Juan Cole justifiably jumps all over lightweight Republican Theocon Mike Huckabee here for his utter lack of foreign policy knowledge/common sense/intelligence. Cole hits him hard:
The dark side of Huckabee, the anti-science and anti-gay side of Huckabee, and the anti-Palestinian genocidal side of Huckabee, are all much more dangerous than the incompetent fool side of Huckabee, but the latter is pretty dangerous, too.
The incompetent fool side was on full display in his remarks, apparently provoked by the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, about the alleged threat of illegal Pakistani immigration into the United States. He actually thundered about 660 persons, claiming that the Pakistanis came right after Latinos in the ranks of illegals. He also seemed to think that building a wall around Mexico would keep out Pakistanis (the illegals among whom likely mostly just overstayed their visas and landed at LaGuardia). He actually repeated his gaffe when questioned by reporters:
' "I am making the observation that we have more Pakistani illegals coming across our border than all other nationalities except those immediately south of the border," he said, repeating the assertion he made to his audience earlier. "And in light of what is happening in Pakistan it ought to give us pause as to why are so many illegals coming across these borders." '
There are an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the US. AP writes, "the Pew Hispanic Center said Mexicans make up 56 percent of illegal immigrants. An additional 22 percent come from other Latin American countries, mainly in Central America. About 13 percent are from Asia, and Europe and Canada combine for 6 percent." Even among the 1.5 million or so illegals from Asia, Chinese, Filipinos, Koreans, Vietnamese and others predominate. Pakistanis must be a vanishingly small proportion. Why even bring them up? Is it possible that our country preacher is bigotted against Muslims?
Huckabee also thinks Afghanistan is to the east of Pakistan. It's to the northwest. India is to the east, Mike.
Haven't we had enough of Bushism in this country?
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