Five key insiders who fed information about Osama bin Laden to the CIA have been arrested as spies in Pakistan. The move throws doubt on US plans for enlisting the Pakistani government to fight terrorism in neighboring Afghanistan. The arrests signal Pakistan's first significant political reaction to the assassination of bin Laden on May 2, which caused an uproar internally, and has strained its delicate political and military ties with the United States that the latter is anxious to strengthen.
One of the informants, dubbed as traitors by bin Laden supporters, is a major in the Pakistani military. His job was to record the license plate numbers of vehicles entering the compound where the terrorist leader was living, in relative anonymity.
Others key to the investigation were helpful in narrowing down the kind of information needed to make the bold raid on another country's sovereign soil. All face the death penalty.
Furthering the difficulty is the attitude in Pakistan that President Obama had no right to order the raid without consulting the Pakistani intelligence community, and the government, for verification and assistance. They have also expressed the opinion that the assault was unnecessary, and was designed to kill bin Laden, rather than detain him for questioning. Such a situation may have led to further intelligence coups and may have led to more arrests.
Not one more dime of US money should go to those backward lowlife scumbags. The entire country isn't worth a steaming pile of cow dung. The policy toward Pakistan should be "Take care of yourselves. We're not gonna do it for you. And, if we hear, even a rumor, that there are terrorists training in your country, or running operations out of your country, then everything within 100 Km of that training camp or operations center is going to glow for a good number of decades..."
The last I heard yesterday was that it was not in the best interest of the U.S. to turn our backs on Pakistan. Frankly I think we are scared of them and what they will do if we cut off aid. We just need a leader with some real testicles to stand up to them.
they're scared crapless of terrorists packin' Pakistani nukes and coming to the USA.
It is also my understanding that this sort of thing goes on all the time between hostile nations,
friendly nations, it happens all the time. Should we hold Pakistan to our humanistic and civilized
notions of what's good and fair ? They are lining up as enemies, with the government being a puppet
organization propped by U.S. dollars....but the government does not want to be mobbed and executed
en-masse by the ravening hordes so they begin to stand opposed to U.S. interests where they can.
This may be one instance...I wonder if our government will 'deal' with them to gain the freedom of
the 'traitors', as they are heroes here....
I have been reading a couple of old books lately -- 1960s era -- by a French writer Jean Larteguy. The first is entitled "Les Centurions," which is about some French soldiers who fought together at Dien Bien Phu, were imprisioned together and manipulated by Viet Minh brainwashing at prison camp, and later went to fight in Algiers in the Algerian War of Independence from1954 to 1962. These guys learned a lot from their Viet Minh overlords. There were a lot of characteristics shared by the situation in Algeria with those in Indochina.
In one scene, the French parachute regiment is deployed to this country area where the presiding Colonel has just had a large squad of French draftees killed, mutilated, and their arms taken by the rebels. The Colonel is depicted as one of the old style of "by the rule book" leaders who doesn't have a clue to fighting the style of conflict presented by Algeria. Well, it happens that the French parachute regiment deduces that the rebels are getting aid and comfort from the village itself and they need to stop that and force those guys to live off the harsh land in the mountains rather than sneaking in to down and sleeping in a soft bed and getting food from their village supporters. As it happens, the police are incompetently the tool of the rebels, and one of these police leaders recommends a particular arab as an interpreter for the parachutists. Well, as it turns out, this interpreter is one of the leaders of the rebels -- the political officer. Talk about the fox guarding the hen house! But because of their experience in Indochina in similar asymmetrical warfare situations (the term in the book is 'revolutionary warfare' but today the preferred term is 'asymmetrical warfare'), the parachutists figure this out, extract the necessary information from the 'interpreter' (extracted using something OTHER than the techniques that would pass the approval test of our current US administration), and take care of business.
This just sounds SO much like the situation in Pakistan. The idea that anyone in the Pakistani power structure is trustworthy is absurd. Maybe it would be more fair to say that less than 20% are trustworthy, and the trick would be identifying who these 20% would be. I don't know how you cooperate with such people. Maybe the answer is you don't and Pakistan becomes the new Afghanistan?
The other book is "Les Praetorians" which I am now reading. It is a continuation of the first book. The first book was very good reading and, as I said above, has provided me with considerable insight into the peculiar issues involved in such military situations.
The last I heard yesterday was that it was not in the best interest of the U.S. to turn our backs on Pakistan. Frankly I think we are scared of them and what they will do if we cut off aid. We just need a leader with some real testicles to stand up to them.
Unlike Libya, we have vital security interests in Pakistan. What other nation that indubitably possesses nuclear weapons is on the brink of being taken over by radical muslems? In every other country an arguably rational authority controls the red button. People like to view North Korea as a loose cannon, but I think to the contrary. That guy is a superb manipulator of public opnion and international relations. He rattles his sword just enough to get international attention but not so much to precipitate getting himself squashed. Does he really possess nuclear weapons? Seems like his one test fizzled and was more of a failure than a success. As much as anything, he is posturing to his own people to try to maintain his claim of legitimacy -- which takes some doing when many people end up having to subsist on bark and dirt in the Spring before the first new food of the year (serious, no joke). What about Iran? Is the guy in charge of Iran really crazy? Maybe. He sure talks crazy about Israel. But is this for real or is this too posturing? I don't know. He might be as crazy as he sounds. Frankly, I'm surprised there haven't been a few well placed smart bombs send down his bunker's breathing tubes with the message "From Tel Aviv with Love! (big wet kiss)"
But Pakistan really ought to be where we focus our efforts not Libya. And it could be argued that the harboring of Bin Laden and the treatment of our friendlies there is grounds for changing how we conduct ourselves there, changing to hostile occupation with a view to sweeping the merde out of that place.
Bin Laden Traitors arrested as spies
