Saudi Arabia and Pakistan

Comrade Junaid wrote me this in response to a post from yesterday:  "I just wanted to let you know that it is simply untrue about such an opinion being "rarely expressed in Pakistan." All you will see in liberal mainstream English media is an obsession with Saudi and what it has done to the country. Noticeably absent is any talk of the US (who these same people will say, "we blame too much"). The only legitimate target for these folks is Saudi; they dare not annoy their friends in the US embassy and the funders of their NGOs, projects, etc.   The liberal, Westernized elite -- that dominate the English media -- are adopting the worst of the worst self-orientalizing narratives. The only "halal" foreign target are the Saudis. Their rhetoric (as well as that from Washington) around madrassas is so not taken seriously by the vast majority of Pakistanis, who correctly see radicalization as a product of 80s state policy (supported by the US and Saudi together) and today, the ongoing US-NATO occupation of Afghanistan and expansion into Pakistan.  These "neoliberal elites" (as Azmi Bishara calls them) of Pakistan are pathetic, and the vast majority of them are cheering for more and more drone attacks."