Pakistan

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The fact that Bin Laden was killed in Pakistan has been taken to indicate that either Pakistan’s intelligence service is incompetent or that Pakistan has been complicit in hiding him from the United States.

I must admit that it is logically possible that they did not know that Obama was living in a mansion among retired military officers and near their top military academy. However, that seems to be incredibly unlikely and it seems most reasonable to believe that they did, in fact, know he was there.

Of course, there is the possibility that those who knew he was there took pains to conceal this from certain Pakistani officials and hence these officials were ably to honestly tell the US that they had no idea where Bin Laden was actually located. However, even this scenario indicates that the Pakistanis were keeping critical information from the US. However, given that the US was able to carry out the raid effectively in Pakistan and leave safely indicates that there was cooperation from the Pakistanis.

At this point, some conspiracy theorists might claim that US officials were aware of Bin Laden’s location and elected not to act on this information. The least radical of these theories would be that Bin Laden was left alone so as to avoid straining relations with Pakistan. Perhaps he was finally killed because he had lost his value to Pakistan. However, the most plausible explanation is that the US did not know exactly where Bin Laden was located, most likely because influential people in Pakistan were protecting him.

Pakistan has, of course, been an active supporter of terrorist groups. This is because certain elements have regarded these groups as useful, primarily in their competition with the main rival, India. Pakistan has also assisted the United States and has fought against terrorists groups. All this suggests the obvious: Pakistan is divided in this matter. On one hand, they find these groups useful and hence support them. On the other hand, the United States is willing to hand them billions and these groups sometimes decide to bite the hand that conceals them. As such, they will work with the United States, at least some of the time.

On its side, the United States is divided between supporting a country that is only our “friend” because of our money and their desire to keep us from working more closely with India and losing our limited influence in that region.