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"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.

Jeffers,

Asia Times is one of the zillion internet-based publications that people can choose to ignore or read. I know that the author of this article, Raman, has been an anti-terrorism expert witness before Congress, you know the lawmaking body, which meets in that white domed building in Washington, multiple times and has more credibility than any armchair analyst. I have attended a 2003 seminar in Washington where Raman made a presentation. It was so prescient that it's not even funny.

Your first assumption is that I gather all my news from Asia Times. I read Daily Times, Dawn, The News, The Nation, The Pakistan Observer, Newsline, The Herald, The Friday Times, The Weekly Independent (before Musharraf dropped the kibosh), Nawa-i-waqt, Jang, Khabrain, Jasarat, Pakistan daily and even Islamist and jihadi publications. I speak /exchange emails with regional experts on a daily basis. I attend conferences and workshops in Washington-based thinktanks regularly, as my schedule permits. I have attended at least a dozen such events in 2004 alone. A firm that I do consulting work for subscribes to Courcy's Intelligence Review and Jane's International Terrorism Review as well; giving me a well rounded view of the goings on in Pakistan.

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.

You should know who to pick up such tiffs with. I have been a South Asia/Middle East analyst for over 25 years with 20 years alone on South Asia. I have stayed in Islamabad, Murree, and Karachi. I have traveled to Peshawar and Lahore. I can speak Urdu and a smattering of Punjabi and Seriaki. I can tell which part of the country a Pakistani is from by his accent and the way he speaks English. I can tell you the entire history of Pakistan, starting from the Pakistan movement in British India to Musharraf in my sleep. I can tell you about US-Pakistan relations from the days of John Foster Dulles to Colin Powell. I have read works by authors such as Ian Talbot, Christophe Jaffrelot, Stephen Cohen, Akbar Ahmed, Dennis Kux, Ahmed Rashid, Sherbaz Mazari, Emma Duncan, Christina Lamb, Owen Bennett-Jones, Stanley Wolpert and others - many times. There isn't a half-decent book on Pakistan that I have NOT read. I even review the manuscripts for authors including one on Pakistan and India by a senior, recently retired State Department official whose work I'm currently reviewing. It will be published in the Fall and I'll give a link then. You are so clueless on Pakistan - I don't even know where to begin with you.

You want to talk about Musharraf. I'll tell you this. In the late 1980s, Musharraf as a one star General personally supervised the extermination of Shias from the Pakistani city of Gilgit by armed Sunni terrorists under the tutelage of a Saudi Sheikh named Osama Bin Laden - you might have heard of him. In 1998, Musharraf personally intervened to thwart multiple US attempts to nab Bin Laden by using Pakistani territory after then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif granted his green light. Do you know that before he became Army chief in 1998, he was the Army’s Director General of Military Operations? Do you know what a DGMO does? He is the man who makes go/no-go decisions on the Pak Army’s day to day as well as long-term operations. Musharraf knew and cut checks for ISI operations with the Taliban, the safe-houses, the training camps for Kashmir jihadis and the liaisons that the ISI had with militants. You want to question me about Musharraf. Do you know the operation where Musharraf cut his teeth in terms of war experience? Do you know the number of times he has led troops to battle and what happened those times? Here's a little homework for you - Name one place where Musharraf studied and one military operation that Musharraf led. Go ahead - Use Google.

If you want to talk about Musharraf as some sort of a heroic figure waging a brutal war within his army to support us, then I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you. Musharraf is the head of a corporation known as the Pakistan army. The Corporation makes decisions based on the consensus among its board of directors, which are the Army’s nine Corps Commanders, headed by the Army chief . If Musharraf goes, another General will take his place and business will continue as usual. There is no chance of a “Islamist” coup. Four Corps Commanders today are Musharraf’s relatives. Just like the Sultans who ruled that part of the world centuries ago, the Pak army has a system by which you only appoint your cousins/brothers to senior posts. Those who are not cousins, you give your daughter or son to their son or daughter by marriage. At least one Corps Commander is related to Musharraf by marriage. Now you want to dream about a Tom Clancy novel like scenario with bare knuckle inside struggle between the “evil Islamists” and “our man Musharraf,” then that’s what it is – a dream. The reality is that Musharraf represents the human face of the corporation known as the army of Pakistan. He is eminently replaceable.

Anyway, let’s forget Musharraf. Let's talk about your other erudite sounding hollow prose.

Abu Zubaida you say. He was arrested from the house of Hamidullah Khan Niazi, the Faisalabad chief of Lashkar-e-Taiba. Yet Mr. Niazi was openly giving speeches as late as March 2004, from Pakstani Urdu press accounts. Do you know that Niazi has even met Musharraf? Tell me what a person harboring AQ #3 is doing out of prison, meeting our top ally? Discussing the latest trends in Pakistani music?

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.

What is the ISI? It is Inter Services Intelligence. All its members are Pakistan military offers on secondment. Over 90% are from the Pakistani army. Ergo ISI = Pak Army. What is the Pakistan government today? It is led by a General. The Governors of most provinces are Generals. The administrators of the tribal area and Northern Areas are Generals. The chief of Azad Kashmir is a General. Retired Generals lead 80% of the bureaucracy. The country's biggest firms are military owned. Even the largest farm is military owned. Pakistan government = Pakistan army! Finally, the Pakistani people do not matter. They have no say towards their military's policies - Their views did not count towards anything then and do not now.

Let me point out some more inconsistencies in your arguments. Do you know who Naeem Khan is? He was a small time member of a Sunni extremist group called Sipahi Sahaba in Karachi. He then went on to join Jaish-e-Mohammed. If as per your claim:

Just like any corporation, AQ promotes from within.

If this is true hotshot, then why the heck would AQ leave communications at the hands of a low level jihadi like Naeem Khan, who is not even an Arab. The fact is that Naeem Khan was and is a Walter Mitty. He is a low level thug who sold the weekly Zarb-e-Momin, a publication of the banned Islamic "charity" Al-Rashid Trust at the college where he was studying and thereby got to know the names of people in AQ. He is virtual nobody that the Paks have foisted on us a "big catch." Can you find a few reports quoting top American officials that say that Khan was "turned" or that he was a "top catch." As usual, the Paks played the American public and armchair Sherlocks like yourself. What a joke! Talk about superficial knowledge...

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?

Another display of half-knowledge. This was true only from Fall 2001 to the Summer of 2002 when the only way to get to southern Afghanistan was over or through Pakistan. That has changed since fall 2002 when the air bridge to Bagram via Uzbekistan and Germany was established. Pakistan does remain an important but secondary logistical route to Afghanistan.

And BTW, who the hell called for “deposing” Musharraf. All I say is that we must squeeze him much harder and not let him get away with murder. He owes us big time for getting a free pass for the A.Q.Khan business. He needs us a billion times more than we need him. He knows full well that any General who replaces him will be just as servile to America publicly. All we need to do is let him know that we believe that we see other alternatives for Pakistani leadership than him and you will see a more determined action from him.

One final bit of advice. I know you mean well. But wishing that the Bush administration’s alliance with Pakistan is going great guns does not make it a reality. There are serious problems. Stop taking Pakistan government utterances at face value. Treat anonymous Pakistani quotes with the way you treat John Kerry’s words. And please stop focusing on the messenger. Look at the message. That will serve you well in any line of work. Also, please read some books about Pakistan – I suggest the books by Owen Bennett-Jones and Ian Talbot. Jones’ is a first person account and Talbot’s work is scholarly. Between them you should get a good grounding on Pakistan.