In today’s New York Times reportage by Mark Mazzetti, Jane Perlez, Eric Schmitt and Andrew W. Lehren has come crashing down on Pakistan. Though broadly speaking the news is nothing new to anyone with an ear for politics in the region, the reportage offers documentary proof of ISI complicity with the Afghan Taliban. It is the specificity of the intelligence in the documents that warrants repeat readings. This is a special, must read set of articles. Reader, if you can’t muster the interest to read them then you cannot claim to care about politics or Pakistan:
“Americans fighting the war in Afghanistan have long harbored strong suspicions that Pakistan’s military spy service has guided the Afghan insurgency with a hidden hand, even as Pakistan receives more than $1 billion a year from Washington for its help combating the militants, according to a trove of secret military field reports to be made public Sunday.”
“The documents, to be made available by an organization called WikiLeaks, suggest that Pakistan, an ostensible ally of the United States, allows representatives of its spy service to meet directly with the Taliban in secret strategy sessions to organize networks of militant groups that fight against American soldiers in Afghanistan, and even hatch plots to assassinate Afghan leaders.”
Find the article(s) here. I’ll have soon thoughts on these pieces, this news.