And in this week's remedial national leaders conflict course, we have Pervez

Pakistan now sees porous border area with Afghanistan as direct threat

No really?

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gate said last week that the number of Taliban and Al Qaida terrorists crossing over from eastern Afghanistan into Pakistan's tribal border region has declined.

"I would say we have seen in RC East a significant reduction in the number of people coming across the border from Pakistan," Gates said during a visit to Lithuania Feb. 7, referring to Regional Command-East.

Gates said the cross border transit is a problem and Pakistan has begun to realize only in the past several months that that the lack of borders controls is "a serious threat to the state of Pakistan itself."

"Al Qaida and some of the other insurgent groups there have threatened to kill the leadership of Pakistan," he said. "They've threatened to destabilize the country and the government. They're almost certainly responsible for the assassination of Benazir Bhutto."

Pakistan's government has become to shift its attention, recognizing that the problem is "more consequential than a nuisance."

Breathtaking, no? Our "allies'" intelligence is breathtaking? Or are they that stupid? Or do they think WE are that stupid?

"My view is, my hope is, that we will begin to see the Pakistanis taking a more aggressive stand out there," he said.

It's nice to see that our foreign policy is "hope" well in advance of Barack's election.

CIA Director Michael Hayden told a House Intelligence Committee hearing that a neo-Taliban movement is emerging in the region that poses a serious threat.

The movement is headed by Baitullah Mehsud who has been identified by British intelligence as a major state terrorist threat to both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

"You've had Al Qaida in the [Federally Administered Tribal Areas] since they left Afghanistan 2001- 2002," Hayden said.

Pakistan in the past viewed it as mainly a U.S. threat, not an internal threat to Pakistan, he said.

Oh, I see. So if they threaten your supposed ally and you do squat then that's ok with us if we're the ally in question? Do these people actually listen to themselves?

"They no longer see that. What we have here is a nexus of Al Qaida and Pashtu separatism and extremism and probably always there in latency, but now there actively," Hayden said. "And the Pakistani government now recognizes this is a threat to the identity and the stability of the Pakistani state, and that's new."

Mehsud is "the center" of that nexus and has formed a "bridge" between Al Qaida, the Taliban, or Pashtu extremism and separatism," he said.