FYI: Pakistan is hit by more suicide attackers over the past year than India. India can achieve nothing by attacking Pakistan. If it is done then it has more to do with shoring up the image of Congress / Manmohan / Sonia (assuming they still have something left).

But those suicide attackers are usually local population and not anyone from India.
If the guys in Mumbai are Pakistanis then it can be considered an act of war.

Hi Scott, I’m not sure everyone in any organization in any country needs to approve an undertaking of that organization in order to launch it, but I should think that, just as in civil law, the organization as a whole is held accountable for the misconduct of its employees, this should be the situation for establishing basis for prosecuting claims against national government agencies under public international law. I have no idea if this is how it’s done.

In any event, as de-lurker points out above, it’s not a done deal. Zardari and Gilani may have decided that Pakistan’s top spy is not going to India after all: http://www.onlinenews.com.pk/details.php?id=136901

It will take a complete disillusion of the agency and formation of a new one to get Pakistan’s house in order.

If I thought any number of dissolutions and reconstitutions could fix the problem, I’d agree, but since it can only be put back together by the same handful of people, and will always serve as a platform for more of the same, there’s no chance of correction — it’s the natuure of the beast.

it mentions the American mismanagement of Pakistan, and its tacit and active abetting of the deviousness of the ISI and the Pakistani government that has caused India much tragedy over the years.

I meant to say:

it mentions the American mismanagement of Pakistan, and its tacit and active abetting of the deviousness of the ISI and the Pakistani government that has caused India much tragedy over the years, only in passing.

All of the signs show that ISI is behind the attacks in some way, but I’m not convinced that everyone in ISI would be willing to finance an operation like this. The ISI chief is on his way to India now to follow up on the attacks with his counterparts at RAW.

308 · Amrita said

BTW, I’m not too clear on why you allowed Kai Hendry to undercut your position. After all, it’s highly unlikely that CIA top brass knew nothing about clandestine CIA operations in Chile, Nicargua, Cuba, etc., even if they did not formally sign off on particular initiatives.

All of the signs show that ISI is behind the attacks in some way, but I’m not convinced that everyone in ISI would be willing to finance an operation like this. The ISI chief is on his way to India now to follow up on the attacks with his counterparts at RAW.

The ISI chief is not going to come to India. See comment #307.

That probably proves that not all of the establishment are on the same page, but this little fact of Pakistan’s backtracking has failed to make its way to some international news outlets.

Christiane Amman-pore and Dee-pack Chopra both– paid to emit the same misinformation znd carry forward the same BS– keeps Larry King and Wolf Blitzer and management happy, I suppose, along with that no-man’s land map. Hopefully, Obama will not act on such delusions and presumptions, or empower The Hillary to do so.

BTW, I’m not too clear on why you allowed Kai Hendry to undercut your position. After all, it’s highly unlikely that CIA top brass knew nothing about clandestine CIA operations in Chile, Nicargua, Cuba, etc., even if they did not formally sign off on particular initiatives.

Dear Amrita,

I didn’t change my post because of what Kai wrote to me, rather what a friend of mine who is a security researcher wrote to me in an e-mail shorty after the post (http://www.scottcarneyonline.com/blog/2008/11/case-against-pakistan.html). All of the signs show that ISI is behind the attacks in some way, but I’m not convinced that everyone in ISI would be willing to finance an operation like this. The ISI chief is on his way to India now to follow up on the attacks with his counterparts at RAW. I get the feeling that the politics in ISI are the same as in every police station in South Asia–the Inspector Generals, Director Generals, and other IPS officers never really know what is going on at the Superintendent and Inspector level. They are political appointees and rotate positions so quickly that the have no breadth of knowledge when it comes to the every day functioning of the regions that they have official control over.

In the case of ISI, I think that it is very likely that the agency is fractured into different well-funded groups with lots and lots of clandestine money that goes unaccounted for. Anti-India hardliners in the agency prop up groups like Lakshar e Toiba and there is little that a political appointee can do about it. It will take a complete disillusion of the agency and formation of a new one to get Pakistan’s house in order.