Robert Scheer: Coddling Pakistan

[babylonsister]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/uc/20070711/cm_uc_crrscx/op_173257

Coddling Pakistan
Wed Jul 11, 3:00 AM ET

As Iraq continues to disintegrate, and our top generals and in-country ambassador predict that U.S. troops will need to die there for decades in order to prevent a full-scale regional bloodbath, it is important to recall the reasons why we got into this mess.

The marker of what will go down in history as "Bush's folly" is that this idiot of a president invaded a country that had absolutely nothing to do with terrorists attacks on the United States or threatening America with WMD, while coddling the military junta in Pakistan, which was guilty on both counts.

snip//

Not offending Musharraf also led the Bush administration in 2005 to jettison a planned attack on a high level al-Qaida gathering in Pakistan that U.S. intelligence had learned of. Bin Laden's number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri, was in attendance and the capture of the man thought to be actually running al-Qaida would have allowed Bush to begin making good on his promise to get the perpetrators of 9-11 "dead or alive."

Instead, as The New York Times reported, the mission was abandoned in the final moments, as Navy Seals in parachute gear sat on C-130 cargo planes, because "it could jeopardize relations with Pakistan."

The Times quoted Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at Georgetown University, saying, "The reluctance to take risk or jeopardize our political relationship with Musharraf may well account for the fact that five-and-a-half years after 9-11, we are still trying to run bin Laden and Zawahiri to ground."

No wonder that top U.S. officials charged with defeating al-Qaida feel frustrated. As the Times reported, "Their frustration has only grown over the past two years, they said, as al-Qaida has improved its ability to plan global attacks and build new training compounds in Pakistan's tribal areas, which have become virtual heavens for the terrorist network."

Heckuva job, Bushie.



E-mail Robert Scheer at [email protected]. To find out more about Robert Scheer, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.