Pakistan

Last week, foreign press outlets ran a story that deserves to receive a lot more attention in America. Documents captured in Osama bin Laden’s Abbottabad, Pakistan compound reportedly show that the terror master helped plan the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India.

Perhaps someday we will learn the real extent of Osama bin Laden’s support network inside Pakistan. A truly independent investigation would begin with bin Laden’s ties to various Pakistani military and intelligence officials in the 1980s and walk forward from there. Or, if one prefers, investigators can walk the cat back from bin Laden’s suitors (if they are known) and supporters as of May 2011 to the days of the jihad against the Soviets in Afghanistan.

The White House, presumably stung by criticism following its acknowledgment last week that the president hadn't presided over a meeting on Afghanistan and Pakistan in quite a while, today put out a press release trumpeting such a meeting.

During his four-year tenure as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen embodied the quiet professionalism of the American officer corps. He had been chief of naval operations, yet became the steward of two difficult and draining counter-insurgency campaigns, freeing generals in the field​—​David Petraeus and Raymond Odierno in Iraq, then Stanley McChrystal and Petraeus in Afghanistan​—​from Washington worries.

Bill Kristol, with Mara Liasson and Charles Krauthammer, last night on Fox News:

Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com

As the Obama administration reviews its Afghanistan and Pakistan policy, looking for creative means to challenge extremist funding, the drug trade is increasingly coming into focus.

During congressional testimony on Thursday, Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, accused the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency of sponsoring terrorist attacks on an American embassy and coalition forces. The allegations, while startling, are hardly surprising. (See, for example, here, here and here.) Pakistan’s ISI has long sponsored the main insurgency groups, including the Quetta Shura Taliban and the Haqqani Network, seeking to overthrow the post-Taliban Afghan government. But now, the ISI is apparently orchestrating brazen attacks against American forces.

Orlando, Florida
During Thursday night’s debate, Rick Perry was asked the toughest and most substantive foreign policy question of the evening. Moderator Bret Baier wanted to know what Perry would do first, as president, if he received a 3 a.m. phone call “telling [him] that Pakistan had lost control of its nuclear weapons at the hands of the Taliban.”

The New York Times reports that al Qaeda's number 2, Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, has been killed by a CIA drone: 

A drone operated by the Central Intelligence Agency killed Al Qaeda’s second-ranking figure in the mountains of Pakistan on Monday, American and Pakistani officials said Saturday, further damaging a terrorism network that appears significantly weakened since the death of Osama bin Laden in May.