Bin Laden's killing: intriguing questions, few answers

right next to a Pakistani military academy – Pakistan’s West point – means only one thing: Bin Laden was protected by elements within the Pakistani government. It is inconceivable – inconceivable – that bin Laden and his entourage could have lived in that place for the last five years without the knowledge of at least some elements – perhaps rogue elements – of the ISI.

Pakistan is not exactly a country where the security services and law enforcement units are hampered by notions of civil rights or the right to privacy. The reach of the government is more limited in the semi-autonomous Northwestern tribal regions, but that reach is unlimited in Pakistan proper.

The fact that bin Laden could have received the protection of important elements in a government that receives billions of dollars in aid from the United States is troubling. It is troubling enough that the ISI trains and supports local or regional Islamist groups that do Pakistan’s bidding against India, but it is another thing to hide the leader of a movement that declared war on – and has pursued active acts of war against — the United States.

We should also be disappointed in the Pakistani lack of sophistication here: they should have understood that they would have been better off sacrificing bin Laden and giving him to us. Just think of the good will they would have generated in U.S.– and Western – public opinion. Moreover, they should have realized that, for their own strategic goals, they should strive more energetically to prove to the United States that they make a distinction between groups fighting for what they – the Pakistanis – regard as their rights in Kashmir, and groups that fight the United States.

The fact that important elements in the Pakistani ruling circles did not make this distinction may raise questions about whether or not the adjective “ambivalent,” so often used to describe Pakistan’s attitude toward Islamic terrorism and those who carry terrorist acts in the name of Islam, should be replaced. We may conclude that the protection bin Laden has received may justify the realization that perhaps the Pakistani true attitude is not so ambivalent after all.

2. Operational aspects
There are three things which are unclear about the operational aspects of what happened yesterday

A. The number of dead
Too few people were killed – and thankfully, no Americans were killed — for there to have been a real