The fate of the C.I.A. informants arrested in Pakistan is unclear, but American officials said that the C.I.A. director, Leon E. Panetta, raised the issue when he travelled to Islamabad last week to meet with Pakistani military and intelligence officers.
The military, which has ruled Pakistan off and on for decades, is perhaps the nation's most respected institution. Yet its failure to find bin Laden in a town full of military retirees has exposed the limits of its intelligence capabilities.
Pakistan's foreign ministry says that Abbottabad, home to several military installations, has been under surveillance since 2003. If that's true, then why didn't the ISI uncover bin Laden, who U.S. officials say has been living with his family and entourage in a well-guarded compound for years?
In other words, the NYT knew about Davis' work for the CIA (and Blackwater) but concealed it because the U.S. Government told it to. Now that The Guardian and other foreign papers reported it, the U.S. Government gave permission to the NYT to report this, so now that they have government license, they do so
Press coverage zings with unlikely stories about Davis – that he howls in his prison cells when the five-times daily call to prayer rings out; that the CIA plans a "Hollywood-style heist" to spring him; that he is the linchpin of the CIA's drone programme.
67% of Pakistani journalists surveyed said they viewed U.S. drone attacks as acts of terrorism.
81% said the Mumbai hotel attacks in 2008 were acts of terrorism.
This brings to mind two questions:
If we were to survey U.S. journalists, what would the results be?
Barack Obama gave the go-ahead for his first military action yesterday, missile strikes against suspected militants in Pakistan which killed at least 18 people.
Four days after assuming the presidency, he was consulted by US commanders before they launched the two attacks.
Even though the Obama administration has tried to make a sharp break from Bush’s national security policies, these are the first such attacks inside Pakistan since Obama was sworn in.