Selig Harrison notes something that almost no one knows, not in Congress, not in the press, and not, it seems, many others: that since 9/11/2001 the Bush Administration has given Pakistan the equivalent of $27.5 billion dollars. That makes Pakistan, after Iraq, the largest recipient per annum of American aid. The next time someone begins to squawk to you about “all that aid to Israel” — an unshakeable ally in the war of self-defense against the Jihad, as of course it must be, given it is also the victim of the earliest, and best publicized, of the Lesser Jihads begun after World War II (along with that against Hindus in Kashmir), remember this. Growing Muslim wealth and power has, of course, made for dozens of Lesser Jihads, all of which should be correctly seen as local manifestations of the same impulse arising out of the texts, teachings, attitudes, and atmospherics of Islam.
27.5 billion dollars from America to Pakistan? For what, exactly? What has been the great achievement? How is Al-Qaeda doing in Pakistan? Why, it is doing just fine, thank you. An occasional pretend pinprick, nothing serious, a handful of people possibly killed, often the wrong people. Much huff-and-puffing for the endlessly — at least until now — gullible Americans, who have decades of trusting faith in those fine Pakistani generals, those terry-thomased mustachioed ramrod-straight graduates of Sandhurst. Or at least that was how those American generals who for decades preferred them to the Indians, to Nehru and Menon and Mrs. Gandhi, saw them. And by the way, wasn’t Islam a “bulwark against Communism”? And wasn’t Saudi Arabia, just like Pakistan, the true-bluest friend America could ever have? What, me worry?
Someone in Congress, and someone running for office, and many in the press, should be asking this question: what have we got for that $27.5 billion tossed off to Pakistan? Years ago, with American military money, the Pakistani ISI funded “Doctor” A. Q. Khan in his little project, the results of which are by now well-known in Pakistan itself and also in those countries it helped, such as North Korea and Iran. But it doesn’t stop, does it? Right now the Americans are supplying Pakistan with F-16s, capable of doing all kinds of damage, carrying all kinds of weapons. Why? How long do the endlessly credulous or terminally confused (about Islam, about everything having to do with Islam) get to run things? When will someone start pulling the dimwitted from their well-appointed sinecures in the “intelligence” services, and allow for a takeover by those who are well-versed in the doctrines and practice of Islam, who cannot or will not be fooled — not by Musharraf, not by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, not by kinglet Abdullah of Jordan, not by Mubarak, not by any Sunnis, and not by any Shi’a akin to those — Chalabi, Allawi, Kanan Makiya, Rend al-Rahim — who managed to assure the Americans that once they deposed Saddam Hussein all manner of things would be well?
What have we got for that $27.5 billion? Al-Qaeda is not “on the run” in Pakistan, and for that matter, the Taliban are not “on the run” in Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda was never damaged very much by the Pakistani forces. How could those forces, deeply Islamic (see General Malik’s book on Jihad), have acted against those who are the brave paladins of Islam? Oh, a few cosmetic operations, designed to keep the Americans happy and supplying that money, cancelling those debts, sending those F-16s and all the other goodies that the army wants — that’s okay. That’s understandable. But nothing real need be done. Musharraf could hardly believe it himself, but it turns out to be just as the Arabs always said — you can get away with anything with the Americans. They’re the dream customers in the souk. They’ll never get it. They’ll never understand. So keep on fooling them. Keep on buying time. Keep on pocketing that aid and those planes. And of course, watch as the Taliban come back, as they have, in Afghanistan. Watch, as they have, the Al-Qaeda forces regroup — still under the same effective management — after the Americans have spent, in the last five years, all over the world, close to a trillion dollars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, in continued Jizyah-aid to Egypt, Jordan, “the Palestinians,” and in hugely expensive “Homeland Security” measures. Yet those measures never seem to include anything that might make Americans the slightest bit more aware of the doctrines of the belief-system of Islam that underlie the need for that Homeland Security, or, supposedly, for all those incredible aid packages and expenses in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and all the other places where “hearts and minds” are to be won through the expenditure of Infidel money, money, money.
The hideousness of it all will not end until the smug bearers of Stupidity have their goddess publicly exposed, and themselves smitten in public debate. And if they try to raise themselves up from the ground with still more idiocy, then let them be smitten again. They are a menace. They are causing tremendous squandering and waste with their miscomprehension, their willful ignorance, their trustingness, their cruel waste of men, money, materiel. Smite them again, show up the hollowness of their phrases (“cut and run” for example), the shallowness of their analysis, the obtuseness of their understanding.