sort of like

denying you knew there were NO wmd in iraq. how can pakistan continue to deny deny deny? and HOW THE F**K CAN WE CONTINUE TO TOSS MONEY INTO THEIR COFFERS?


Pakistan fires official who confirmed Mumbai gunman's identity

By Saeed Shah and Jonathan S. Landay | McClatchy Newspapers

ISLAMABAD — The Pakistani government on Wednesday abruptly fired its national security adviser after he confirmed that the surviving gunman captured in the Mumbai attacks is a Pakistani, a key piece of evidence contained in a dossier amassed by India on alleged Pakistani complicity in the three-day assault.

A McClatchy investigation established four weeks ago that the only assailant captured alive, Amir Ajmal Kasab, comes from Faridkot, an impoverished hamlet in Pakistan's Punjab Province.

Retired Army Gen. Mehmood Ali Durrani's confirmation of the surviving assailant's nationality, the first by a senior Pakistani official, followed weeks of denials by Islamabad that any of the terrorists were Pakistani.

Durrani's ouster suggests that a struggle is raging in the Pakistan government over responding to the Indian dossier and material gathered by the U.S. that blames the November attacks on a Pakistan-based Islamic militant group with ties to a Pakistani intelligence agency......

it's 2008

the crime: wanting to pick out their OWN husband
the punishment: BEING BURIED ALIVE

the outcome: a senator from the province/village DEFENDS the action as a 'custom'

yes, it's real. yes, it's true

via feministing
Burying of women alive defended in Senate

By Ahmed Hassan
ISLAMABAD, Aug 29: Balochistan Senator Sardar Israrullah Zehri stunned the upper house on Friday when he defended the recent incident of burying alive three teenage girls and two women in his province, saying it was part of “our tribal custom.”

Senator Bibi Yasmin Shah of the PML-Q raised the issue citing a newspaper report that the girls, three of them aged between 16 and 18 years, had been buried alive a month ago for wishing to marry of their own will.

The barbaric incident took place in a remote village of Jafarabad district and a PPP minister and some other influential people were reported to have been involved. The report accused the provincial government of trying to hush up the issue.

Ms Shah said that the hapless girls and the women were first shot in the name of honour and then buried while they were alive. She also said that no criminal had been arrested so far.
.........

i've done a few postings

about this already. about us saying to pakistan, 'open wide' then we dump in billions of dollars to their coffers. we don't even care where that money goes. we're not making sure our troops are properly protected. we're not making sure our people who have been subject to natural disasters are adequately housed. we're not making sure our people have adequate health coverage. we're not making sure our children learn PROPER birth control. we're not making sure everyone has equal rights here. we're doing and not doing a LOT of things here where we certainly could use BILLIONS OF DOLLARS. but nope, we're shoving it down the loo

U.S. Funding to Pakistan Plagued With Problems, GAO Report Says

By Robin Wright

Washington Post Staff Writer

The Bush administration has paid Pakistan more than $2 billion without adequate proof that the Pakistani government used the funds for their intended purpose of supporting U.S. counterterrorism efforts, congressional auditors reported yesterday. Their report concluded that more than a third of U.S. funds provided Pakistan since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were subject to accounting problems, including duplication and possible fraud.

The Pentagon paid about $20 million for army road construction and $15 million to build bunkers in Pakistan, but there is no evidence that the roads or bunkers were ever constructed, the Government Accountability Office reported. Islamabad also billed Washington $200 million for an air defense radar system that may not have met a U.S. condition: that reimbursement cover combat or logistical costs supporting U.S. military operations against terrorism beyond what a country would spend on its own needs...........

i was listening to

bbc world news on npr this morning and i heard some dude saying we were giving pakistan (well musharraf who then distributes it as HE sees fit. greasing palms and paying off soldiers so they won't turn against him and on and on) MILLIONS, HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of dollars A MONTH. well, it was WICKEDLY EARLY and i thought i misheard all of that shite UNTIL, i came across this (and i wasn't even looking for it)

U.S. Aid to Musharraf is Largely Untraceable Cash Transfers
By Spencer Ackerman - November 7, 2007, 5:05PM
After Pervez Musharraf declared martial law this weekend, Condoleezza Rice vowed to review U.S. assistance to Pakistan, one of the largest foreign recipients of American aid. Musharraf, of course, has been a crucial American ally since the start of the Afghanistan war in 2001, and the U.S. has rewarded him ever since with over $10 billion in civilian and (mostly) military largesse. But, perhaps unsure whether Musharraf's days might in fact be numbered, Rice contended that the explosion of money to Islamabad over the past seven years was "not to Musharraf, but to a Pakistan you could argue was making significant strides on a number of fronts."
In fact, however, a considerable amount of the money the U.S. gives to Pakistan is administered not through U.S. agencies or joint U.S.-Pakistani programs. Instead, the U.S. gives Musharraf's government about $200 million annually and his military $100 million monthly in the form of direct cash transfers........

i'm stunned at my own ignorance. i had NO IDEA this was happening when i sure should have
and our veterans are homeless AND lacking care AND our children don't have health insurance OR enough educational supplies AND there are victims from coast to coast of natural disaster that have NEVER recovered and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and andand and and and and and and and and and and and and and...........