News - Osama Bin Laden - killed In Pakistan

[Raja Bose]

amdavadi mian, ST6 is DEVGRU saar (it was ST6 during Marcinko's days before their operators got into trouble for fraud) - it exists very much as the Pakis found out

Whats interesting is the Amirkhans are insistent on saying that OBL was given a chance to surrender, no wimmen and chillum were hurt yet it is clear from their statements that there was no chance in jannat that OBL was coming out of this alive - whether he surrendered or not. Now as for the one-eyed jack (Mooly (radish) Omar) who is a pinup poster boy for all the Pak lurks here, that is a different question.

One gotta hand it to the massa - they know how to time their ops and plan them for maximum media impact and minimal risk. Unfortunately us SDREs have not yet recognized the meaning of such psy-ops and want to engage in piss process and dossier-bazi. And when we do use our forces, our gandhi-topi netas are too concerned about their self-image that they would rather sacrifice a few brave soldiers than the lives of some scum and their associates. I am sure Kasab is getting released in a few years as a elder brotherly gesture of piss to our Pak birathers.

[shiv]

PC Hard drive - 30 secs. You dont even need a screw driver. There is a single screw you turn with your hand sticking out prominently in the back of the along the case, slide the cover of the case out, reach in , disconnect the power cord, disconnect the SATA cord (these are snap in cords, just snap out), the hard disk slides out into your hand (it is not fixed to the computer case with screws, just held in rails and slides out).

That is how I do it in my computer at home. It is a standard ATX case.

Vinaji - I have assembled my own PCs for over a decade now and am using one of them now. I don't even put a screw on the side cover. But it is definitely faster to disconnect all external cables and take the entire CPU box rather than fiddling to take out the HDD. Most branded PCs come with 2 Philips screws holding side cover and horror of horrors - sometimes 4 Philips screws holding the HDD. That would be a disaster.

It may be worth taking keyboard also to get fingerprints and hair/DNA samples from the muck between keys.

[Pranav]

Hafiz Saeed and LeT mourn Osama - http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/ ... UT20110503

Then why are Paki turds and a poster here were crying that OBL was dead years ago?

There are still some questions - why the extremely hasty disposal of the body, without showing it to anybody else, how come the DNA results came so early when there are no rapid DNA systems on the market as yet, why no photos/videos released.

On the other hand, reaction from Hafiz Saeed indicates Osama did really meet his 72.

Another question is why the Amreekis did not try to take along a wife or two - they would be able to tell how and where Osama had been hiding all these years.

[chaanakya]

Gagan, This from D awn news

Another angle to the house. Lookslike it was 30 ft High (three story building with first story completely hidden. Main building is surrounded by high wall and one main gate is visible beside the high wall which would have served for entrance.

House is handed over to rightful owners, ISI ( Paki police as in news)

[Sanku]

Another question is why the Amreekis did not try to take along a wife or two - they would be able to tell how and where Osama had been hiding all these years.

They took along a wife or two and they had some to spare for Paki's too.

[NRao]

What are we to eat crow?

Pakistan admits Bin Laden intelligence failure

OMG. AoA?

Pakistan's main intelligence agency, the ISI, has said it is embarrassed by its failures on al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden.

An ISI official told the BBC the compound in Abbottabad where Bin Laden was killed by US forces on Sunday had been raided in 2003.

But the compound "was not on our radar" since then, the official said.

The government of Pakistan has categorically denied any knowledge of the raid before it took place.

No base within Pakistan was used by US forces, the ministry of foreign affairs said in a statement.

It went on: "US helicopters entered Pakistani airspace making use of blind spots in the radar coverage due to hilly terrain."

However, the ministry defended the ISI, saying: "As far as the target compound is concerned, ISI had been sharing information with CIA and other friendly intelligence agencies since 2009."
'Caught by surprise'

Bin Laden, 54, was the founder and leader of al-Qaeda. He is believed to have ordered the attacks on New York and Washington on 11 September 2001, as well as a number of other deadly bombings.

The ISI official gave new details of the raid, saying Bin Laden's young daughter had said she saw her father shot.

He told the BBC's Owen Bennett-Jones in Islamabad that the compound in Abbottabad, just 100km (62 miles) from the capital, was raided when under construction in 2003.

It was believed an al-Qaeda operative, Abu Faraj al-Libi, was there.

But since then, "the compound was not on our radar, it is an embarrassment for the ISI", the official said. "We're good, but we're not God."

He added: "This one failure should not make us look totally incompetent. Look at our track record. For the last 10 years, we have captured Taliban and al-Qaeda in their hundreds - more than any other countries put together."

The compound is just a few hundred metres from the Pakistan Military Academy - the country's equivalent of West Point or Sandhurst.

The ISI official also gave new or differing accounts of some of the events of Sunday's raid. They included:

There were 17-18 people in the compound at the time of the attack
The Americans took away one person still alive, possibly a Bin Laden son
Those who survived the attack included a wife, a daughter and eight to nine other children, not apparently Bin Laden's; all had their hands tied by the Americans
The surviving Yemeni wife said they had moved to the compound a few months ago
Bin Laden's daughter, aged 12 or 13, saw her father shot

The official said it was thought the Americans wanted to take away the surviving women and children but had to abandon the plan when one of the helicopters malfunctioned.
Continue reading the main story
Analysis
image of Owen Bennett Jones Owen Bennett Jones BBC News, Islamabad

Clearly there were people helping Bin Laden in this location... were they state employees, were they simply from Taliban-related groups, were they from the intelligence agencies?

For all Americans may ask the questions, I doubt they will get any answers. There will be ambiguity about this and the Pakistanis will deny they had any knowledge whatsoever.

The establishment here is made up of army leadership, intelligence agency leadership and some senior civil servants, and they have always run Pakistan, whether democratic governments or military governments, and those people do have connections with jihadis.

The difficulty the West has is in appreciating there are more than 20 different types of jihadi organisations, and al-Qaeda is just one of them. The state has different policies towards different types of group and that subtlety is often lost on Western policy-makers.

The helicopter was destroyed by the special forces unit.

The US has not commented on anyone it captured or had planned to capture, other than saying it had taken Bin Laden's body.

The ISI official said the organisation had recovered some documents from the compound.

The CIA is already said to be going through a large number of hard drives and storage devices seized in the raid.

The White House has not disclosed whether anyone has claimed the $25m (£15m) reward for leading the US to Bin Laden.

White House counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan said there had been concern Pakistani forces would deploy to counter the US Navy Seal team conducting the raid but it had avoided any confrontation.

The ISI official said: "We were totally caught by surprise. They were in and out before we could react."

Our correspondent says residents near the compound in Abbottabad reported that Pakistani soldiers had asked them to switch off their lights an hour before the attack, but the ISI official said this was not true and that it had no advance knowledge of the raid.

Earlier, in an opinion piece in the Washington Post, President Asif Ali Zardari admitted Bin Laden "was not anywhere we had anticipated he would be".

But he denied the killing suggested Pakistan was failing in its efforts to tackle terrorism.

Mr Zardari said Pakistan had "never been and never will be the hotbed of fanaticism that is often described by the media".

"Such baseless speculation may make exciting cable news, but it doesn't reflect fact," he said.

"Pakistan had as much reason to despise al-Qaeda as any nation. The war on terrorism is as much Pakistan's war as it is America's."

Mr Brennan had said it was "inconceivable that Bin Laden did not have a support system" in Pakistan. He estimated Bin Laden had been living in the compound in Abbottabad for five or six years.

Pakistani Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir tried to draw a line under the matter, saying: "Who did what is beside the point... This issue of Osama Bin Laden is history."
'Geronimo'

Bin Laden was America's most wanted man but had eluded capture for more than a decade.

US officials say that after DNA tests they are "99.9%" sure that the man they shot and killed and later buried at sea was Bin Laden.

Click to play

President Obama: "We were reminded again that there is a pride in what this nation stands for"

US President Barack Obama watched the entire operation in real time in the White House with his national security team.

Mr Brennan said: "The minutes passed like days."

CIA director Leon Panetta narrated via a video screen from a separate Washington office, with Bin Laden given the code name Geronimo.

Mr Panetta's narration lasted several minutes. "They've reached the target... We have a visual on Geronimo... Geronimo EKIA (enemy killed in action)."

Mr Obama said: "We got him."

Bin Laden, his son Khalid, trusted personal courier Sheikh Abu Ahmed and the courier's brother were all killed, along with an unidentified woman.

Bin Laden was shot above his left eye, blowing away a section of his skull, and was also shot in the chest.

The BBC's Andrew North in Washington says the White House is still discussing whether to release a video that was made of Bin Laden's burial from an aircraft carrier in the Arabian Sea, which some Islamic scholars have said did not conform with tradition.

Our correspondent says many people will want proof that Bin Laden is dead but the White House will be concerned about the reaction if the video, and still photographs of the body, are released.

[shiv]

Another question is why the Amreekis did not try to take along a wife or two - they would be able to tell how and where Osama had been hiding all these years.

That would be kidnap of innocents.

[Singha]

hopefully he was using a high end antec, coolermaster or lian li case which has sliding bays for HDD - the HDD attaches to a couple of drawer rail things with screws and one slides these rails into the 'drawer'. the HDD can be stolen with the rails attached, by detaching the sata and power cable from the back.

maybe he was also into gaming and COD (call of duty) given his militant background. and with two fresh young wives on the staff, he sure was getting plenty of pu$$y on demand incl threesomes albeit leading a very house arrest type life to fly below radar.

[NRao]

Pakistan's main intelligence agency, the ISI, has said it is embarrassed by its failures on al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden.

PURE BS.

Falling on the sword will not negate facts.

ISI knew and facilitated the survival of Osama.

[Johann]

Vina, Singha, Shiv,

When I think about it carefully whomever ordered those now disassembled PCs (the ones in the footage) for Bin Laden probably wanted a well designed case so that *they* could quickly evacuate with their data if they needed to move quickly. Bin Laden has had to move many times in the past, and Al Qaeda started in the 1980s essentially as a rolodex of "Arab Afghans". Data was very valuable to him.

Re. the larger issue of the data, and what comes next.

The couriers, rather than Bin Laden probably had some of the most sensitive contact information.

Even in the late 1990s, the Deobandi groups (unlike the LeT) were far more enthusiastic and inspired by OBL than the PA. The PA needed a relationship with OBL to manage them.

It seems logical to me that one of the biggest reasons that the PA would have wanted to provide top cover for OBL since 2007 (despite his calls to overthrow the Pakistani state) was as leverage, and as a channel to moderate the Pakiban.

The Pakiban shot Khalid Khwaja, and much more shockingly, Colonel Imam (Hamid Gul wouldnt have fared much better).

It is not surprising then that the Pakiban has reportedly called off the truce after the US killing of OBL.

This may be America's big break in pushing the PA in to North Waziristan as well.

Even in the late 1990s, the Deobandi groups (unlike the LeT) were far more enthusiastic and inspired by OBL than the PA. The PA needed a relationship with OBL to manage them.

It seems logical to me that one of the biggest reasons that the PA would have wanted to provide top cover for OBL since 2007 (despite his calls to overthrow the Pakistani state) was as leverage, and as a channel to moderate the Pakiban.

The Pakiban shot Khalid Khwaja, and much more shockingly, Colonel Imam (Hamid Gul wouldnt have fared much better).

It is not surprising then that the Pakiban has reportedly called off the truce after the US killing of OBL.

This may be America's big break in pushing the PA in to North Waziristan as well.

[Paul]

they built a mockup on a 1 acre lot in a off-limits-to-most area of bagram afb itself per reports and practised from start of april if not earlier. could have passed it to curious onlookers it was just a generic model, just like one of scores in mainland US bases.

NPR in SoCal says they trained in San Diego....Camp Pendleton has lots of real estate

[suryag]

I still am missing one piece in the puzzle. How did Khan dada's men know that there was no tunnel from this house to elsewhere ?

[Sam]

For years on Pakistan not knowing is bizzare.

Even in third world countries they have:

- Sale of land records for the compound
- Building/construction permits
- Electricity bills
- Water and sewage bills

Just need to find out in whoes names all these records exist and what kind of payments were made.

[ManuT]

Since the house was built in 2005, what did TSPA raid in 2003? Fields?

Irrespective of location or nature of a 'strike', it seems, TSP willing be receiving end of the short end of the stick. So can't fool all the people all the time.

For TSP, are only a level down bad as an attack on the west. 



Colin Powell-Armitage were a minority in the Bush and part of jr Bush first term administration replaced by Rice.

Donald Rumsfeld, shouldn't he be focusing on detoxing his son.   

[shiv]

now disassembled PCs (the ones in the footage)

What footage. I did not see any footage of disassembled PCs. Does anyone have a link? I would be surprised if he actually used PCs. It's always laptops nowadays. They work though power failures.

[Nandu]

OBL was on the run until 2005, and then suddenly decided to settle down and not move any more?

What happened in 2005 for him to make that decision?

[Pranav]

Another question is why the Amreekis did not try to take along a wife or two - they would be able to tell how and where Osama had been hiding all these years.

That would be kidnap of innocents.

Come on, more like arrest of accomplices who aided the fugitive or detention of material witnesses.

[Singha]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42877036/ns ... bin_laden/

SEALs and Delta Force both, commanded by then-JSOC chief Gen. Stanley McChrystal, learned to work much like FBI agents, first attacking a target, killing or capturing the suspects, and then gathering evidence at the scene.

McChrystal described it as building a network to chase a network, where the special operations forces work with intelligence analysts back at a joint operations center. The raiders, he said, could collect valuable "pocket litter" from the scene, like documents or computers, to exploit to hunt the next target.

The battlegrounds of Iraq and Afghanistan had been informally divided, with the SEALs running Afghanistan and Delta Force conducting the bulk of the operations in Iraq, though there was overlap of each organization. There is considerable professional rivalry between them.

Delta Force units caught Saddam Hussein late in 2003 and killed his sons Uday and Qusay in a shootout in Mosul earlier that year. Delta Force later tracked down al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, pinpointing the building where he sheltered for the aerial bombing that ended his life

[anupmisra]

She went postal on pakis.

Just a nitpick. I think you meant "ballistic". Going postal means something else (in a negative manner).

[Theo_Fidel]

Apparently the police knew enough to not ask for hafta for 5 years.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/banyan/2 ... a_pakistan

Nobody reports seeing other visitors, official-looking or otherwise, coming to number 25. A nearby hospital could perhaps have been useful for a man, such as Mr bin Laden, who suffered from kidney disease. Pakistan's main military academy—the country’s Sandhurst or West Point—is only short distance away on foot. Local residents say that police regularly swept the area, roughly once a week, checking residents' IDs and sometimes looking inside homes. It is hard to believe that this house could have escaped scrutiny for long. Most embarrassing for Pakistan's most powerful man, General Ashfaq Kayani, the chief of staff, is that he was just across the field from number 25 just last week, boasting at the military academy that Pakistan had broken the back of terrorism. At the time Mr bin Laden was within shouting distance of the general. That looks increasingly difficult to explain.

Perhaps that is why Pakistan's government is fumbling to respond. Ordinarily loquacious spokesmen have gone mute. The usual promotion of elaborate conspiracy theories will no doubt resume soon, but the best that Asif Zardari, the president, could manage was a bluff and unconvincing denial that Pakistan is home to fanatics and terrorists in an op-ed for the Washington Post.

[shaardula]

Both Pakistan Prime Minister and Ambassador to US lying through their teeth.
Is this Ambassador Haqqani anyway related to terrorist group Haqqani? Maybe same tribe/clan?

Whats that at 3:51? Wolf--> Flying back to afghanistan or to indi..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8fNV6yH ... r_embedded

[Singha]

pics of sea burial may be released soon
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42873423/ns ... bin_laden/

[Klaus]

I still am missing one piece in the puzzle. How did Khan dada's men know that there was no tunnel from this house to elsewhere ?

Khan's humint in Abbottabad would've studied the sewerage network, not just the house but the neighbourhood as well. They had a year to do so.

I'm starting to feel that OBL was staying in this particular ISI safehouse for the nth time (where n could be a number > 1), so he was shuffled across safehouses in TSP (like Gagan has mentioned). He also felt relatively comfortable in this house, so his comfort zone allowed him to fall complacent (getting milkman to deliver in the morning, calling the tailor in etc).

[RamaY]

They will know every thing to a fine detail such as who, where, when and how in every place in every country that had a contact however fleeting and remote with the Al-keeda and affiliates. Now with the Pakis being so incestous with Al-keeda, they will know exactly what did whom and when with the Al-keeda and how the Pakis double crossed and played well, Paki in each turn.

I hope in the process they find details of ISI officers who were neck deep in the deaths of those CIA agents and Afghanistan operations. Even if this result in 10-50 ISI officer eliminations (directly or indirectly) that many less pigs for India to handle.

[vina]

now disassembled PCs (the ones in the footage)

What footage. I did not see any footage of disassembled PCs. Does anyone have a link? I would be surprised if he actually used PCs. It's always laptops nowadays. They work though power failures.

Times Now was showing Geo TV footage of the inside of the "mansion" which had a PC with a case opened.

Think of it. If you are constantly on the move and cant lug things around too much, but need to move your data, rather than lug a laptop/notebook around, it is easier to just carry the hard disk and scoot. Sure, a pendrive is easier, but it still has limited capacity and you cant carry all the data you want.

[ramana]

there is bound to be a lot within the US that have a soft corner for TSP, perhaps for a variety of reasons.

However, seems to me that Obama did isolate the GoP and did not mention the Army nor the ISI/intel in his dealings. Is that true (I have not followed most news reports, which is why I ask).

IF true, then this US admin seems to be building a crack in the Paki armor. Just like their Chinese counterparts, nations may cultivate a "civilian" component and try and drive the remaining into the ground.

I suspect Powell, et al are closer to the nin-civilian components in Pakistan and refer to that group when they refer to Pakistan.

and

A few points that I have to make.
1. Don't underestimate the US administration's intelligence level.
They KNOW that Pakistan Army / ISI=Al Qaida=Terrorism. Which is why that was the SOP at Guantanamo Bay.

What we see in action today is the GOTUS giving the green signal to the US media-wallas to go after the Pakistanis, make them sweat, put the fear of god into them. Note that the US is appearing menaicing and threatening, but is slowly saying the same old' "Pakistanis have killed more terrorists in pakistan than any other country"

Actually the US is bargaining. They are devaluing what Pakistan has to offer to get a better bargain.

The US still needs the ISI and the Pak Fauj for quite number of years. Pakistan still has the US's balls in its hands via its potential to unleash terror - WMD terror. And the US has Pakistan by its balls with the economic lifeline, and is now squeezing them with the "Terror sponsoring Nation" branding threat.
2. At the end of the day, after the media wallas have cried themselves hoarse, and Pakistan has agreed to GUBO (for the time being - another tactical Taquiya) at the US's terms, it will be back to business. Munna will regain frontline terrier al-lie in GOAT hunt.

There can't be any other possible end result of this!

...

4. I have some ideas on how that op was carried out. I would love it if some BRFites could pitch in and make a sort of mil scenario out of it to try and make a time line of how this was done.

....

Precisely. Accusing the TSP of being a treacherous entity isnt helpful for US objectives. Instead patting them on head and agreeing they are dumb and didn't know big bad OBL was right in front of PMA will allow them to be more obedient to carry out rest of the Af-Pak agenda.


Its like you pat your rogue pitbull and lull it instead of whipping it which will enrage it to attack you.

If the rogue pitbull is not assuaged one can expect a Major's coup and all the consequnces. Recall the FSU generals who staged a coup against Gorby!

In a way this erasing OBL is needed to let the Arab "democratic" spring to flower. That is the link to the West Asia-North Afirca(WANA) rising. The alterbnative of fundamentalist defiance has to be negated. As long as OBL is lurking in the shadows he is threat to the remaking/reshaping of the WANA!

So really speaking when the first riots broke out he was history. We didnt know then.

Gagan regarding 4 please do so in another thread.

http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewto ... 8#p1081918

I also request you and chaanakya to go through the GIS paper(MIT pdf) and locate Hafiz Saaed and Dawood Ibrahim.

Now we understand the need for the high res imagery!

Need to see how PRC will pull TSP nuts from the fire by creating diversion.

[SaiK]

musharraf squealed.. but he can do more..

[SwamyG]

Rachel Maddow is ripping Pakis left and right......check it out

http://videos.mediaite.com/video/Rachel ... at-Ally-Pa


added later: Gawwwdddd........i love maddow now.....that's it. i bow down to her. this coming from US mainstream media!!!!!!!!

She was brought into MSNBC by Keith Olbermann; but unlike her mentor who used to go like Chris Matthews at the camera and at the Republicans; she always displayed better intelligence and choice of words than her partisan commentators. Of course if you know about her ahem ahem preferences, it probably will endear her to you little more

[anupmisra]

Pakistan's main intelligence agency, the ISI, has said it is embarrassed by its failures on al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden.

PURE BS. Falling on the sword will not negate facts. ISI knew and facilitated the survival of Osama.

Read between the line, NR. ISI saying that "it is embarrassed by its failures on al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden" means it is embarassed by its failure to provide a foolproof security arrangement and it unwisely chose one of its own safe houses miles away from the garrison to protect OBL. It is also embarrased by the fact that it failed to not follow the paki agents who were working for us. And, it is also embarassed now because, like a child, it has been caught with its hands in the cookie jar.

[Theo_Fidel]

I keep thinking of Raymond Davis. Keep thinking he was involved and had vital info to get back to JSOC, literally with a license to kill anyone in the way.

Not only that, the secrecy required to not give away even a hint in such circumstances is amazing. Real time James Bond.

[SwamyG]

Musharraf has already squealed. He is now barking because he cannot re enter Pakistan and he can say things that Paki jernails don't have the guts to say like "Violation of sovirginity"

The only place he will and can retire peacefully and safely is India. He will write more books, give interviews, tour Universities and whatnot.

[chaanakya]

Apparently the police knew enough to not ask for hafta for 5 years.

That is Clinching evidence. Local pandu must be grumbling loud and clear.

[Altair]

I keep thinking of Raymond Davis. Keep thinking he was involved and had vital info to get back to JSOC, literally with a license to kill anyone in the way.

Not only that, the secrecy required to not give away even a hint in such circumstances is amazing. Real time James Bond.

I agree. Sooner or later Osama would have been moved just as a precaution. This guy had actionable intel and had to do what he had to do. Plain and simple. No CT's here.

[subodh]

sitting - biden, obama, webb, mcdonagh, clinton, gates
standing - mullen, donilon, daley, binken, tomason (female), brennan, clapper (beard, partial visible)

[Altair]

The only place he will and can retire peacefully and safely is India. He will write more books, give interviews, tour Universities and whatnot.

******

Edited. Dont make off-color remarks. No need for that.
Thanks, ramana

[devesh]

^^^
really now....did not need that imagery.

[anupmisra]

OBL was on the run until 2005, and then suddenly decided to settle down and not move any more? What happened in 2005 for him to make that decision?

Retirement (54 years old but he looked like 63). Beside, the air in Abort-a-bad reminded him of the air in the hills of Tora-Bora. And to top that, great medical coverage and friendly, non-nosy neighbors.

[chaanakya]

I keep thinking of Raymond Davis. Keep thinking he was involved and had vital info to get back to JSOC, literally with a license to kill anyone in the way.

Not only that, the secrecy required to not give away even a hint in such circumstances is amazing. Real time James Bond.

I had similar thoughts. RD saga created bad blood between the two. Unkil had to get him out by hook or crook.Had he continued in prison, ops might have been compromised and it would take another ten years too get the baasta'd.
This incident showed Pakis what its Sovereignty as a country meant to its paymaster..less than toilet paper...

I also recall OM Baba giving statement recently that they would undertake operation wherever they want to, even in Pakistan.
Searching for it.

[Sam]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13268517

"This one failure should not make us look totally incompetent. Look at our track record. For the last 10 years, we have captured Taliban and al-Qaeda in their hundreds - more than any other countries put together."

ISI is hilarious!

Pakistan is infested with Jihadis and by sheer probability they are bound to capture millions of terrorists.

[RamaY]

There are still some questions - why the extremely hasty disposal of the body, without showing it to anybody else, how come the DNA results came so early when there are no rapid DNA systems on the market as yet, why no photos/videos released.

The other questions were already answered.

Imagine USA still kept the dead body and someone, family or friends, requested the body to be returned for final rites. Can Obama/USA decline such a request; and face the consequences of it either way?