A New Boogeyman For America

Last month, now-retired Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen testified to a U.S. Senate panel that Pakistan’s Inter-services Intelligence Agency backed the terrorist group Haqqani in its attack on the U.S. embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan.  Never heard of Haqqani?  Don’t worry, you probably never heard of Al-Qaeda prior to 9/11 either.  According to Mullen, “the Haqqani network…acts as a veritable arm of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Agency.” The Haqqani network was founded and is lead by the newly dubbed public enemy No. 1; Jalaluddin Haqqani.

America, meet your new boogeyman.

It has been estimated that the U.S. has given $19 billion in foreign aid to Pakistan since the onset of the “War on Terror.”  This aid has resulted in Pakistan being used as a safe haven for Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda, and Haqqani.  Chalk up another foreign policy achievement right next to the WMDs in Iraq.

With bin Laden dead and the assassination (no sugar coat here, that’s exactly what it was) of the American-born Al-Qaeda recruiter known as Anwar al-Awlaki, one would hope that our Middle East presence would begin to diminish.  Judging by Senator Lindsey Graham’s prompting [8]of a military reaction to Pakistan, you can pack that hope away along with naively believing Barack Obama would bring the troops home. If anything, our Nobel Peace prize winning president has been a boon for the military industrial complex.

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