Rot in hell Bin Laden

For me, two facebook updates from my two American nephews summed up the general emotion / reaction of the world after President Obama made the big announcement earlier this week:

First said, "Justice prevails. Rot it in hell Osama."

Second, "Rip Osama. Rot in pieces."

These two kids were about 10 years old on Sept 11, 2001. Can you imagine how many kids across the world had the events of 9/11 embedded deep in their psyche?

Few thoughts related to this week's events:

1. We have always criticized US for taking stands which have helped them meet short term goals but has created long term problems for this world. Bin Laden was a creation of such policies. Given that context, my respect for Bush is increasing by the day because he took some hard decisions which acted as catalyst to long term changes happening in the Arab world - uprising in Egypt, Libya etc are good examples. Hopefully Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan will NOT be failed states in future and thanks to Bush, who started the clean up in a BIG way.

2. Full credit to Obama for a very meticulously executed plan to eliminate Osama - hats off to him. Very well done! BUT, let's also acknowledge that it was during Bush's regime, because of the means he used (including torture) to extract information, CIA got the leads that enabled Obama administration to zero down on Osama's location in Pakistan.

3. Obama had repeatedly said during his campaign that if he received credible intel on OBL's location in Pakistan, he will go in and take him down. He was ridiculed at that time for such statements but he did EXACTLY what he said during the campaign. Well done!

4. Obama's approval ratings have jumped up significantly this week, but economic policies of Obama is a huge issue in my opinion and being in s/w industry I see first hand how he is doing dis-service to competitiveness of US corporations through his protectionist policies. Well, even Bush failed on the economy front - so that's a very serious concern for US and to some extent I understand why many Americans are concerned about his second term, which BTW I think is INEVITABLE after this weekend's development.

5. Pakistan is at a very dangerous juncture right now and that should be a very serious cause of concern for us in India. Pakistan is at the edge and could head towards a civil war kind of situation, given the kind of jokers they have in their society - dysfunctional government, miserable President, all kinds of fundamentalist groups active in the country and ISI support to such groups. India/US may have to intervene in Pakistan next with military action to first take down their nukes and then prevent anarchy - that will probably be the toughest phase of war on terror.

Hope peace and justice prevails!