I’m back among the ‘civilised’, after a restful mountain sojourn devoid of connections to telephones, television, internet or the like. The first news that comes to my attention is that the mildly infamous James ‘Whitey’ Bulger (former Boston Irish mob boss, accused of some 19 murders) has finally been caught after residing on the FBI’s Most Wanted List since 1999. The only information of interest outside Boston in the meantime was the fact that Whitey's brother William was the president of the Massachusetts Senate for some 17 years until his appointment to be president of the University of Massachusetts, until finally compelled to resign by then-Governor Mitt Romney in 2003. I say ‘mildly infamous’ because his case simply didn’t seem to draw much attention until it was brought to mind by the Pakistani ambassador last month.
The reason that Ambassador Haqqani name-dropped the model for the Jack Nicholson character in The Departed came up after a flurry of accusations that key elements within Pakistan knew that Usama bin Laden had been hiding there prior to his demise in the sights of what I expect was an MP-5 (Am I dating myself?) of SEAL Team 6 (yes, for you purists it’s NAVSPECWARDEVGRU).
If Whitey Bulger can live undetected by American police for so long, why can't Osama Bin Laden live undetected by Pakistani authorities?
It seems fortuitous indeed that Bulger, having languished on the list for some twelve years (only slightly longer than bin Laden himself), is apprehended only seven weeks after Haqqani made the discomfiting connection.
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