Pakistan is still taxing the United States for the May raid in which Al Quaeda leader Osama bin Laden was slain and the November firefight in which our boys killed 24 of their soldiers.
So much so that the U.S. military is now paying six times more to supply our troops in land-locked Afghanistan, according to Associated Press reporter Robert Burns. The higher cost is due to the use of more circuitous supply routes after our unreliable ally closed two border crossings to NATO convoys in November. The closures occurred after their troops opened fire on a group of ours operating on the Afghan side of the border Nov. 26 and were promptly served out for doing so.
Clearly, the Pakistani notion of being allies is not our own.
It’s now costing the U.S. about $104 million per month to send supplies through a longer northern route. That’s up from $17 million when such cargo moved through Pakistan, according to Pentagon data provided to the AP.
The U.S. has given Pakistan more than $20 billion in aid since 9/11. That number is sure to fall – more than offsetting our heightened supply costs – as we become more familiar with Pakistan’s hidden war against us. Their intelligence forces have backed some of the very forces arrayed against us in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan was ruled by the Taliban and home to Al Quaeda at the time of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Washington believes Pakistan continues to support the Taliban and has accused it of backing a militant group which recently launched a 20-hour attack on our embassy in Kabul.
All of which raises a simple question: who really pulled bin Laden’s puppet strings. Was it the Taliban or their Pakistani masters all along?
