Also today, Pakistan General Khalid Shameem Wynne, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, cancelled a planned visit to the U.S., telling Admiral Mike Mullen the environment since the bin Laden raid wasn't conducive to anything productive coming from it.
Pakistan isn't about to start asking which of their security and military officials allowed Bin Laden to reside in Abbouttabad. It would rather blame the U.S. and play victim. That's won't last long. It doesn't know what's on the computer files recovered from the compound, and the terror trial of Tahawwur Hussain Rana starting Monday in Chicago over the Mumbai bombings is bound to at least partially reveal the ISI and military's complicity with LeT and other terror groups.
The New York Times says despite all this, we shouldn't cut off aid to Pakistan. Can we at least cut off the intelligence sharing? Our increased reliance on electronic surveillance is bad enough, but insisting on sharing its fruits with every Tom, Dick and Harry law enforcement agency is even worse.
The U.S. needs to end its fixation on al Qaeda, the organization, which has become marginalized, leaderless and which has not been particularly operational in years. Most of the currently dangerous terror groups in that region are in Pakistan -- where their military and intelligence agencies have encouraged their existence.
Another interesting read today: Brand bin Laden in the Vancouver Sun.
Let's focus on getting out of Afghanistan.
[T]he war against terror has shifted. Once, we had a simple goal - destroy al Qaeda and its patron, the Taliban government, in Afghanistan. Now it's clear that al Qaeda is only one element of a global and highly decentralized terrorist threat and that the real battlefield isn't in Afghanistan but in Pakistan, Yemen and a long list of other places where economic devastation and oppressive government are the rule of the day.
Pakistan is corrupt and as prosecutors like to remind juries, when you lie down with dogs, you wake up with fleas. I don't want to see their economic aid cut off, but we should stop funding intelligence sharing programs.