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Coming to this article. If you read this as a thiunly weiled assertion that somehow the Bush administration is in cahoots with Musharraf to use the war on terror for political gains by timing "arrests" then I must disagree. I do not believe that the Bush administration would play with American lives for political gains. That would be unimaginable. The closest we got to such a thing was the Clinton Chinagate situation.

But I see clear evidence of massive and shameless manipulation by Musharraf's regime in Pakistan by using well timed arrests, military operations and intelligence leaks to make it appear as though Pakistan is making big progress in the war on terror.

Musharraf has made a calculation that given that this is an election year and the fact that the war on terror is the main pillar of Bush's re-election platform, no American official would dare publicly question Pakistan's assertions regarding arrests of "top" terrorists or thwarting of "major attacks." I suggest you compare notes with the media reports now and in early 2002 during the Daniel Pearl murder saga. In the Pearl case, if the Paks gave out a bogus sounding report, it was immediately repudiated by American officials. Now, anything and everything the Paks are saying is taken as gospel.

Consider the case of Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan the Al Qaeda "computer genius." First the Pakistan information minister said that this guy was arrested a few days ago. The Pakistan Interior minister denied that they ever had this guy or even the existence, when it was even acknowledged by Condi Rice. Then we find out that his name was leaked not by Americans but by the Paks. I'm told reliably that the Military Spokesman Shaukat Sultan was the "leaker." Sure this guy had loads of data in posession, but how is it that he operated for years under Pakistani noses?

Consider what Raman says about KSM. How in the heck was this guy able to hide in Pakistan, that too in Rawalpindi where every other house is that of an Army officer. If KSM killed Daniel Pearl, then what were his ties to Omar Sheikh, the man in jail for Pearl's killing. Everyone knows Omar Sheikh was an ISI "asset," so what does that make KSM? What are his ties to the ISI? If KSM was the main planner of 9/11, then what role did the ISI have in that plan?

These are serious questions that need to be answered. Do I believe that Raman went over the board in insinuating that the Bush administration is in league with Musharraf? Yes. But are there questions about Musharraf, ISI, 9/11 and ties to Al Qaeda that need to be ansewered? Yes to that as well.

Listen, we know that the bad guys are planning attacks on American soil and they most likely have some plans in operation for a while. But relying on this IV drip style of periodic and episodic release of AQ terrorists from the ISI kitty is foolhardy. AQ leaders are not in the mythical tribal ares but in Karachi, Rawalpindi, Lahore, Faisalabad and Gujrat. To that end we need to remove the velvet gloves and squeeze the Paks harder - much harder. If not, we may pay a big price.

"If you read this as a thiunly weiled assertion that somehow the Bush administration
is in cahoots with Musharraf to use the war on terror for political gains by timing "arrests" then I must
disagree."

That's precisely what it is. Anyone with more than a passing interest in the Pakistani and SE Asian press knows where Asia Times stands, from their preponderance of articles with the same slant.

Same goes for the Balochistan Post. http://www.balochistanpost.com/

If you want a good, balanced, wide angle view of Pak politics, hit a combination of middle of the road publications like Dawn, Hi Pakistan and the Daily Times. All publish from a wide variety of sources, left, right, middle of the road. Once you have a solid foundation of multi-source, corrorated understanding then use Asia Times for an enemy perspective and occasional valuable intelligence.

When you begin by paying any credence to Asia Times, you end up with a skewed viewpoint, which is demonstrated in your perception of Musharraf. Yes, Musharraf will work the political angle and time arrests to coincide with the US political process. Yes, his actions often appear duplicitous. There are reasons for this, very good reasons, reasons the Bush Administration understands and supports. Straight from a three letter source, "Musharraf probably won't survive the year." (As in dead.) You clearly aren't taking into account what will happen, vis-a-vis the precise concerns you state regarding Pak involvement with terrorism, when Musharraf is deposed. Think you got problems now?

Heh.

You also clearly haven't done enough research to understand who Musharraf is, where he came from, how he came to be in power, who and what he was before he came to power, why he came to power, why his predecessor was ousted, why that person came to power, why Bhutto was ousted, why she came to power, why her predecessor was ousted, why her father came to power, none of it.

There is a split down the middle power struggle going on in Pakistan, very similar to what's happening in Saudi Arabia. Play high-school hardball and you throw away a glass half full, just spilling it on the ground, wasted. Make ill-informed judgements based on slanted sources and you achieve the same result.

Unlike Saudi Arabia, you do this in Pakistan and you cut off 23,000 US troops in Afghanistan. After you help depose our real ally Musharraf, you planning to feed our Afghan troops how, airdrops using Iranian airspace? The Moscow to Tajikstan to Kabul express? It took literally months to get 12 (twelve) SpecOps guys in using that route after 9/11, but you're going to feed 23k soldiers that way?

Get real.

Bottom line, Musharraf is a good guy, and nobody in the know in the US doubts it. The body of fact is too large to dispute and going against the grain on this issue only demonstrates ignorance. Want to bark at shadows of the old ISI, and other Pak factions loyal to AQT?

Look elsewhere.

Your portrayal of the events prior to and subsequent to Khan's arrest also demonstrate a superficial and largely inaccurate view of what actually happened. Khan is not the "computer genius". That person's name has never been released, though there are strong indications as to his identity available in open source reports. There were two captures involving persons with ties to Al Qaeda's computer network. The western media, and you, mixed them up.

You have the time of his arrest wrong, off by weeks. The release of his name was an unfortunate occurrance. He broke and turned after the Paks told us they had him. We released his name publicly, roughly coincident with his decision to turn. In a perfect world, with universal instantaneous communication, it wouldn't have happened. But it did. If you want to fix blame, jump on Leeza for not knowing Khan had turned, and jump on the Paks for not telling us the very instant Khan turned.

We keep catching the AQ number three for a variety of reasons which are pretty obvious if you think a little bit, using a decent body of background information.

The reasons fall naturally into one of two categories. One is that the AQ number 3 is the AQ director of military operations. That person represents the most immediate threat to America, and we give that office high priority attention.

Just like any corporation, AQ promotes from within. They don't take a guy from the financial or propaganda ministries and stick them in charge of terrorist training and attacks. The top dog has ties to his subordinates, the same pool of subordinates eligible for promotion to replace him if he's killed or captured. Simply by catching one, we have predisposed advantage towards catching the next.

Zubaida was...induced...into thinking he was in Saudi captivity. The "Saudis" broke him by pretending to carry his release requests to his buddy Nayaf. When he realized it was all a ruse, he played his ace, yielding all kinds oif false information. Yes, it'd be nice if all the bad guys rolled over for us when captured, but in this mean old world, some don't.

The AT article even fails to use all the available real facts to make it's skewed point in this regard. What about Abu Hafs? What about Banshiri? What about Al-Iraqi? There's three more AQ number 3's to bolster their attempted spin, doubling the "chain" of "improbabilities" they managed to convince you with, but they didn't even mention them. Do they even know of them? Do you? I suspect not.

There's a common thread here.

It appears you didn't realize that AT was a player for the enemy.

It appears you didn't realize that Musharraf is a good guy.

It appears that you lump the ISI, the Pak Army, the Pak government, and the Pak population all into one shady bowl of terrorists and terrorist supporters.

The solution is obvious.

Get of AT as a primary source. Build a wider pool of background data from a wide array of point sources, and then ask your questions.

All of a sudden, things will make a lot more sense.