TheAgitator.com
The Pakistani Threat
Thursday, March 6th, 2003(Cross-posted at Stand Down)
According to the Cato Institute, add Pakistan to the list of “countries who pose a greater threat to American interests than Iraq, yet whom we’re happy to cozy up to.” Executive summary excerpt:
Thousands of al-Qaeda fighters managed to escape into Pakistan, where they have been sheltered and helped to regroup by Pakistani member groups of the International Islamic Front. Sections of the Pakistani military and its intelligence agencies continue to aid al-Qaeda and its sister terrorist groups in Pakistan. Many of the gains made during 2001 and 2002 in the U.S.-led war on terrorism in Afghanistan have been squandered because Pakistan has become al-Qaeda’s new command center.Even worse, Pakistani nuclear experts are under investigation for links with al-Qaeda. There is legitimate concern that President Pervez Musharraf’s regime does not have full control over Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. Furthermore, Pakistan is reported to have shared its nuclear technology with North Korea, and possibly with Myanmar and Saudi Arabia, thus contributing to the problem of nuclear proliferation.
A nation that is penetrated by Islamic radicals and that possesses dozens of nuclear weapons and proliferates them to other dictatorial countries poses a tangible and immediate problem. But U.S. policy toward Pakistan does not reflect that reality. In the absence of pressure from the United States, Pakistan has not found it necessary to take serious action against Islamic extremists or to end its proliferation activities. Other unstable nations are likely to look to Pakistan as a role model that has achieved nuclear status and checkmated the United States into acquiescence.
Further, a former green beret and freelance mercenary who’s the subject of the new book, The Search for bin Laden (his name escapes memory), and has served in Afghanistan the past year, backed up most everything asserted in the Cato report in an interview on Imus this morning. He said that Pakistani intelligence is a joke, that they regularly aid al-Qaeda suspects in hiding, and that Pakistan actually funneled munitions we gave them in return for the support in the Afghan war over to the Taliban. Said munitions were then used against U.S. forces.
And, yet, Pakistan is an “ally.” And Saddam is the single greatest threat to our national security.
All these articles about other countries that are a greater threat than saddam. Ok, What if we quit bothering saddam, and went after pakistan? What then, These appeasers and protesters would be pissed we were bothering Pakistan and not Iran. Its all CRAP. For now Pakistan is helping with the war on terror, but, I am sure they too will be delt with in the end.
I second what Chris says. Radley, we can all agree that both in theoretical and practical terms, other countries may be potentially more of a threat to the West than Iraq. But unlike Iraq, we cannot do much about it now. If we could have done so, we would.
Of course, some warbloggers may still favour taking down the French……
Some big differences between Iraq and Pakistan:
> The guy at the top in Pakistan has not made (in word or deed) the support of Islamofascist terrorists an official policy of his government. Subordinates going off on their own to support terrorists under the table is NOT the same as a whole government directed to do the same.
> That same guy is not hell-bent on using the resources of his government to make himself the next king of Babylon.
> The government of Pakistan is cooperating with our efforts.
Rich,
All your points should be qualified with “For now.” Just as Saddam poses virtually no threat “For now.”
Chris,
I’m not sure what good comes from calling Radley an “appeaser.” I, for one, think it’s pretty clear he doesn’t fit that label.
As a random thought, if the terrorist connection that exists in Pakistan actually existed in Iraq, the administration would be standing on its head to prove it.
Pakistan is not afganistan or iraq. Ask indians.
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