Pakistan: The Technical Term For Such A Country Is 'Shithole."

In the years to come, the history of the so-called "war in Afghanistan" will be little more than a footnote in a chapter about the lies successive American governments told themselves and the world about Pakistan - that American-subsidized, nuclear-armed, military-industrial crime syndicate with a bribe market for a parliament that masquerades as a UN member state. All we can hope is that chapter won't be in a book about a nuclear holocaust that ended a sickening, paranoid hoax of a country that had held most of its 170 million "citizens" hostage and barely alive on less than $2 a day in the final years before it all went up in flames.

Here's a rare and horrifying glimpse of the reality behind the lies: The Ally From Hell. Excellent journalism from Jeffrey Goldberg and Marc Ambinder.

And here's a typically revolting recrudescence of Yank excuse-making from Thomas Friedman, under the headline A Long List Of Suckers, who provides Answer # 1953 to the mewling "Why do they hate us?" question: "America today needs much more cost-efficient ways to influence geopolitics in Asia than keeping troops there indefinitely. We need to better leverage the natural competitions in this region to our ends."

Thanks for that, Amreeka.