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Quote of the day:

"We used to love America.... But why isn't the U.S. standing up for Pakistan when we need it most? Is America even listening to us? We are calling them Busharraf now. They are the same man."

They've got a point. If America's democratic institutions were as fragile as Pakistan's, does anyone really think Dubya wouldn't find a trumped-up reason to declare a "state of emergency" so he could suspend the Constitution and stay in power? Hell, I'm not entirely convinced he won't do it anyway. All that separates the dictator and the wannabe is opportunity.

Amazingly enough, the crackdown on civil rights isn't slowing the Scary Islamofascists down at all. Kinda like how all of Bush's warrantless wiretapping, torture, shock, awe and surges have had minimal impact on al Qaeda. Why, if one didn't know better, one might almost think that Bushie and Mushie were both just grabbing power for power's sake, with no intention of actually using it for its stated purpose.

What really frustrates me is that BushCo. just sat back and let Pakistan fall apart. They took the same half-assed, talk-a-good-game-but-don't-follow-up-or-hold-anyone-accountable approach that they used with Katrina and everything else... and applied it to a nuclear-armed country with a very unpopular dictator. Only now, when it's a globally visible crisis, are they making lame attempts at damage control.

The Bush administration has given Pakistan $10 billion in aid - $7 billion of it military - since Musharraf pledged his "unstinting" support in the war on terror, and for what? Musharraf still hasn't moved towards democracy, he pardoned A.Q. Khan for selling nuclear secrets to Libya, Iran and North Korea (while our State Department shrugged), and he's used almost none of his aid money to actually fight terrorism:

[R]ather than use the more than $7 billion in U.S. military aid to bolster its counter-terrorism capabilities, Pakistan has spent the bulk of it on heavy arms, aircraft and equipment that U.S. officials say are far more suited for conventional warfare with India, its regional rival.

That has left fighters with the paramilitary force, known as the Frontier Corps, equipped often with little more than "sandals and bolt-action rifles," said a senior Western military official in Islamabad, even as they face Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters equipped with assault rifles and grenade launchers.

The arms imbalance has contributed to Al Qaeda's ability to regroup in the border region....

So what did that $10 billion buy us, exactly? Well, given the combination of autocratic rule and lukewarm counterterrorism, there's a good chance that it'll buy us an anti-American Islamist theocracy... with nukes. IANAD (I am not a diplomat), but could it really have made the situation any worse if Dubya called his old pal Pervy up every once in a while and threatened to divert all of that aid money to India if Pakistan didn't start making progress on al Qaeda and free elections?

Of course, such an approach would imply a belief in terrorism and democracy as something more than just the words he uses to intimidate and inspire.

(Photo credit: Helene C. Stikkel/DOD via pingnews)