Monday, May 2, 2011

Did Pakistan Know?

Osama bin Laden departed this mortal coil in a city dominated by Pakistani military installations and populated in no small number by active and retired members of the Pakistani armed forces. It beggars the imagination that no members of the military and power hierarchy in Pakistan knew bin Laden's exact whereabouts or at least had strong suspicions that the terror "sheik" was the denizen of the highly fortified mansion that was evidently constructed five years ago to accommodate someone who needed walls three times higher than usual then topped with razor wire, had all sorts of security cameras, but curiously no telephones or Internet connections, oh- and in a million US dollar home in a deeply impoverished country- had no trash collection service instead opting to burn their own garbage. But somehow the neighbors had no idea that a terrorist or terrorists of high value to the West were residing there. The ISI, the intelligence service of Pakistan, which is unbelievably intrusive into even seemingly innocuous measures in the daily lives of fellow Pakistanis (even to the extent of quizzing their countrymen about contacts with cousins who happen to reside in rival India) had to be aware of or at least have more than an inkling of bin Laden's exact location in Abbottabad. If Americans believe anything beyond that members of Pakistani intelligence have given aid and comfort to Islamist terrorists, those Americans are fooling themselves.

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