Absolutely stunning.
The White House Chief of Staff has confirmed that for now, $800,000,000 in military aid to Pakistan has been cut off. That represents approximately a third of the security aid Pakistan has been receiving annually, not including the economic assistance they also receive.
This is the first time since "the war on terror" began that Pakistan has had money withheld.
Last week Admiral Mullen called out the Pakistani state for ordering the murder of a journalist who had written about ties between militant groups and the Pakistani military/spy agency known as ISI. It was surprising to hear Mullen bring this up as he had been the one who had perhaps worked hardest to forge a good relationship with the Pakistani security establishment. However, in the wake of the OBL raid there have been more reasons for the U.S. to distrust the Pakistani military establishment. As discussed in the NYT article, Pakistan booted out up to 100 military trainers who had been teaching the paramilitary Frontier Corps how to fight militants. In addition to that, they were also given the locations of militant bomb-making factories by the U.S.; who watched with dismay via superb technology while the bomb-makers were tipped off before the Pakistani army could raid these locations.
The money that was cut off was partly for equipment that the U.S. trainers would have taught Pakistani soldiers how to use and partly to reimburse Pakistan for keeping up to a sixth of their armed forced in the border area with Pakistan; a deployment which if anything seems to help protect the militants sheltering in this very area.
General Kayani, head of the Pakistani military, has continually said we need to deal with him because he's the most pro-American general left. The $800-million cut off in aid is hedged on Pakistan taking steps which they have long claimed to have taken or are going to take "any day now". If Pakistan's army is good at anything, it's good at playing extremely cute.
The U.S.-Pakistan strain has the potential to take the wider AfPak region into even darker times. These are interesting times.