Situation In Pakistan Gets Worse By The Day

I don't watch much TV but while I was getting dressed today I saw a CNN crawl that caught my attention. It was something about the U.S. sending "emergency aid" to Pakistan. Since 2002, U.S. taxpayers have subsidized one of the most backward, vicious and corrupt hellholes on earth (Pakistan) to the tune of $11,913,000,000. Nearly $9 billion of that has been military aid. I'm uncertain how much of that money goes into the pockets of individuals but everything I've read makes me think the answer would be "most of it." For fiscal year 2009, we're stuffing another $2,976,000,000 down the Pakistani toilet. I suppose the "emergency aid" CNN was referring to today is extra. So what's the emergency?

See that map up top? The BCC released it today and it purports to show that the government of Pakistan-- the ones we send all the billions to-- is only in control of 38% of the North West Frontier Province. That's the province where the Taliban is fighting the government; they control 62% of the province and the're strengthening their hold everywhere.

Defence analyst Lt-Gen (retired) Talat Masood told the BBC that the current situation was due to the failure of previous governments to control the Taleban.

"Once the military takes the territory back and holds it, then it is for the provincial government to re-establish the administrative structures with police and other services for the basic needs of the people," he said.

As I mentioned Sunday morning, Pakistan has between 60 and 100 nuclear weapons scattered around the dysfunctional country. Seeing them-- even a few of them or one of them-- fall into the hands of the Taliban would be a catastrophe for... let's see... India, Israel, China, Russia, Europe, U.S. troops stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. itself, and, of course, President Obama. Sunday we mentioned that half a million people had fled their homes to avoid the fighting. According to the NY Times that's nearly tripled now. Pakistan is the ultimate blowback in a game played by spy agencies, the CIA the worst of the lot, worst especially when it comes to competence. I wish I could give Obama some advice for how to solve this one. I can't.

The much hated-- but somewhat effective-- drone attacks the U.S. military has been using against the Taliban are now being acknowledged to be a "joint effort," a result of Obama's suggestion to Zardari when he was in DC last week. Things are also going rather badly in Afghanistan.