U.S. and European intelligence officials increasingly believe active or retired Pakistani military or intelligence officials provided some measure of aid to al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, allowing him to stay hidden in a large compound just a mile from an elite military academy.
The suspicions cast light on where the U.S. is expected to focus as it investigates who might have helped bin Laden hide in plain sight in Abbottabad, a town about 40 miles from the capital Islamabad.
“They also told lawmakers they were looking for evidence that elements within the ISI and the army played a direct or indirect role in protecting the al Qaeda leader, several officials said. Helping the effort will be the cache of computers, storage drives and other materials taken from bin Laden’s residence”.
The truth will come out. It always does.
I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!
Who’d like to bet that the Pakistani military built bin Laden’s complex?
As I understand it many (or possibly most) people in Pakistan are illiterate and they are conditioned to accept Muslim teachings and law without questioning. They obey a call to kneel and pray 5 times a day every day and their country is called and Islamic state, so I have a hard time understanding why literate, secular Americans would be surprised to think that a self proclaimed Muslim organization like al Qaeda could successfully infiltrate military and intelligence organizations in that country.
If Al Qaeda successfully infiltrated our literate, well educated, secular country and used our educational systems and flying schools in order to perform their 9/11 attack, why should we assume that they would not be successful in Islamic countries like Pakistan and Libya?
“I have a hard time understanding why literate, secular Americans would be surprised to think that a self proclaimed Muslim organization like al Qaeda could successfully infiltrate military and intelligence organizations in that country”.
That’s no shock, and that’s not what people are griping about. More so it’s that a government that was making some effort to act like our ally probably turned a blind eye or covered up the fact that Bin Laden and co. were there.
[url=http://www.islam-watch.org/Warner/Taqiyya-Islamic-Principle-Lying-for-Allah.htm]Understanding Taqiyya[/url]
Cultures and customs differ. We need to remember that. I have experienced many times when Hindu friends or acquaintances did not tell the truth or refrained from it out of deference to feelings or pride; For them it was more important to avoid hurting feelings than to be honest. With Pakistanis (sharing the same subcontinent and antecedents) and other Muslims, there is the additional Koranic permission of Taqiyya. By some interpretations it is permissible or encouraged to lie to infidels to protect oneself from persecution, or to advance the faith. And the US is assuredly considered infidel. Thus could Yassar Arafat condemn the world trade center attacks in English, and turn around and praise them in Arabic.
The evidence that portions of the Pakistani government deliberately sheltered Bin Laden for years tends to make one view the idea of an alliance with a country that is culturally disposed to falsehood with a jaundiced eye. Without doubt many in the Pakistani government view people like Bin Laden as defenders of their faith.
Creedal, that’s a false (and frankly, offensive) description of Taqiyya, which is the permission to lie about one’s faith in Allah to preserve one’s own physical safety in the face of persecution. Nothing devious about it. Furthermore, taqiyya is haram (forbidden) if it would result in the death of an innocent person.
Here is a more unbiased description of taqiyya:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taqiyya
A [url=http://anglicanprayer.wordpress.com/2011/05/05/protection-against-terrorism/]prayer[/url] for protection from terrorism.
I often use wikipedia as a starting point. It is often edited, unfortunately, to be as inoffensive as possible, or to promote particular viewpoints. It is a public forum, after all. That particular article because of it’s nature has likely been edited by someone with a Muslim viewpoint to present. If so the argument becomes circular.
The tendency to portray over one billion Muslims as a monolithic group of uniform orthodox believers is as big a mistake as doing the same for the Episcopal church.
That said, what I meant was that there are cultural differences which are alien to us that may predispose individuals in other parts of the world to prevarication, and idiosyncratic interpretation of Taqiyya or instruction about Taqiyya in a madrasah by a mullah who’s affinity for conquest views the Quran literally but interprets it liberally are among them. And there are many madrasahs in Pakistan.
Portions of Muslim world have been quite open recently that conversion or elimination of Dar El Harb is their ultimate goal, and that any means necessary to do so is appropriate. That was the stated purpose of the 9-11 attacks.The point is, then, that the protection of Bin Ladin by elements of our putative allies in Pakistan might mean that we have a mutually differing understanding of what constitutes an ally, and that we should be on our guard.
Bookworm, It is possible that Pakistan does not view the United States as a dependable ally either when they consider their neighbors in Afghanistan who may doubt the wisdom of their alliance with the United States now that the United States is about to pull out of Afghanistan [b]again[/b], and leave their residents to fend for themselves [b]again[/b]!