"Having requested the Pakistani government's official permission for such strikes on previous occasions, only to be put off or turned down, this time the U.S. spy agency did not seek approval. The government of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf was notified only as the operation was underway."

Once I had my driver's license, I snuck out of the house late at night through our basement door a few times. This required executing stealth moves from the top floor of our townhouse all the way down to the basement and also not waking our dog Doobie and my mother, both light sleepers and easily excitable at two o'clock a.m. The fact that neither supported my right to be out and about at night on the mean streets of suburban D.C. was a major lifestyle bummer. Instincts told me that initiating peace talks on the matter would have been futile, this battle needed to be fought on foreign turf. I soon realized that the best way to circumvent the domestic police was to sleep at a friend's house. For future endeavors, I strategically chose a friend who had her own wing (intercom included) and whose parents slept like the dead. My nocturnal wanderlust was only intercepted by a foot operation which put me on crutches throughout the second half of senior year, ironically forcing me to spend much of that semester at home with my oppressors.

After reading about the CIA's covert missile operation in Pakistan, I see so much of my adolescent self in the CIA, it's precious: the righteous "my way or the Mir Ali/Beltway" mentality; the disregard for diplomatic negotiations; the disorganized internal database; the inability to translate Urdu. It's inevitable that human and government organizations will feel the need to chart their own path, parental consequences be damned. The only move I question is why they notified Musharraf once the operation was under way. They're old enough to know that no parent responds well to being awoken with bad news. Operational discretion can't really be taught, it's a skill that develops over time.