Whose side are they on?


The Pakistan military has decided that it will shoot on American forces coming over the border . . . and don't you know they'll be using American bullets to do it.

Pretty clear whose side the army is on.

Who's in charge in Pakistan? The president, the military, the terrorists who have turned a good hunk of the border area into their private reserve?

There'll be an argument that the statements about shooting Americans are being made to play to internal politics. But Pakistan is well beyond that, as the assassination of Bhutto should have made clear to anyone outside the country . . . let alone inside.

As an aside, maybe I'm just cranky from watching the melt-down of our banking system, but lame-ass formulaic and no-think reporting bothers me more and more these days. These paragraphs were in one of the AP stories on the situation:

Pakistani officials warn that stepped-up cross-border raids will accomplish little while fueling violent religious extremism in nuclear-armed Pakistan. Some complain that the country is a scapegoat for the failure to stabilize Afghanistan.

Pakistan's civilian leaders, who have taken a hard line against Islamic militants since forcing Pervez Musharraf to resign as president last month, have insisted that Pakistan must resolve the dispute with Washington through diplomatic channels.

Pakistan a scapegoat? Give me a break. Just because a source says something doesn't mean a) it's true or b) that it should be included in the story. And as for Pakistan's civilian leaders taking a "hard line" - I'd hate to see what capitulation looks like.

But crappy reporting isn't going to change the situation in Pakistan . . . Pakistanis will.