Posted on 03/26/2002 3:23:47 PM PST by knighthawk
LONDON: After 26 weeks of willing cooperation with the United States and Britain in the war on terror, Pakistan appears finally to have lost its desire to please its Western cheerleaders and there are increasing calls for General Musharraf’s head.
In a calculated rebuff, Islamabad has refused permission to nearly 2,000 British troops and their 105 mm light guns to use Karachi as a staging post for their journey to Afghanistan.
The British troops are being deployed in Afghanistan at the specific request of the US to fight the "remnants" of al-Qaeda and the Taliban. They are to be under overall American command.
British defence officials say Pakistan’s refusal to allow deployment from its soil has forced them to seek another route to Afghanistan for deployment in days, not weeks because of the urgency of their mission.
Pakistan’s sudden and unexpected prickliness has surprised foreign policy analysts and diplomats here, who say it sends an increasingly grave message about the stability of Musharraf’s regime and the strength of his administration’s commitment to fight extremist hardliners.
South Asia watchers pointed out that on Tuesday, the American defence secretary was reportedly forced to reassure Pakistan that US-led troops would not cross the Afghan-Pakistan border in search of fleeing al-Qaeda-Taliban fighters.
They said that Musharraf’s refusal to permit the British to land is part of the same strategy to appear less of a Western stooge, but it is a high-stakes gamble and he could lose credibility on all sides.
Diplomats believe that Musharraf’s struggle to maintain his authority illustrates the dangerously volatile situation in Pakistan, just six months after it threw in its lot with the West and agreed to fight terrorism in all its forms.
In a sign that Musharraf may join Mugabe on the list of "international pariahs", the word "dictator" and the call for "free elections" is being pointedly renewed after months of unremitting praise for Musharraf’s alleged courage and conviction in joining Bush and Blair’s war on terror.
The growing international concern over what is being described as Pakistan’s dangerously polarised polity is echoed by sections of the British media. In words that might convince Indian policy-makers that they are right to insist Pakistan use "actions, not words" to crack down on terrorism, The Guardian newspaper has upbraided the "self-styled Pakistani president" for his alleged "double-dealing".
In a grave editorial headlined "Precarious in Pakistan, Musharraf lacks a firm footing", the paper focusses on Pakistan’s "noxious fundamentalism, rooted in a perverted Deobandism, inflamed by Wahabi zealotry and battle-hardened in Kashmir".
It notes that Musharraf has "quietly freed over half of (the 2,000 militants) arrested" and urged him to hold "free and fair national elections" rather than "some bogus presidential referendum".
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Sorry about the title, it's theirs. And I do not trust Musharraf, even a bit. Why has he waited with tackeling militant islamaniacs until after 9/11? And he was the big supporter of the Taliban, so indirectly he supported Al-Qaida. Yes, he made it possible the Taliban kept ruling Afghanistan. And the treatment of woman in Pakistan still is almost a world low.
But then as someone who is quoting out of an Indian Newspaper... I suppose thats exactly what you want don't you....
You blame me for being biased, but you are doing the same towards the Indian newssources.
The Indian newssources are far more reliable than DAWN, the Nation or any other Pakistan newspaper.
And can you blame Hindus for not liking Pakistan after what happened in 1971 in Bangladesh? Or is that Indian propaganda too?
Just because he posts from an Indian paper doesn't make him "anti-Pakistani". I post from "Arab News" all the time, and i'm certainly not "pro-Arab".
The US bases in Pakistan are in remote, secluded locations far from the heavily populated areas. The British plan to roadmarch a brigade of the troops of the former colonial power through the heart of Karachi, the home of Sindi antipathy toward Punjabi strongmen like Musharraf, where Daniel Pearl was kidnapped, is probably not the best thought-out plan for deployment.
Musharraf isn't Punjabi. He's a muhajir, a refugee from India. He was born in Delhi. I think he was 2 (or thereabouts) when his family emigrated to Pakistan.
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