Just to follow up; Obama claims to have visited Pakistan as a leg of a journey to visit his mother, apparently still in Indonesia (does anyone have any idea how expensive such a trip would have been, btw?). Only problem is, he took this trip in 1981. Pakistan was under martial law from 1977 to 1984 and was not a place for tourists, although, of course, the US was providing funds and weapons to Pakistan that were being funnelled to the the Mujahedeen (a/k/a “Charlie Wilson’s War”). It is pretty unlikely that Obama was a covert operative working for some military advisors, so what the hell was he doing in Pakistan at the height of the Afghan War, while the mujahedeen and bin Laden were operating out of Pakistan?
I have heard, but not confirmed, that Pakistan under Zia was not allowing foreign tourists unless they were muslim or under state sponsorship. Can anyone confirm this? When Obama was in Karachi, did he register with the US Consulate in that City?
In a story headlined "Obama's mother stayed in Pakistan for five years", leading Urdu newspaper Daily Waqt reported that Dunham was hired as a consultant by the Asian Development Bank and travelled often from Lahore to Gujranwala. "Ann Dunham lived in Pakistan for five years. During this time, Barack Obama also visited his mother and stayed for a few months. Ann Dunham was hired as a consultant by the Asian Development Bank for Pakistan's Agricultural Development Bank's Gujranwala Agricultural Development Programme. This programme began in 1987 and ended in 1992," the report said.