The Deal

Just saw Anderson Cooper with Peter Bergen, noting that Pakistan has not arrested a member of the Taliban since 2001. Apparently, there's now a deal in place with Pakistan to keep Al-Qaeda's top leder safe:

Pro Taliban militants and the Pakistani government signed a peace deal on Tuesday, according to Pakistani negotiators.

The militants said they would stop attacks in Pakistan and across the Afghan border on the condition that the Pakistani government stop air and ground operations in the Waziristan region and dismantle newly built checkposts.

People arrested during military operations will also be released under the agreement and confiscated property, including weapons, would be returned [...]

The peace agreement means that there will be no more free movement for tribes to enter into Afghanistan.

"Except for trade, people will not be allowed to go to Afghanistan to launch attacks," said Nek Zaman, a member of the tribal council who is also a member of the Pakistani parliament.

You can run all the bullshit 9/11 mockumentaries you want, if it gets out (and it will) that Pakistan "would not bring bin Laden into custody" is he promises to lead a peaceful life, the Bush Administration will lose everyone but the diehards. We've now gone from having the architect of the 9/11 attacks, the man most responsible for killing 3,000 of our citizens, on the run in the Tora Bora mountains, to him being shielded from prosecution by a foreign government. Which, just to clarify, was exactly his situation in Afghanistan throughout the 1990s. So in effect NOTHING has changed for bin Laden five years after the terrorist attack on America. In fact, it's worse, because we're nominally ALLIED with the country that's shielding him.

This is as grave an injustice that's ever been committed on this country. I know fugitives can be hard to find. But to let this one slip through your fingers, and then push him into the waiting bosom of a country to whom we just gave billions in weaponry, it's... unconscionable. Just unconscionable.

But I'm sure an ABC docudrama will prove that Clinton did it.