It always amazes me when any large home is considered to be a “mansion.” It particularly puzzles me why all of the news outlets are describing bin Laden’s “compound” as a “mansion” and that he was “living in luxury.”
What? Have you seen visuals of the luxurious palace’s interior? It’s nothing more than a dreary-looking mess. It is logical to assume (despite knowing that assumptions can be dangerous) that with the chaos of Navy Seals, gun fire, deaths, Pakistan security people, CIA operatives, and whoever else stomped through the house during and following the raid, a mess would be the result. But it’s easy to gain an impression of what the rooms were like prior to upheaval. And it doesn't look all that grand to me.
“Luxury”? Compared to living in a cave, absolutely! “Mansion”? Again, if it’s not a cave…. What may be considered a “mansion” in Pakistan is very different than Jennifer Aniston’s on-the-market-formerly-featured-in-Architectural Digest definitive “mansion” – California-style. In my perception, true mansions are the numerous grand homes built on the shores of the Atlantic on the east coast of the US. Huge, sprawling grounds with guest homes, pool houses, gardens in glorious bloom….
However, if it suits the purpose of our country’s mouthpieces to continually toss “1 million dollar mansion” around, who am I to point out the obvious? I’m but a witness to the hyperbole surrounding recent events and will just sit back and watch and listen to the sound and the jury of pundits using their expert real estate acumen to amp up the bin Laden story.
Bottom line? We get it. He wasn’t in a cave. And he had a bed, albeit one with a need for clean sheets and no blood stains on the floor until the very end.
it's a slum and the constant comments on the mansion is insulting and galls the hell out of me when I live in a 4 story home made of bricks from my forefathers in a rural environment. The media jerks have to pump it up don;t they always?
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