Where does America stand with Pakistan?

I cannot convince myself those in the Government of Pakistan did not know where Osama Bin Laden was when America raided his house and killed him a few days ago. It's clear Bin Laden was living there for quite awhile. With all the billions of dollars in aid the United States shipped to Pakistan in the last decade, it seems it's been money wasted.

So, where does America stand with Pakistan?

Originally posted by bill718
I cannot convince myself those in the Government of Pakistan did not know where Osama Bin Laden was when America raided his house and killed him a few days ago. It's clear Bin Laden was living there for quite awhile. With all the billions of dollars in aid the United States shipped to Pakistan in the last decade, it seems it's been money wasted.

So, where does America stand with Pakistan?

Originally posted by bill718
I cannot convince myself those in the Government of Pakistan did not know where Osama Bin Laden was when America raided his house and killed him a few days ago. It's clear Bin Laden was living there for quite awhile. With all the billions of dollars in aid the United States shipped to Pakistan in the last decade, it seems it's been money wasted.

So, where does America stand with Pakistan?

Originally posted by sh76
Obviously, the Pakistani government cannot be trusted to altruistically look out for American interests; but the current Pakistani government structure is much better for American interests than are most of the likely alternatives.

Our support of the current Pakistani government is therefore not at all a "waste."

Unless you are willing to wipe countries like Pakistan off the face of the earth, you are going to have to do business with the lesser of two evils.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/may/07/afghanistan-taliban-america-anatol-lieven

I thought this was interesting. The writer published a book about Pakistan just recently which looks good. He argues that Americans and the West simply fail to understand how a country like Pakistan works.

Here he compares the likely American exit strategy from Afghanistan with that of the Russians, already interesting enough, and predicts it will fail because it is driven by American domestic politics, not by appreciating the realities of the region. To be fair though, his track record in predicting what America will do is imperfect, having checked some old articals from 2008 and 2006 which he wrote. But then who is good at predicting?

Originally posted by bill718
I cannot convince myself those in the Government of Pakistan did not know where Osama Bin Laden was when America raided his house and killed him a few days ago. It's clear Bin Laden was living there for quite awhile. With all the billions of dollars in aid the United States shipped to Pakistan in the last decade, it seems it's been money wasted.

So, where does America stand with Pakistan?

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/8488236/WikiLeaks-Osama-bin-Laden-protected-by-Pakistani-security.html

A USA Today article reported today that Pakistan and the U.S. signed an agreement that permitted the U.S. to act unilaterally to assassinate bin Laden in Pakistan, if necessary, on the condition that Pakistan could protest their unilateralism after the fact.

Politics transcends nations and cultures, it seems.