‘Hate Pakistan’ Week, Day Two: We’re Huge Allies Of The U.S. Honest.

You didn’t think we were going to let this drop after one day, did you? Hell, no.

Not after the “leaders” of Pakistan started scurrying to explain how their really our buddies and the $18.6 billion we’ve blown on that rathole was well-spent.

In the Washington Post today, the current president of that country, Asif Ali Zardari, penned an op-ed saying they’ve done their part. Seriously.

Some in the U.S. press have suggested that Pakistan lacked vitality in its pursuit of terrorism, or worse yet that we were disingenuous and actually protected the terrorists we claimed to be pursuing. Such baseless speculation may make exciting cable news, but it doesn’t reflect fact. Pakistan had as much reason to despise al-Qaeda as any nation. The war on terrorism is as much Pakistan’s war as as it is America’s. And though it may have started with bin Laden, the forces of modernity and moderation remain under serious threat.

Zardari mentions that his wife, Benazir Bhutto, was murdered by Al Qaeda. And that’s certainly true, and it’s awful. It must be remembered that Bhutto, the former leader of that country from 1988-90 and 1993-96, supported the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan and helped to build the A.Q. Khan nuclear proliferation network. She was twice removed from office on allegations of corruption, and Zardari himself spent eight years in jail under those accusations – among them specifically that the French aircraft manufacturer Dassault gave him a kickback in return for a contract to supply Pakistan with air force jets.

Zardari says Bin Laden was behind his wife’s removal from power in 1989, having spent $50 million on a no-confidence vote campaign. It worked, possibly because Bhutto was “One of the most incompetent leaders in the history of South Asia” in the words of American historian Arthur Herman.

Zardari’s piece provides absolutely no response to the fact that Bin Laden was living in a million-dollar compound next door to Pakistan’s military academy. Guess that’s not important at all.

You would think that Zardari’s political opponents would be jumping all over this mendacity. Why no, actually. Chief among them is the former tin-pot military dictator Pervez Musharraf, who appears to be all over the TV running his mouth about what a great partner the Pakistanis are for America despite the fact that Bin Laden was hiding under their noses…

Maybe the electorate in Pakistan is replete with dupes and morons who will buy this crap. Despite all the abuse we heap on ourselves here in America, we’re not that gullible. Zardari and Musharraf aren’t helping their cause one bit. Nor is Zardari’s foreign minister.

Pakistan’s security establishment has yet to explain how bin Laden was able to live there undetected, and given that it is rarely transparent about what it does, it might never do so. Asked about the raid, Pakistani Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir said it was time to move on.

“The issue of Osama bin Laden is history and I think we do now want to keep ourselves mired in the past,” he told reporters.

The past? It was SUNDAY, you jackass.

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