Damn it's good to be on George's payroll. The work is easy, the hours are good, excellent performance evaluations are guaranteed, and the pay is fantastic. All you do is promise to be a good boy, let George look into your soul as verification, and then sit back and watch for checks in the mail.
Just ask President and Generalissimo Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan, who pockets about $80 million a month in "coalition support funds" from George "for conducting counterterrorism efforts along the border with Afghanistan, even though [he] decided eight months ago to slash patrols through the area where Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters are most active."
Who can blame him? Those Qaeda and Taliban chaps are tough customers, and somebody could get hurt should one of Musharraf's lads whip out a support fund and start blasting away. Better to just kick back and savor those monthly deposit visits to the bank.
There are always party poopers, of course, always some clowns who don't get the memo, such as "some American military officials" -- who for inexplicable reasons "have been surprised by the speed at which [al Qaeda and the Taliban] have gained strength in the past year," and therefore "have recommended that [Musharraf's] money be tied to Pakistan’s performance in pursuing Al Qaeda and keeping the Taliban from gaining a haven from which to attack the government of Afghanistan."
How old school, how Max Weberian. But that's the military for you, always thinking with a one-track, Protestant work-ethic mind. Nevertheless the Bush administration -- famous as it is for listening to its commanders on the ground -- says "no such plan is being considered, despite new evidence that the Pakistani military is often looking the other way when Taliban fighters retreat across the border into Pakistan, ignoring calls from American spotters to intercept them."
Another party pooper, old-school Democratic Senator Jack Reed, even publicly related last year that U.S. military officials based in Pakistan were urging that George's support checks go to "paying for specific objectives that are planned and executed, rather than simply paying what the country bills." And it seems there was a superabundance of "commanders and diplomats in the region" who "agreed with that recommendation."
A National Security Council spokesman, however, said the White House was "unaware of any such debate."
George has also dispersed around $1.6 billion to our good general Musharraf for nonspecific "budget support," a tidy sum of cash mostly intended to help him pay for things like health, food, education and the cultivation of democracy. But oddly, only around half that amount has actually been spent on the care and feeding of Pakistanis, or teaching literacy to the one in two Pakistanis who cannot read, or cultivating his nation's democracy that functions about as well as Florida's.
No doubt there are commissions to be deducted -- just another little perk of the job.
Apparently the only unambiguous requirement for getting on George's payroll is a payment of oblique lip service to his personal "war on terror." I can do that, so I'm Fedexing my resume today. Others may be more handsome, more muscular, more erudite, but my devotion to goldbricking for an indifferent employer at fantastic pay is second to no man's.
Well, maybe Pervez Musharraf.