Get Out Of Jail Free

ABCNews (09.06.06), via ThinkProgress:

"Osama bin Laden, America's most wanted man, will not face capture in Pakistan if he agrees to lead a 'peaceful life,' Pakistani officials tell ABC News. If he is in Pakistan, bin Laden 'would not be taken into custody,' Major General Shaukat Sultan Khan told ABC News in a telephone interview, 'as long as one is being like a peaceful citizen.'" Pakistan Gives Bin Laden Free Pass

Presumably after several frantic and extremely irate phone calls, the "government of Pakistan today denied it would allow Osama bin Laden to avoid capture under terms of a peace agreement it signed with Taliban leaders in the country's North Waziristan area." Mahmud Ali Durrani, the Pakistani ambassador to the US, said the Major General "had been 'grossly misquoted'". Here's a transcript of the recorded telephone interview. You make the call. The apparent confusion stems from the terms of the deal Pakistan seems to have purchased with our money struck along its northwestern border areas. What kind of deal? "'[The Pakastanis are] throwing the towel,' said Alexis Debat, who is a Senior Fellow at the Nixon Center and an ABC News consultant. 'They're giving al Qaeda and the Taliban a blank check and saying essentially make yourselves at home in the tribal areas,' Debat said." Basically, if Osama doesn't bother Pervez, Pervez will return the favor.