Pakistan, in flagrante delicto

WASHINGTON, Dec. 10 (UPI) -- The Bush administration appears to be astigmatically challenged when scanning the geopolitical landscape beyond Iraq. Inspector Blix Clouseau and his merry band of Keystone Kops in the land of the Arab world's Torquemada have produced all-Iraq news-all-the-time networks that are ignoring hair-raising developments in nearby Pakistan.

Last Nov. 16, Fazlur Rehman, a close friend of both Osama bin Laden and Taliban supremo Mullah Mohammed Omar, as well as being the head of a coalition of six extremist politico-fundamentalist groups and a member of Pakistan's newly elected National Assembly, demanded that his parliamentary colleagues offer prayers for the man the United States executed Nov. 14 for killing two CIA agents in Virginia.

The speaker of the National Assembly, with foreign ambassadors looking on from the visitors' gallery, acquiesced. Rehman's pro-Taliban team was just warming up. The prayers were quickly followed by a blistering attack on the United States by other members of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal coalition. "God, destroy those who handed (Mir Amal) Kasi over to America. May his murderers, whether in America or Pakistan, meet the same fate," said another MMA leader.

Kasi's execution in Virginia turned him into an overnight cult figure in Pakistan -- and opened up the sluice gates of anti-U.S. vitriol. When the plane carrying his dead body touched down in Quetta, the provincial capital of Baluchistan, tens of thousands of people broke through police cordons shouting, "Allah is great." With his coffin draped in a cloak inscribed with verses of the Koran, Kasi was carried through Quetta in the biggest funeral procession Baluchistan has ever witnessed. "America Go Home," "Bush the Butcher of Afghanistan," and other anti-U.S. epithets were either banners waved or slogans warbled.

Next day, Nov. 19, another huge crowd gathered at the funeral venue. In a rare display of altruism, motorized rickshaws and buses ferried people free of charge. Even official Pakistan thought it would be appropriate to pay obeisance to Kasi. Baluchistan Corps Cmdr. Gen. Abdul Qadir Baloch, Baluchistan Chief Minister Amirul Mulk Mengal, and the Pakistani ambassador to the United States led the official delegation.

For the past three weeks, thousands throng to Kasi's gravesite daily and carry earth back as if holy ground. Says Kasi's brother Hamidullah, "Every morning when we go to his grave, we find the soil covering his tomb reduced a few more inches and we have to build up the bulge afresh." Pashto and Baluchi poets are writing odes to the fallen hero, hailing him as second only to bin Laden in the popular pantheon of larger-than-life Muslims.

The foreign office was at a loss to explain the presence of senior officials at Kasi's funeral. The official spokesman explained the ambassador happened to be in Quetta to visit his ailing mother. A former federal Cabinet minister said the response to Kasi's funeral persuaded the intelligence community to free Dr. Amez Aziz, the physician the FBI had been interrogating about his links to bin Laden.

Now that he enjoys parliamentary immunity, Rehman grows bolder by the day. All good Muslims should now "follow Kasi's example," he said Dec. 10, which clearly was a leaf out of bin Laden's fatwa -- "kill Americans."

Officially, Washington says President Pervez Musharraf is a loyal ally of the United States in the war on terror. But with new pro-Taliban, pro-al Qaida provincial governments in the Northwest Frontier Province and in Baluchistan, it has become increasingly clear that the transnational terrorists hunted by the United States have recovered some of the privileged sanctuaries they enjoyed prior to Sept. 11, 2001.

Pakistan is a country where local police are reluctant to antagonize a religious group, however extreme. Many of the extremists detained following Musharraf's pledge to the United States last January to quench terrorism are now free men in a country where a Kalashnikov (AK-47) can be rented for $2.50 a day and any kind of a weapon obtained at one hour's notice.

In the tribal belt adjacent to Afghanistan, automobile salesmen push the envelope with stickers that say, "Buy one vehicle and get a rocket launcher free." The problem, said one former police chief now in the United States, is that "law enforcement in a lawless society where human rights are unknown and guilt is beaten out of those arrested."

A cop on the beat makes $1 a day; an inspector general of police for an entire province, $400 a month. A "fundamentalist" in Pakistani police parlance is a police chief who pays his personal bills out of police funds.

One of India's most influential officials, National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra, was in Washington this week for talks with senior Bush administration officials. His lunch with national security adviser Condoleezza Rice lasted over three hours. Trying to shift attention from the clear and future danger of Iraq to the clear and present danger of Pakistan was a thankless task.

Mishra's other message was harmonious to Secretary of State Colin Powell and gratingly dissonant to Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. A U.S. invasion of Iraq without U.N. approval would play into the hands of "crazies everywhere." American lives would be at risk in many parts of the world. Al Qaida would have a new recruiting poster and volunteers would flock to bin Laden's bloody banner.

The logic of war in early 2003 now seems implacable. If Saddam Hussein were to concede a number of weapons of mass destruction, either chemical or biological or both, he's toast. If his 11,807 pages of documents and 60,000 pages on CDs demonstrate he has indeed destroyed all weapons of mass destruction, he's dismissed as an incurable liar -- and still toast. And if President Bush doesn't toast him, Mr. Bush himself is toast -- at least for a second term.

U.S. strategic assets, including four carrier task forces, are still converging on staging areas around Iraq and it is highly unlikely they will be recalled before the Iraqi dictator has been unhorsed. Between now and then, the burden of proof will shift from President Saddam to President Bush. It has to be incontrovertible. Therefore, top-secret intelligence on Saddam's clear and present danger will have to be credible -- and made public. But the CIA remains unconvinced.

apparent gang of islamofascists that represent the pan-arab world

Pakistanis, Iranians, Afghans of various tribes and other Islamofascits are not Arabs. Although some have said that Islam is the Arab way of imposing their culutre on the rest of the world, and Arabic is the "holy language" of Islam, much as Latin was the "Church Language" of the Roman Catholic church until the 1950s and Greek that of at least some Orthodox/eastern churches.

Turkey can be very influential in Pakistan if it can gain greater political and financial power. There is huge sympathy for Turks among Pakistanis. They believe that we would never sell them out and we believe likewise about them. When the Arabs were stabbing us in the back in WWI they stood by us to the extent of sending their own jewelry to finance the Turkish war effort. They were the only ones that respected us when we had the Caliphate. Their current president speaks fluent Turkish and has profound sympathy for Ataturk. If only we could suppress the Saudi efforts at Arabizing these people through fundamentalist Islam with extensive financial support to increase welfare and improve their eductainal system, we could win this nation back to the civilized world. The country has been struck by decades of poverty, corruption and political chaos. Tens of thousands of people are going to religious schools funded by Wahhabi/Saudi foundations every year because they have no secular schools to go to. If we can bring the rule of secular law into the country and display its benefits, we can show people the right way. If American money that has been funneled into Saudi Arabia and Egypt over the last two decades had been directed to Pakistan you wuld have been talking about a significantly different Pakistan.

Saudi Arabia is the greatest threat to world civilization that has ever come to earth. They have immense financial power and export their evil view of the world under the guise of educational/cultural/religious foundations and 'aid' programs. Iran follows them but its current rejime will not last more than another 10 years. Iranian people can not bear to live under their sword for much longer. You may expect major civil unrest in Iran within the next 5 years ending in a counter-revolution. Syria is a threat that Israel or Turkey could eradicate in a matter of days if nor hours if the need arises. Iraq is not a problem if it doesn't obtain nukes. Besides Saddam will probably not make it to the end of next year anyway.

One at a time.This operation of remaking a region doesn't happen easily.Take out the big dog first, the nasty man with the nasty weapons, and then see what noises begin to emante from various capitals.The impatience to hitting the weakest military power, ie the Saudis, is a weird fetish around FR.They aren't going anywhere.

Was just saying this to some Lib friends last night who were spouting the "it's all about oil" mantra. If it were indeed about oil, we'd take out the Saudis first as they are the weakest militarily and richest oil-wise.

It is the Iraqis who posess the only viable military presence in the ME and must be disarmed first before the rest of the Islamist hornet's nest can be eliminated with a minimum amount of 'sting'. .

I believe that the ayatollahs in Iran will fall internally next and we will then move on to Syria, et. al.

>>When the Arabs were stabbing us in the back in WWI they stood by us to the extent of sending their own jewelry to finance the Turkish war effort.

That would have been before Pakistan existed or was even concieved of in Jinnah's addled mind. That was the Muslims of British India, the Raj.

>>If American money that has been funneled into Saudi Arabia and Egypt over the last two decades had been directed to Pakistan

But it has. Pakistan has recieved TONS of USD over the years, starting in the 50's and ongoing into the 80's, particularly in the AntiSoviet Jihad. What they did was promote islamisation instead of secularisation.

Pakistan's goal is to destroy India. They consider themselves descendants of Arab warriors and want to finish the job the Arabs began and were interrrupted when the British entered the scene.

Nothing personal but the best thing for Pakistan is to disappear into the history books.

Mush's love of secular Turkey is over ridden by his hatred of Hindus and Indians of all stripes. He's just a better dressed and groomed Arafat. Look how much anti Israeli hate spews out of the Pakistani mainstream press. What did the Jews ever do to Pakistan? The islamisation process is irreversible except by force, IMO.

And of course, lest we forget just how naive, wimpy, begging and pathetic our overtures to "we're really the linchpin of the Trans-Asian Axis but pretending to be your long lost cousin" Pakistan have been, on 9/10/2001, Pakistan were licking Jiang Zemin's boots. On 9/11/2001 they were still licking his boots. As they were on 9/12/2001. And on 12/10/2002? Well, they are no longer licking Jiang's boots, now, they are licking Hu Jintao's boots. They are still as they have been since the late 1980s, a PRC satellite. Sometime between when we befriended the Pakistan of the 1950s as part of "the Northern Tier" and now, they stopped acting in the best interests of the West but we were asleep at the wheel. We were also aspleep at the wheel, when, some 15 years after ping-pong diplomacy, the PRC started to build the Trans-Asian Axis. Similarly, when India ditched Socialism last decade, we must have not gotten the memo. Then would have been the time to start to insert ourselves and wean India away from the Russians. Doh! And then, when India literally showed up at the US' door on 9/12 saying "let's partner. Use our ports and airfields. We are in this together" we gave a shoulder at measured at a temperature of absolute zero. And now, in the past week, is it any wonder that Putin jumps first to Beijing and then New Delhi? DOH!!! The USA are the kid who gets sucker punched repeatedly when it comes to our geopolitical acumen. When will we grow up and get a clue?

Bump. Moral of story. Don't give the US anything without hard bargaining ala Pakistan, Saudi, etc etc.

Of course, the Indians were convinced that the US would take seriously the intel placed in front of them about PakiISI involvment in the Attacks on America. That's where they goofed.

Hindsight: if they'd held off on offers of help, would Musharraf have acquiesced to the US or would they have refused, thereby allowing India to play the knight in shining armor. Well, all What if's now.

And let's not even get into the nuclear arming of NorthKorea by the Pakis, as late as August of this year.

But things will come to a head soon. Let's hope that no more than a few million die.

The mention of Baluchistan is worth noting. One of the points made by Laurie Mylroie is that Ramzi Yousef is probably a Baluch. He manufactured a fake identity by pretending to be Abdul Basit (a Kuwaiti who disappeared during the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait). Ramzi Yousef was the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. His escape route after the bombing ran through Baluchistan. The Baluch are a tribe of people living in Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan. There have been Baluch rebellions against both Iran and Pakistan which have received support from Saddam Hussein. See chapter 6 of "The War Against America" by Laurie Mylroie (hardcover title= A Study of Revenge).

Well, as a matter of fact, it wouldn't surprise me if we are entering a Thirty Years War with the Muslim world, or maybe a Hundred Years War. The more we hit them, the more we will stir them up. But we really haven't any choice, because if we lie back and let them roll over us, it will be even worse.

Long experience with the Palestinians demonstrates that the more you give, the more they take. Arabs love to jump on people when they are down, but they will not be able to stand up to a western-style war.

It makes sense to go into the Middle East first, because that's where the oil is. The war is not over oil, but it's essential that we keep control over it or we'll be in the soup. We may have to deal with Pakistan down the line, probably in cooperation with India, but that's not the first priority.

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