Firstpost on Osama: Time to declare Pakistan a terrorist state

Pakistan's role in the Osama bin Laden hunt and the subsequent implications of a terrorist living quite comfortably in a military hub has taken media center-stage these last 24 hours. These are our picks for a must-read this morning.It’s time to declare Pakistan a terrorist state: Salman RushdieAs more details of the killing of Osama bin Laden pour in, the perception that Pakistan was always giving sanctuary to the ‘most wanted terrorist’ is being reinforced. Writing in The Daily Beast, Salman Rushdie asks: Are we really supposed to believe that Pakistan didn’t know Osama bin Laden was living there for five years?

“Osama bin Laden’s compound provides further proof of Pakistan’s dangerous folly. As the world braces for the terrorists’ response to the death of their leader, it should also demand that Pakistan give satisfactory answers to the very tough questions it must now be asked. If it does not provide those answers, perhaps the time has come to declare it a terrorist state.” Read

[caption id="attachment_3636" align="alignleft" width="380" caption="Author Salman Rushdie. Getty Images"][/caption]Steve Coll, staff writer at The New Yorker, on his blog:“It stretches credulity to think that a mansion of that scale could have been built and occupied by bin Laden for six years without its coming to the attention of anyone in the Pakistani Army. The initial circumstantial evidence suggests that the opposite is more likely—that bin Laden was effectively being housed under Pakistani state control.”And over at The Slate, Christopher Hitchens says:

“If you tell me that you are staying in a rather nice walled compound in Abbottabad, I can tell you in return that you are the honoured guest of a military establishment that annually consumes several billion dollars of American aid. It's the sheer blatancy of it that catches the breath.”

He then goes on to say that Osama bin Laden’s legacy, such as it is, will be defined by what President Barack Obama does next. Specifically, he wants Obama to stop financing the Pakistani terror machine.

“The martyr of Abbottabad is no more… Yet the uniformed and anonymous patrons of that sheltered Abbottabad compound are still very much with us, and Obama's speech will be entirely worthless if he expects us to go on arming and financing the very people who made this trackdown into such a needlessly long, arduous and costly one.

Did Pakistan cooperate with the US in the operation to get bin Laden? Or was it wholly kept in the dark by US officials, who view the Pakistani military and intelligence as being hand-in-glove with the jihadis? For India, it doesn’t matter either way, writes blogger Pragmatic Desi.“If Pakistan was not even informed of the operation by the US, it shows US’ complete lack of trust in Pakistan army and intelligence agencies when it comes to fighting jehadi terror. In effect, it conveys that the Pakistan army is hand-in-glove with the jehadis. As Pakistan army is the sole repository of that nation’s policy towards India — with its strategy against India predicated on using terror as an instrument of state policy — India cannot expect to see any change of heart from Pakistan.

“If Pakistan was actually a party to this operation and is unwilling to acknowledge its role, it doesn’t make things any better for India. It means that a large section of Pakistani society, and perhaps even the rank-and-file of its military, do not consider jehadi terror to be a menace that the Pakistani state should confront. And the Pakistani political and military leadership do not have the courage to tell their people even this truth, let alone convince them. Talking about peace with such a weak state and a duplicitous military will not save India from the wrath of jehadi terror emanating from Pakistan.”