Occupation.

Editor,

Ahmed Rashid's 2009 NYT best seller "Descent Into Chaos" describes ISI collusion with the Taliban in minute -- and shocking -- detail. Has no one in the U.S. State Department read this book? Has no one in Washington spoken with Mr. Rashid? He is among the world's foremost authorities on Pakistani politics. He can tell you exactly who and what the U.S.A. is dealing with in Pakistan, where, by the way, al Qaeda are in all likelihood holed up as we speak.

The U.S. defeated the Taliban in 2002 and had al Qaeda cornered in Tora Bora. The ISI flew the Taliban out of Afghanistan to Pakistan and, in part due to Donald Rumsfeld's refusal to send American troops to fetch them, ushered al Qaeda out of Tora Bora into Pakistan.

Military occupation of neither Afghanistan nor Pakistan is the correct strategy to defend the U.S.A. against al Qaeda. Small-scale clandestine operations spearheaded by local collaborators either bought or sympathetic to U.S. goals is.

Re: "Pakistan’s Double Game" (7/27/2010)