Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari is getting real cozy with the Iranians supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamene lately. He is also cuddling with Hamid Karzai Afganistans number one. For the last several years Karzai has been trying to foster a relationship with Tehran but not till recently has the relationship blossomed. The Iranians are seeking to swap spit with the two AFPAK leaders in hopes of wooing them away from under Obama’s prom dress. Karzai has been having a love hate relationship with Obama much like a divorced woman who rejects her husband but needs his financial support. In 2009 Pesident Karzai was implicated in a money laundering scam that was centered around the Kabul Bank. This Bank was handling all the transfers from US aid sources and the bank was involved in the washing of counterfeit Afghan Currency and drug profits. The Karzai government was skimming millions of dollars daily for cash payments to government officials and Taliban fighters based in Pakistan to ensure the delivery of goods from the port of Karchi. A team of US money laundering experts from the FBI, DEA, Treasury and Pentagon uncovered the scam in 2009. The team known as the Afghan Threat Finance Cell, worked out of the US embassy and reported there findings to Washington via secure communication. The Obama administration kept the operation, the finance cell and their results secret. Along came Wikileaks and the whole thing was uncovered and Karzai was pissed when he found out that his government had been exposed in a criminal enterprise large enough to finance a war and a small country. It was Karzai that was financing the Taliban through the Kabul Bank. This was done to prolong the war and keep the USAID money flowing.The end result was that US Tax payer dollars funded the Taliban to fight the Afghan soldiers and the US forces. When this discovery made the news it started Karzai’s divorce proceedings with Obama. Then when Obama announced the troop draw down this summer that was the last straw for Karzai, he was on the prowl for a new sugar daddy.
The Pakie Pres in his relationship with Obama has resorted to coercion and extortion as an attempt to garner more US funding. In February of 2010 Pakistanie President Zardari discussed means for funding a road through the northern Chitral region of Pakistan to Tajikistan with special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke. Zardari pointed out that the road would further integrate Pakistan with Central Asia making his country more self sufficient. However Zardari was insistent that Pakistan needed $50 billion in aid to make this and other infrastructure projects possible. When Holbrooke broached the subject of talks with India Zardari insisted that without something in return for his people talks would not be possible. Holbrooke promised to follow up with Senator Kerry on the possibility of including U.S. trade concessions in Kerry's Security Package for Pakistan legislation.
The war on terror has been the best thing that ever happened to the AFPAK region. The US has pumped untold billions into those two countries and they still want more. It has taken a lot but maybe some of the nitwits in Washington may realize that we are not only pouring money down the crapper but actually funding the enemy that we are fighting.
The Killing of Osama bin Laden and most recently the allegations of Admiral Mike Mullen who told a Senate panel that the Haqqani network based in Pakistan was responsible for the September 13, 2011 attack on the U.S. Embassy in Kabul. The Admiral described the Haqqanis as "a veritable arm" of Pakistan's top spy agency the ISI. It is quiet well known that the Pakies are a dis-functional and non-cohesive group of government misfits. They where instrumental in the assignation of Benazir Bhutto the 11th Prime Minister of Pakistan, the November 2008 hotel attack in Mumbai India and the March 2009 ambush on the Sri Lankan Cricket team bus in Lahore. In May of this year there has been eight separate acts of terror in Pakistan on the 13Th, 16th, 2 attacks on the 18th, 20th, 21st, and 22nd killing 157 people with as many wounded. It does not take a international geopolitical genius to figure out that we may have a problem in the AFPAK neighborhood. So now we are pulling up stakes and taking our ball home leaving Karzai and Zardari to there own devices.
Circling the dead carcases left in the wars wake is none other than the Ahmadinejad vulture from Tehran swooping in to pick at the bones and offer promises of solidarity. The Pakistani Foreign Ministry underscored in a statement that Zardari's visit to Tehran was taking place as part of Islamabad's "continuous consultations, coordination and cooperation" with regional states on the issues of regional peace and stability, Afghanistan in particular. "Pakistan attaches special significance to joining efforts of immediate neighbors in an endeavor to bring peace to Afghanistan and to reversing the tide of terrorism afflicting the region." Now that makes you all worm and fuzzy doesn't it. Now that the war is winding down and billions of US dollars are stuffed into the coffers of corruption. And all prewar sanctions have been lifted against the terror safe havens the AFPAK children are still hungry, the Taliban is still fighting, al-Qaeda is still plotting against the West and Iran is laughing at the US waiting for a fresh alliance with a Narco state flush with cash and a nuclear terror state full of Western animus.
The war on terror has been the best thing that ever happened to the AFPAK region. The US has pumped untold billions into those two countries and they still want more. It has taken a lot but maybe some of the nitwits in Washington may realize that we are not only pouring money down the crapper but actually funding the enemy that we are fighting.
The Killing of Osama bin Laden and most recently the allegations of Admiral Mike Mullen who told a Senate panel that the Haqqani network based in Pakistan was responsible for the September 13, 2011 attack on the U.S. Embassy in Kabul. The Admiral described the Haqqanis as "a veritable arm" of Pakistan's top spy agency the ISI. It is quiet well known that the Pakies are a dis-functional and non-cohesive group of government misfits. They where instrumental in the assignation of Benazir Bhutto the 11th Prime Minister of Pakistan, the November 2008 hotel attack in Mumbai India and the March 2009 ambush on the Sri Lankan Cricket team bus in Lahore. In May of this year there has been eight separate acts of terror in Pakistan on the 13Th, 16th, 2 attacks on the 18th, 20th, 21st, and 22nd killing 157 people with as many wounded. It does not take a international geopolitical genius to figure out that we may have a problem in the AFPAK neighborhood. So now we are pulling up stakes and taking our ball home leaving Karzai and Zardari to there own devices.
Circling the dead carcases left in the wars wake is none other than the Ahmadinejad vulture from Tehran swooping in to pick at the bones and offer promises of solidarity. The Pakistani Foreign Ministry underscored in a statement that Zardari's visit to Tehran was taking place as part of Islamabad's "continuous consultations, coordination and cooperation" with regional states on the issues of regional peace and stability, Afghanistan in particular. "Pakistan attaches special significance to joining efforts of immediate neighbors in an endeavor to bring peace to Afghanistan and to reversing the tide of terrorism afflicting the region." Now that makes you all worm and fuzzy doesn't it. Now that the war is winding down and billions of US dollars are stuffed into the coffers of corruption. And all prewar sanctions have been lifted against the terror safe havens the AFPAK children are still hungry, the Taliban is still fighting, al-Qaeda is still plotting against the West and Iran is laughing at the US waiting for a fresh alliance with a Narco state flush with cash and a nuclear terror state full of Western animus.
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