Pakistan's conspiracy delusions fed ISI support for Al Qaeda

Strategy Page reports:
Delusions: Anti-Pakistan conspiracies are seen everywhere. This results in some odd, to Westerners, beliefs. For example, most Pakistanis believe that the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States were not carried out by Moslems, but were staged by the United States to justify a war against Islam. Most Pakistanis believe that India is planning to conquer Pakistan, and all the stories in the Indian media that contradict the invasion fantasy are seen as part of a big conspiracy. American diplomats often complain about the difficulty of working in Pakistan and coping with all these fantasy-based beliefs. These diplomats are further dismayed when they find that that their fellow Americans back home don’t really believe that anyone could be that delusional, much less an entire nation. Yet many majority-Moslem nations have similar delusion problems.

Some of ISI leadership Dec. 2010

Al Qaeda support:    Pakistan, not Afghanistan, has been the main supporter of al Qaeda from the beginning. It was Pakistan, and ISI, that provided sanctuary and support for the forerunners of al Qaeda. These were Arab volunteers who came to Pakistan in the 1980s to join the jihad against the atheist Soviet (communist) occupation of Afghanistan. ... Al Qaeda was not created (in 1988) by ISI, but has long been sustained by the Pakistanis. While the ISI allowed al Qaeda to form in Pakistan, they would not, at first, allow the terrorist group to base itself in Pakistan. After bouncing around in the 1990s, al Qaeda was welcomed to Taliban controlled southern Afghanistan in 1996. At that point, ISI established closer relationships, and control, of al Qaeda.ISI itself had become radicalized in the 1970s, when the army leadership decided that the cure for the corruption and bad government in Pakistan was Islamic radicalism. This did not work, but once established, Islamic radicalism is very difficult to eliminate.

Signs of change: Defeated Islamic terrorists have gone underground in Pakistan, giving the ISI more trouble, and increasing Pakistani opposition to the ISI. Most Pakistanis know the ISI role in creating these terror groups, and holds the intelligence organization responsible for the subsequent mayhem and slaughter. ... Pakistani Army commanders are debating the possibility of attacking Taliban and other Islamic terror groups in Baluchistan (southwest Pakistan) and especially its capital, Quetta (where the Taliban leadership have lived openly since early 2002.)

Army leadership May 2011