The capture and killing of 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden is a huge story worldwide today, and will be for time to come.
Pardon me for spoiling the fun, but as we learn the details of where OBL was holing up in recent years, it brings into stark relief more questions about what our nation is doing in Afghanistan — and not in Pakistan, where reportedly there are more al-Qaeda members living anyway.
In case you missed it, Bin Laden was killed in the city of Abbottabad, in a neighborhood near the Pakistan Military Academy, the training center that has produced many of that country's most powerful military leaders. And the fact of the matter is, no Pakistani troops were involved with his capture, and the U.S. did not inform Pakistan of what we were even doing in advance.
The U.S. government's issues with the Pakistani intelligence unit, the I.S.I., have been well noted in the press for years, as the Los Angeles TImes reports
Officials in Washington have long accused the Pakistani government and its security bodies of providing sanctuary and other means of support to militant groups that were closely allied with Al Qaeda and helped the terrorist organization hide and operate there.
In July, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton bluntly accused the Pakistani government of less than full cooperation in the hunt for Bin Laden.
Clinton did not charge that top government officials were protecting the Al Qaeda leader, but instead said she believed that elements of the bureaucracy had to know where he was hiding.
This article appears in Apr 28 – May 4, 2011.