Reporting From Pakistan

The American Interest ^ | July 30th, 2010 | Walter Russell Mead

[neverdem]

I’m not much good at timing. I was visiting Jordan on a lecture tour when the Israelis assassinated Hamas founder Sheikh Yassin. Amman closed down and much of my program had to be canceled; Americans weren’t welcome on campuses where student groups were mourning the sheikh and vowing revenge. I was in Indonesia when the Israelis invaded Lebanon; I was able to go ahead with the program, but all the audiences wanted to discuss was the war and America’s responsibility for Israeli crimes. I first came to Pakistan about the time then-Senator Obama called for escalating the drone strikes in Pakistani territory; I was in Turkey when his endorsement of the Armenian genocide resolution (a position he wisely dropped once in office) created a firestorm in that country.

This time, I hoped to do better. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton’s recent Pakistan visit went reasonably well; much of the press coverage was favorable and both Pakistani and American officials were talking about how healthy, how positive, how cooperative the relationship was.

And then came the WikiLeaks, 92.000 classified documents, many of them relating to allegations that the ISI, Pakistan’s super-secret intelligence service, has been actively working with the Taliban and other unsavory figures even as senior Pakistani officials tell the US that they are doing nothing of the kind.

The news broke in the US on Sunday; it only hit here on Tuesday, possibly because the issues are so sensitive that some media figures decided to wait to test official reaction before committing themselves. On Tuesday the story made all the front pages. The Nation, a feisty and often anti-American newspaper that sees spooks in every corner and seems to believe that much of the world has nothing better to do than endlessly plot against Pakistan, has already figured it...

[bert]

I have never actually read anything by a gadfly before this.
He seems to be the definition