An Empire of Irony

Hillary Clinton made a comment yesterday while on a state visit to Pakistan that in my mind will enter the annals of ironic utterances. Here is the article in its entirity . The official US message to Pakistan on the day that we pledge some 7.5 Billion in aid was summed up thus by Mrs. Clinton-"look, you've got to take on every non-governmental armed force inside your country, because even though you think they won't bother you today, there is no guarantee. Its like keeping a poisonous snake in your backyard.
Oh, it will only go after the stranger or intruder, You don't know whether tomorrow it will go after you, so we have been making that case and I find greater receptivity to it, but we still have to make it stronger,". The brazeness of this statement to a country that recieved massive military support from the US to arm the Pasthun and Kashmiri militants that we now claim they should help us destroy is staggering. The US is a full on snake charmer, profiting politically and economically from our sale of weapons the world over, never seeming to consider the consequences. I'm sure under their demure demeanure the heavy hitters on the Pakistani side had to be either laughing at the irony or enraged by the hypocracy; perhaps both. Of course we have the big guns and all the power so they had to sit there and take a lecture on how to run their own country from the same people that have destabalized it in the first place. Furthermore, its one of the oldest facts of Central Asia that if a powerful and organized army conquers a territory, this will neccesarily displace people and have regional effect. In this case it has led to the Pashtun resistence doing exactly what we taught them to do to drive out the Soviets- us the porous Pakistani border in the tribal areas to their advantage in fighting a protracted guerrilla war. And then we have the gaul to tell them that they are keeping vipers in their back yard. In terms of ridiculously over the top hypocritic can-they-be-serious sort of statements, I'm truly impressed by this one. Once more, I must turn to wiser folks than myself to comment on the irony inherint in the system-
"A taste for irony has kept more hearts from breaking than a sense of humor, for it takes irony to appreciate the joke which is on oneself." -Jessamyn West