Re: "When you boil it all down, it's pretty simple."
Yep! It sure is!
Petty anti-Democratic Dictators are generally out for their own interests... and are counter-productive for achieving AMERICA'S long-term national interests.
'Mush' is no ally of Democracy or the US, and has been playing Bush like a two-bit fiddle.
This lying petty Dictator has:
1) Denied ALL of our requests to even *talk to* the greatest proliferator of nuclear weapons technology in the last 50 years.
2) Given al Qaeda & Taliban sanctuary inside his borders... after his nation's military intelligence service CREATED the Taliban and supported them since day one, as an active part of Pakistan's national military/security policies. (To create and maintain a radical SUNNI regime to their West which holds off Shia Iranian regional influence... the better to allow Pakistan to turn it's attention to it's East, and support TERRORIST CAMPAIGNS against their other, and larger, regional 'enemy' India.
3) Played America (and the Bush administration) like a two-bit fiddle --- sucked down all the military and social aid that they possibly could from the American taxpayers... all while diverting the bulk of it either to beefing-up their military to the East against India... or else siphoned off to private bank accounts in Dubai and Switzerland.
4) Given the Saudi radical Whabbists free play in corrupting the education system of Pakistan --- all the better to turn out generations more of Sunni Jihadists.
5) Stifled all Democratic aspirations of the Pakistani people (after taking power in a military coup...), thereby allowing resentments and despair to build up in the public (all just to keep himself in power), and creating a situation where only the radicals benefit....
6) Is possibly/likely involved in the assassination of his main election rival... sacked the nation's Supreme Court (which was about to rule that, under the constitution, he was not legally allowed to run again...), thereby moved the nation even further towards dictatorship and away from the rule of law.
We don't get anything very useful for the tens of billions.
(He won't 'stay bought'.)
Rather worse: he's been suckering us all along, acting to subvert the success of the government we installed in Afghanistan, and to keep the Pashtuns from ever uniting across the borders, and to make certain that - if Pakistan can't pull the strings of the state to it's West, that the state there is a failure, never peaceful or strong or self-reliant... all so Pakistan can keep it's military (and it's sponsored terrorists) focused on opposing India.
To those ends (& to keep his own grimy hands on power and wealth) he would - and has - made deals with the worst of the worst.
He NEEDS the public threat of 'terrorism' active to keep Western cash pouring in, and to keep his undemocratic hold on power, and to keep criticism at bay.
It's a self-reinforcing cycle: the Dictator and the Terrorists need each other. They both *feed* off of the situation.
Pouring taxpayer's cash on him (without adequate controls or audits of spending) simply perpetuates the cycle and actually worsens the problems and the magnitude of the threat.
Re: "If any of them had been successful, the nukes would be in the hands of al Qaeda today."
That is most HIGHLY unlikely, since 'al Qaeda' is a FOREIGN Sunni Jihadist organization... while the TALIBAN is largely an arm and agency of Pakistan itself... and is represented in the highest military/intelligence agencies of Pakistan. From whence it was born, and directed for years, and still is part and parcel of Pakistan's national foreign policy.
You are confusing WHICH DOGS are actually big enough to 'wag' the main body.... |
