Mr. 20% got his loot
By pm317 on May 16, 2009 at 11:35 AM in Current Affairs, Pakistan, Taliban
If you find the title puzzling, I am referring to this from Steve Clemons post republished at NQ here:
One other interesting tidbit here in Qatar is that many Arabs who have moved in and around Pakistan believe that President Zardari is no longer “Mr 10%.”
They call him “Mr. 20%.”
It is difficult to tell who is playing what game when it comes to Pakistan but they get their billions anyway making fools out of Americans yet again. Now to hear of a double game being played by Zardari as told by his late wife’s niece, Fatima Butto, The Taliban bogeyman, How Pakistan’s president is scamming the West.:
President Asif Ali Zardari, less than a year into his reign, has managed to engage Pakistan’s armed forces, the seventh largest army in the world, in a guerrilla war with the newly formed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, our very own Taliban, in the North West Frontier Province. Rumors of Talibanization air daily on Pakistani television, radio and print media: The barbarians are at the gate, we are told, and warned that if there was a time to rally around the nation’s oleaginous president, a man known locally as “President Ghadari” or traitor in Urdu, this is it. However, the time for scaremongering has past — it is precisely President Zardari’s politically expedient use of national hysteria that has seen American drones welcomed over Pakistan’s airspace and has birthed a war that this government cannot win.
[snip]
In 2008, months after taking power in a hastily organized parliamentary election, Zardari drew upon Pakistan’s overwhelmingly anti-American sentiment and empowered the nascent domestic Taliban, which entered prominence roughly at the same time that the president did, by capitulating to their demands for sharia law in the Swat Valley (the very same region that the government is now, one month later, bombarding with American assistance).
With one hand, Zardari gave the militants what they wanted — no vote or referendum was held — and Taliban law was imposed on the Swat Valley by force. With the other, Zardari pointed a crooked finger at the rise of fundamentalism and capitalized on a golden opportunity to bring the nation’s elite back into the government’s obsequiously pro-American fold.
[snip]
Zardari’s double game may have brought him billions more in American aid and assistance — U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke being the president’s loudest champion in Washington, warning Congress that if billions of dollars are not delivered immediately to Pakistan the war on terror will be in mortal danger — but it has lost him Pakistan.
Read the article here.
(Release: November 13)
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I have been wondering who would make the money if we went to war in Pakistan?
Remember backtrack’s visit during his missing college days. Just who is he connected with over there and what is in it for him? He is a pay for play guy and somewhere along the line he will make something out of Pakistan.
WOMEN WITH INTELLIGENCE AND EXPERIENCE, MEN WHO SUPPORT THEM AND COUNTRY BEFORE PARTY ALWAYS
PUMAS,BUBBAS,EQUALISTS AND THOSE PEOPLE RULE
This is really, really disturbing. I’ve read other damning critiques of Zardari, his penchant for corruption that go back to 90s when his late wife was serving as Prime Minister. And the whole three-pronged approach–military assistance, aide and development–only makes sense [to me at least] if we have a hard, fast handle on where the money is going. But this article leads me to believe that it’s merely business as usual: the scammers get the money and the US is perceived as the villian.
Why then, is Holbrooke, Gates and Hillary Clinton pushing this program? And is the Taliban merely a boogyman? I certainly wouldn’t want to be living under their thumb.
If Fatima Butto is correct then both the Pakistani and the American public are being scammed.
How can we ever tell what is true or not? It’s as if we’ve all fallen down a rabbit hole.
Depressing.
Why are they backing the program? Because if the Taliban gains control of the nukes, that’s — as my pappy would have said - “all she wrote.”
He may be playing a game, but it’s a damn dangerous one whose outcome he cannot control.
Geez! What a shame that Hillary had to go and kill Benazir Bhutto.
Our new T-shirt:
“I went all the way to Pakistan and all I got was this lousy slimeball!”
“What a shame that Hillary had to go and kill Benazir Bhutto.”
What the hell is that suppose to mean???
Craig, I sent you an e-mail about this comment. I think you meant to type something else. (I hope!)
I think Craig was being sarcastic, referring to the false meme circulating during the primary that Hillary was somehow responsible for Benazir Bhutto’s assassination.
Good point, Ani. Craig is one of the good guys, and has written some great essays for us. And he does have a wry wit!
Yes Susan, Craig is definitely “one of the good guys.” Sometimes it’s hard to recognize when someone is being sarcastic, as I have occasionally found to my discomfort.
Fortunately, I missed that meme, Ani. Maybe I turned my ears off to it.
I read Craig’s comment and my hair started to smoke :0).
OK, folks - apparently I have been a bit too smart for my own good.
Yes, the first line was a sarcastic reference to the scurrilous attempt by the slimeball David Axelrod, during the primary campaign, to somehow connect Hillary’s campaign to the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.
The second line was a reference to Pakistani President Zardari (Benazir’s widower) and his past reputation for corruption… he seems to be at it again.
Sorry for the confusion, I’ll try to be less cryptic with my snarks from here on out.
I’m assuming that the comment about Clinton and Bhutto was supposed to be a snark comment regarding insuations made during the primary that Hillary Clinton was somehow responsible for Bhutto’s assignation.
Did any of you see the David Frost interview yesterday of Zardari?
Mr. 20 percent you say…well now what should one expect when trying to win the “hearts and minds” of the ruling junta. Surly it ain’t gonna be the fact that we’re usually shaved and don’t always [just some of the time] smell like a goatherds when we visit their homes or offices.
I’m sorry, that just ain’t gonna do it….!
No sirree, Bob!
What finally convinced the Sunni, “Sons of Iraq” to come over to our side in Anbar Province?
That’s right…!
Do you recall what happened when; for one reason or another they didn’t get their usual stipend and the good General Petraeus quickly turned the spigot back on, to keep the “Surge”, surging!
Damn, that seems to work everytime you try it, just like magic…!
I recall we used to return from Saigon, now Ho Chi Minh City, with duffle bags filled with litterly millions of piasters. Gift[s] for the, Province Chief when he visited, Village Chief[s] and elders on a regular basis, your indigenous officers and men, your runners and indigenous spooks and finally if there’s anything left…local purchases of gas, food and produce to keep the operation runnin’ smoothly [most of the time].
How did that all work out for you, you ask..?
Did I mention, Ho Chi Minh City…?
Yah well maybe…I’m betting there’s gonna be a lotta inflated “Greenbacks” floatin’ around over there…when [and if] that day comes…?
What actually worries me now is; they may be requiring payment in, “Yuans” instead of the faded green.
First, the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan should be called Pashtunistan. Read this and follow the link for more.
Scared of the “Nukes in Terrorists Hands?”
Maybe it has happened all ready.
We, under our “Hope” and “Change” President, are following Gates into the Valley of the Shadow of Death with both eyes open. What’s the Plan? Why are we there? OIL OIL OIL the Pipelinestan. Look it up.