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Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

Hey, without digging into any of the rest of your argument, which I'm not especially interested in, but just because this one part of the argument is bugging me:

Abbotabad is famously Pakistan's version of West Point, and we're meant to be shocked that UBL could be in a house just two miles from Pakistan's West Point.

Pull up a map of West Point, NY. Trace a circle 2 miles around it. Is this an especially difficult area to hide in? Is Philipstown, NY carefully patrolled by military intelligence? It doesn't look like it is, but I'm unfamiliar with the area.

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If the area around USMA were a dense jungle with an extensive tunnel network, and UbL had been found there instead of in Pakistan, it certainly would have been a remarkable event. One suspects it might even have been mentioned by the late-night comedy impresarios...

I don't understand what this has to do with my question. Abbotabad is a large-ish city about as far from Islamabad, the largest city in Pakistan, as West Point is from Manhattan. It's not a "dense jungle with an extensive tunnel network" (there are no dense jungles in Pakistan or Afghanistan).

I exaggerated in the (dashed) hopes of inspiring some reflection. Even in this goofy fantasy in which no USA military or intelligence asset could have been expected to know who was living in the house down the street from their most cherished institution, because jungle, it would still have been amazing to find UbL living in that house.

You missed my subtext. If you look at the map for West Point, I think you'll find that there is absolutely no way the US military knows everyone who lives within a couple miles of the US Military Academy.

A more apt comparison would be the Guantanomo Bay military base.

You can't compare upstate New York with military objects in third-world nuclear-armed countries.

Explain how the reduced capabilities of Pakistan make it harder for UBL to hide just an hour outside their largest city.

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