Cameron was right about Pakistan, wasn't he?

[Chil1234]

He got slated at the time by David Milliband and others for speaking out about the terrorist connections to Pakistan when visiting India, but he was quite right as it turns out. Good call.

Cameron was right to say what he did - we know they look both ways on terrorism, and they needed to know we know. Sometimes things have to be said bluntly.

Not surprised the US didn't tell Pakistan what was happening. The ISI would have leaked it instantly.

Yes, David Cameron was right. I'm just a bit concerned that USA think they are allowed to go into another country and "Take somebody out". What gives them the right?
OK so we are all glad Bin Laden got what was coming to him but still...
There is a principle here that leaves me feeling uneasy. Does this set a precedent?

Pakistan/Al Qaeda.

USA/IRA.

Imagine if the UK had sent the army into America and 'executed' IRA sponsors without trial.

If those IRA sponsors had flown planes into Canary Wharf, blown up the New York Subway and killed thousands, I think the Americans would have turned a blind eye.

Why would US IRA sponsors kill fellow Americans? A strange argument.

It was a strange comparison in the first place. The IRA were a bunch of localised thugs with limited capability. Al Quaeda & the Taliban operates globally and has murdered hundreds in countries all across the world... India, Spain, Pakistan, US, UK, Bali etc. Pakistan say they identified the compound as suspicious and were also in the business of looking for Bin Laden themselves. So I don't think the two are comparable.

It's a perfectly valid comparison chil. The only difference being perhaps that the Pakistan government at least made a show of being on the side of the US in tracking Bin Laden.

You call the IRA a bunch of localised thugs, perhaps that is all they might have been without the US funding they received.

However, these 'localised thugs' managed to organise a plot which almost killed the legitimately elected Prime Minister of this country.

What makes Al Qaeda such a potent terrorist force is the plentiful supply of deranged individuals happy to 'martyr' themselves for the cause. Not quite so many of those amongst the Irish.

mmm this is the problem when we agree with the way that America executed OBL (like everyone else agree he was henious man who caused death and harm to so many people), we as civilised nations have to show the correct way with dealing with war criminals, terrorists etc, we have human right laws that have to apply to everyone, no matter their crime.

America pedged to hunt OBL down and kill him, they have and now the terrorists will retaliate and then what, another circle starts.

So.....we should have brought him back, and made sure that his human rights are intact.

I'd question whether he was sufficiently human to have rights to be honest.

Trouble is Im sure that every victim of a murderer feels like this.

its a bit like the shift between bringing Eichmann to Jerusalem for trial and the last publicised Mossad assassination in Dubai.

Lowering the standard. Loosing respect. its insidious.

So - is Pakistan playing a double game, wanting to keep in with both Al Q and US? They know where OBL is (also other terrorists); want the US to dispose of him but can't be seen to be openly betraying him, so they tip the US the wink and look the other way? Or, are the Pakistanis fighting an enemy that is so devious and so deeply embedded that they simply can't cope? Their surveillance is rubbish and thousands of brave Pakistani soldiers and civilians are paying the price of their government's ineffectiveness?

Third scenario: the Archbishop of Canterbury is in fact Osama's evil twin (brothers under the beards - see the resemblance?) and it is all his fault? (This last hypothesis was not my invention - I heard it from one of Sandi Tostvig's guests this morning - blame him). I thought it was very funny - but sorry if I have caused offence ...

Interestingly, I had heard that much funding and support for the Republican cause from the US ceased post 9/11.