama had procrastinated since February before giving the order to assassinate bin Laden. The CIA often acts in Pakistan on flimsy evidence, targeting wrong people, so just to be on the safe side they would have acted against Osama’s likely hideout quickly.

Sending two US helicopters into a Pakistani garrison town is a strange idea. Not only are the tens of thousands people there armed, but there must be basic anti-aircraft weapons. Sending loud choppers in the middle of the night would be absurd, warning the inhabitants and bin Laden alike. Such operations are done with ground teams or bombs/missiles.

Osama supposedly lived for six years in a heavily populated area in a country where everyone knows his face. Should we believe that he never left his villa? Or that the neighbors weren’t fascinated by such a secluded nouveau riche?

Osama supposedly lived in the Pakistani garrison town through the years when his relations with General Musharaff were pretty bad. The general exerted tight control over the Pakistani intelligence service, and it is highly unlikely that the ISI protected a man who had worked to oust Musharaff.

Overall, the impression is that Osama’s death is an Obama PR trick. And if we are to believe the story, then Osama’s assassination is of little significance: he lived an extremely secluded life away from the centers of terrorist planning. Terrorist groups of Al Qaeda’s ilk will continue operating without him.

The terrorists say in the article that they mounted the bombs inside printer cartridges because carbon-based toner is similar in composition to PETN explosives and so cannot be easily detected. This is utter nonsense. Besides, toner cartridges are too small to contain enough explosive to down a plane.

The shipping of HP printers from Yemen to the United States by UPS would be absurdly suspicious.

The direct claim of responsibility, among many other details, is uncharacteristic of an authentic Al Qaeda message.

The statement claims responsibility for bomb packages that were sent to two Chicago synagogues. Yet, no package was sent to a synagogue: each package contained several bombs and was shipped to American Islamists. The story of a synagogue bombing was spread by a ‘rabbi’ of one of the allegedly targeted synagogues. Are we to believe that Yemeni Al Qaeda somehow knew of that bizarre synagogue for homosexuals in Chicago?

The statement also claims responsibility for the recent UPS plane crash near Dubai, though no evidence of an explosion has been found.