Behind the Chairman’s Door

This morning’s Daily Times carried a stunning headline for Pakistanis. Asif Ali Zardari, to clarify “the President of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan” stated that ”Obviously, the world is a safer place,” he said. “It could have been worse,” in an interview with the Washington Post on Saturday. Can I ask which world Zardari is talking about?

If we look at it from Pakistan’s point of view, we are under attack both from internal and external forces. Our borders are regularly being violated by US military forces and our citizens are being targeted in terrorist attacks on our own soil. The international media has made Pakistan the reason for the US failure in Afghanistan because apparently the Soviet conflict never happened and the US never left Afghanistan in a lerch after using it to defeat the Soviet Union. Yet, Zardari feels that Bush has made the world a safer place.. interesting… did you hear the dollars transferring to offshore accounts there??

More interestingly, in the same interview, Zardari refuted the fact that Pakistani forces fired on the US military on their latest incursion into Pakistan. While Admiral Michael Mullen was confirming to the media that:

“There was a cross-border fire incident yesterday,” Mullen said, corroborating reports from U.S and NATO military officials. He urged both sides not to “overreact to the hair-trigger tension we are all feeling. Now, more than ever, is a time for teamwork, for calm.”

Another interesting thought….

Zardari also contributes the Marriott bombing to the “rise of the axis of evil”:

At the same time, Zardari warned that “the axis of evil is growing.” He cited last Saturday’s massive bombing at the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, which killed more than 50 people, and pressed the Bush administration to step up intelligence cooperation with Pakistan to help confront Islamist militants.

Zardari also announced a new initiative for Afghani farmers:

Zardari discussed a plan to persuade Afghan farmers to plant corn instead of opium to take advantage of rising prices sparked by the burgeoning U.S. ethanol industry. “We can try to grow corn in Afghanistan and give them the same returns they’re getting from opium,” he said.

Sadly, he has nothing to offer the people of Pakistan to feed their starving, nor any solutions to controlling the massive smuggling of wheat to Afghanistan and the Central Asia states.

Later, in the interview:

Zardari reaffirmed Pakistan’s position that it should take the lead in battling terrorism. “This side of the border is my problem,” Zardari said, adding that if U.S. forces need “permission of sorts” to cross the border, “we can have an understanding on that, but they haven’t asked for it.”

“If we need help, we call for them. If they need help, they call for us,” he added. If the United States has security concerns in Pakistan, “let us know. We’ll do it for them.”

Zardari said he welcomed U.S. support in bolstering his country’s ability to patrol Pakistan’s porous border with Afghanistan. He also appealed for help confronting an insurgency that has grown increasingly bold in recent months.

“They keep coming up with new ways of war,” he said referring to the Marriott Hotel attack. “Obviously, the problem has not gone away, so the medicine needs to be enhanced.”

I found an interesting post on a blog about the Iraq War which sheds some more light on the “safety” that George W. Bush has given the people of Iraq.

One more thing… not to forget the historic meeting between President Zardari and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, Zardari is quoted in another Washington Post article saying:

Pakistan’s new president, Asif Ali Zardari, said that he thought Palin was “very nice” and that she was “quite knowledgeable” about the threat of terror posed by Islamist extremists along Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan. “She is obviously a hunting lady,” he said, suggesting it was a useful qualification for understanding Pakistan’s complex security challenges.

Zardari said that he was impressed by Palin’s strategy for developing oil reserves in Alaska and that she had done a good job ensuring that revenues flowed to local communities. He said he was considering a similar approach to exploiting natural resources in Pakistan.

“I’ve been promoting the Alaska model to some extent in Pakistan,” Zardari said. At that stage, a senior aide interrupted the Pakistani leader. “The president also spoke to Joseph Biden,” he said. Zardari said that Biden has been instrumental in steering hundred of millions of U.S. dollars to Pakistan to shore up democracy. “He has been a great friend of democracy from the first day,” Zardari added.

Sarah Palin “quite knowledgeable” on the threat of terror posed by Islamist extremists along the Pakistan border with Afghanistan… should we take that to mean that Zardari also has no clue about what is going on the border with Afghanistan? The US media has made it very clear to their voters that Palin has no idea about Pakistan, the War on Terror or Extremism, no foreign policy experience seems to be the regular chorus from the media. Yet, somehow Pakistan’s President Zardari thinks she’s “quite knowledgeable” on Pakistan… guess that comes from his months of foreign policy experience.

Actually, let’s hear it from Sarah Palin herself:

Palin’s apparent disagreement with McCain’s position on Pakistan came as the Alaska governor was picking up a couple of cheesesteaks at Tony Luke’s in South Philadelphia. She was approached by a man wearing a Temple University t-shirt, who later identified himself as Michael Rovito.

“How about the Pakistan situation?” Rovito asked. “What’s your thoughts about that.”

“In Pakistan?” Palin responded.

“What’s going on over there, like Waziristian?”

“It’s working with Zardari to make sure that we’re all working together to stop the guys from coming in over the border,” Palin said. “And we’ll go from there.”

“Waziristan is blowing up,” Rovito replied.

“Yeah, it is,” Palin said. “And the economy there is blowing up, too.”

“So we do cross-border, like from Afghanistan to Pakistan, you think?” Rovito asked.

“If that’s what we have to do stop the terrorists from coming any further in, absolutely, we should,” Palin said.

God help us.

Share and Enjoy: