The Landlords of Defence To Pakistan's Defense

We all know that the Pakistani Army developed, funded, armed, trained, and supported the Taliban way back when Bill Clinton was conducting an orientation program for interns in the Oval Office.

Even right after 9/11, the Taliban spokesman (yes, the one with the squeaky voice) was based in Pakistan. He was busy giving ad-hoc interviews, negotiating with anyone who could understand him, and conducting tours - until the Pakistanis got tired of him.

After all, the Taliban were the Pakistani Army's response to the audacity of Ahmed Shah Masood, the playing of our Pushtoon card in the ethnic cauldron of Afghanistan, and most importantly, our strategy of deep thinking against India. God bless General Naseerullah Babar, Benazir Bhutto, and the rest of them for sowing the seeds of the carnivorous plant that we now face in Swat, Buner, Dir, and, now, from what I hear, Saidu Sharif.

Somewhere in 2001, our ex-dictator Mushy learned that it was more profitable to abandon the Taliban, arrest and collect the bounty on as many Arab and bearded tourists in Pakistan, and pocket the millions and billions that Bush was spending like a drunken sailor on shore leave.

So, as much as I detest the Taliban and their fanny flogging fetish or their head hunting horror, I am not at all heartened or satisfied by the Pakistani Army's "Johnny come lately" assault on Buner and supposedly Swat. I cannot sign a blank check of patriotism, hope, righteousness, and mindless admiration for an army that engineers danger, dramatizes events, sacrifices civilians, feigns disaster, and then comes to the rescue - all depending on how much help it needs to combat the evil ones. We are witnessing a staged, managed, and choreographed calamity that has as its objective - the lining of khaki pockets - including some white and blue ones along the way.

In order to understand the true intentions of the Pakistani Army, one needs to conduct a thorough audit of the $10B squandered on Pakistan and its army by another fool - George Bush. What exactly did Pakistan and its sworn defenders do with the $10B in aid provided by a desperate and less than frugal Bush administration?

It's obvious that the Pakistani Army's frequency of bravery and its locomotion strategy of war/peace/war are modulated by the amount of urgent "aid" being discussed in Washington, D.C. If we can't trust the army, if we can't trust the elected ones, if we can't trust the divinely-inspired bearded ones, why is it blasphemous to think that our God is on the take too?