The Pakistan ATM Machine

I attended the Lara Logan lecture at USF tonight. I was in agreement with Logan that Pakistan is not ally to the United States. Logan is convinced that the ISI knew Osama bin Laden's whereabouts. Bin Laden wasn't hiding in a cave. He was in a comfy compound near a military academy. This is like Timothy McVeigh going into hiding near West Point.

I asked Logan why the United States, under the past two administration's, have giving money to the Pakistani government. The United States has become the ATM machine for a corrupt regime. Logan told me that was a good question. She has asked several government officials and they all told her that Pakistan has to be paid off because it is a nuclear power. Never mind that the Pakistan and Taliban run joint military operations against the U.S. military. Or that the Pakistan aid money is used to buy the Taliban IEDs and assaust rifles.

Logan said she doesn't buy any of the arguments for providing aid to the Pakistani government. Logan used the analogy that if this a dating relationship there would have been a break-up a long time ago. Logan pointed out the blame for staying in this dysfunctional relationship with Pakistan resides with policymakers with no understanding or real accountability with the lives of soldiers they sacrifice.

I also asked Logan why the Republican presidential candidates can only discuss Israel and Iran. Do they only have a map with two countries or are they too dense to know of other countries in crisis. I cited Syria and Sudan as two example.

Logan's description of the GOP candidates was hysterical. Logan described Mitt Romney as a member of "a cult." Logan mentioned that Rick Santorum used to bring a model fetus on the floor of the Senate. She said even Republicans don't want Gingrich.

Logan made a slight dig at bloggers earlier in the lecture. I mentioned that I was a blogger.

Logan: Your not living in your mother's basement.

Hussey: And I'm not wearing pajamas.

One young man made the mistake of getting on Logan's bad side with a WikiLeaks question and left the microphone with his tail between his legs. Logan feels strongly that WikiLeaks got an Afghan man killed.

I hope there is video of Logan's lecture. It was fantastic.

Update: Logan's hysterical account of meeting Michael

“It had about 13 hours of interviews over two days with a gazillion al-Qaida and Arabic names thrown in there, and lots of nuance and it was very, very intense,” she said. “So when I jumped on the plane and rushed down to see a Michael Bublé concert in San Jose, it was sort of surreal. I remember when Michael walked up to me and said … ‘I hope you’re going to do a good interview.’ I said, ‘Listen, the last person I interviewed was a FBI agent and I made that f----- cry.’”