PANETTA said out loud today that Pakistan is not to be trusted with US intelligence.

[kpete]

Panetta: Pakistan Would Have Short-Circuited the Mission to Take Out Bin Laden
By: David Dayen Tuesday May 3, 2011 10:31 am

The head of the CIA, in line to become the next Secretary of Defense, said out loud today that Pakistan is not to be trusted with US intelligence.
http://news.firedoglake.com/2011/05/03/panetta-pakistan-would-have-short-circuited-the-mission-to-take-out-bin-laden/



Exclusives
CIA Chief Breaks Silence: Pakistan Would Have Jeopardized bin Laden Raid, ‘Impressive’ Intel Captured
By MASSIMO CALABRESI Tuesday, May 3, 2011

In his first interview since commanding the mission to kill Osama bin Laden, CIA chief Leon Panetta tells TIME that U.S. officials feared that Pakistan could have undermined the operation by leaking word to its targets. Long before Panetta ordered Vice Admiral William McRaven, head of the Joint Special Forces Command, to undertake the mission at 1:22 p.m. on Friday, the CIA had been gaming out how to structure the raid. Months prior, the U.S. had considered expanding the assault to include coordination with other countries, notably Pakistan. But the CIA ruled out participating with its nominal South Asian ally early on because “it was decided that any effort to work with the Pakistanis could jeopardize the mission. They might alert the targets,” Panetta says.

Read more: http://swampland.time.com/2011/05/03/cia-chief-breaks-silence-u-s-ruled-out-involving-pakistan-in-bin-laden-raid-early-on/#ixzz1LJxBcCfR

[RainDog]

1. We're negotiating aid to Pakistan

and telling them the money won't be forthcoming w/o some changes in the way they "share" intel...and with whom.

[Drale]

3. The problem is that

Pakistan's government is really really weak and they are a nuclear power. Its a very dangerous situation, and probably will end with India nuking the shit out of Pakistan. Its not a good situation, but I'm not really sure what we can do about it.

[RainDog]

4. Times of India already had an article quoting Salmon Rushdie

and his call to declare Pakistan a terrorist state.

Afghanistan's govt has a statement saying... see, the problem is not Afghanistan - it's the networks in the region.

it is a very unstable situation - and has been. That's why I think the aid issue now before Congress is the carrot to try to avoid some of the worst-case scenarios.

I hope it's successful. I'm not smart enough to be able to figure out how to deal with all these problems. But it seems that diplomacy has a better chance in an unstable region than do random attacks that impact civilian populations.

Today's announcement from the U.S. stated a belief that we are now able to permanently weaken Al Q. Rather than leave a void, hopefully the Arab Spring movement will be able to temper responses to things like the apparent attack in Kabul as of today.

[Drale]

5. I've been saying for a long time that

We are fighting this war the completely wrong way, and I think this Bin Laden thing shows how we should be fighting. The CIA should be focusing on finding terrorist, then we send in small heavily armed teams to surgically take out the target. There was not collateral damage in the Abbottabad attack, and we could cut down civilian casualties to almost 0, if we change our tactics.

[RainDog]

6. republicans ran on bloodlust and fear

the right rules by fear, always - whatever the ideology underlying that conservative and fundamentalist mindset.

and, honestly, even tho I didn't think it was the right thing to do, I did not see any way the U.S. would not invade - not because I wanted that, but b/c Americans are so fearful - and uninformed about options. And, frankly, too many Americans think it's "right" to kill to show power.

Anyway, I agree with you that we need to treat terrorists as international criminals and not as a pretense to wage war in places where we think it serves our strategic interests or some personal vendetta - the absolute worst reason I heard for the invasion of Iraq was the Bush claim that Saddam tried to kill his daddy.

Excuse the fuck out of me, but U.S. foreign policy isn't supposed to settle family feuds.

[gratuitous]

2. Well, duh

But we'll keep sending them money and arms.

[MineralMan]

7. Master of the Obvious, is Leon Panetta.

:shrug: