Left in the Dark

There are many misconceptions circulating the media and making the rounds around the internet and elsewhere. People, for some reason, are convinced that the Pakistani government had somehow harbored bin Ladin during his stay in Islamabad, as if they had an idea as to his whereabouts.

First off, it is important to note that in the fall of 2007, bin Ladin actually declared war on Pakistan - stemming from territorial and dogma-based reasons. There is no specific political reason as to why Pakistan would have wanted to commit such a crime. Second, in a recent hearing, Pakistan actually spoke out angrily against the US for going forward with the plan to kill Osama without ever alerting the local forces. Its almost as if if India were to have killed the man responsible for the Mumbai attacks whilst killing two other men, destroying quite some infrastructure and all without any sort of coop with the United States. bin Ladin is dead, sure, but there's still going to be a lot of issues within this part of the world-- feeding off a continuing tradition in poor American diplomacy.

Washington (CNN) -- The United States is pressing Pakistani authorities for answers about how Osama bin Laden could have lived close to a major military base near Pakistan's capital without the government knowing, two senior U.S. officials said Wednesday.
The al Qaeda leader was living in a walled compound in Abbottabad, about 50 km (31 miles) north of Islamabad, when he was gunned down by American commandos in a pre-dawn raid Monday. The killing has left Pakistani officials facing sharp questions from Washington -- and in some cases, from their own people -- and exacerbated an already rocky relationship between the two nations.
A senior Pakistani intelligence official reacted angrily Wednesday to comments by CIA Director Leon Panetta, who told U.S. lawmakers in a closed-door session Tuesday that Pakistani officials were either "involved or incompetent" in bin Laden's case -- and, "Neither is a good place to be." More>