More mystery surrounding the Bin Laden raid

A couple of posts down, we discussed the growing body of evidence that Pakistan and the United co-operated on the Bin Laden raid, and that the Pakistanis may have been sheltering Bin Laden at the paid behest of the Saudis. As many of you know, the "official" account of what went down in Abbottabad was written by Nicholas Schmidle in The New Yorker.

Cryptome has been looking into Schmidle, who turns out to be an interesting fellow. He was expelled from Pakistan in 2008, which indicates that the Pakistanis suspected him of being a spy. I like the way Cryptome puts it:

Journalists and others accused of spying customarily brush it off as propaganda, exactly as do spies, counterclaiming conspiracy theories, an F1-key standard covert operating procedure.

(Fair warning: In the future, I'm going to be ripping off that "F1 key" crack a lot.)

His father is Robert E. "Rooster" Schmidle, Jr., "a former general in special operations and is now a Lt. General serving as deputy commander of Cyber Command." Schmidle the younger is funded by the Institute of Current World Affairs and New America Foundation, both long suspected of having intelligence links.

Not only does the NAF often host talks by former and currently serving CIA personnel (see also here), they are huge supporters of the drone attacks in Pakistan. NAF actually keeps tallies on every single drone attack and fatality.

That said, the NAF seems to represent the not-entirely-looney segment of the American power structure, in that they support universal health care.

Steve Clemons of the Atlantic is another key NAF figure, and a good friend to Schmidle. He took Cryptome's analysis seriously enough to write a piece smirking at it.