Fools Rush In

The NY Times' Pakistani correspondent, Carlotta Gall, seems like a reporter's reporter, if the story she just broke is any clue.  She's been assigned to that backwards hellhole region since 9/11, venturing into areas that few reporters go.

And after years of searching she says the Pakistani ISI knew a lot more about bin Laden than they will admit:

Finally, on a winter evening in 2012, I got the confirmation I was looking for. According to one inside source, the ISI actually ran a special desk assigned to handle Bin Laden. It was operated independently, led by an officer who made his own decisions and did not report to a superior. He handled only one person: Bin Laden.

I was sitting at an outdoor cafe when I learned this, and I remember gasping, though quietly so as not to draw attention. (Two former senior American officials later told me that the information was consistent with their own conclusions.) This was what Afghans knew, and Taliban fighters had told me, but finally someone on the inside was admitting it. The desk was wholly deniable by virtually everyone at the ISI — such is how supersecret intelligence units operate — but the top military bosses knew about it, I was told.

She is scratching her head wondering why the US Government (obviously both Bush and Obama) have not seemingly understood the motives of Pakistan in this WoT thing.  Pakistan formed the Taliban, they probably ran bin Laden, and they will have their proxies sweep in and take over Afghanistan as soon as we leave. It's far too easy to pawn it off to oil or the military-industrial complex.  But pawning it off to bigger and more troublesome things is hard to do without total sunshine.  Maybe it's time for Jack Nicholson again...