[NYTr] Amy Goodman: Musharraf Still Stands

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

sent by Ed Pearl


TruthDig - Jan 1, 2008
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080101_musharraf_still_stands/

Musharraf Still Stands

By Amy Goodman

Benazir Bhutto and her supporters who died with her
during the suicide attack Dec. 27 are the latest
victims of decades of dangerous U.S. support for
Pakistan's military regime. The country's dictator,
Gen. Pervez Musharraf, has held his grip on power
despite increasing popular unrest. The Bush
administration got nervous, turning to Bhutto to
preserve the status quo in Pakistan. There is no doubt
the exiled former prime minister was personally brave
to return to her country. But Pakistani professor
Pervez Hoodbhoy was critical nevertheless: 'After
returning to Pakistan, she made clear that for a few
table scraps, she would have happily teamed up with
Musharraf under the hopelessly absurd U.S. plan to give
the military government a civilian face.'

While President Bush imposed 'regime change' on Iraq,
based on fictitious weapons of mass destruction,
'regime preservation' is the U.S. policy for Pakistan,
despite its role in global nuclear proliferation, the
sale of true WMDs.

Adrian Levy is a senior staff correspondent for the
British newspaper The Guardian and co-author of
'Deception: Pakistan, the United States and the Secret
Trade in Nuclear Weapons.' He describes a 'military
government repressing human rights, connected
tentatively to 9/11, state-sponsored terrorism with
radical connections to al-Qaida that was proliferating
WMD and of course that was not Iraq, it was Pakistan.'
He told me: 'The problem facing the Bush administration
was their policy post-9/11 was very much to embrace
Pakistan as an essential ally in the war on terror in
order to allow the narrative over Iraq and the WMD in
Iraq to rise. The Pakistanis milked their nuclear
program for hard cash, selling to Iran, Iraq, North
Korea, Libya, the Axis of Evil powers. We also know
there is intelligence to show that they began
negotiations very much with Saudi Arabia, Syria and, of
course, there are tentative contacts with al-Qaida
elements as well.'

The New York Times revealed last week that at least $5
billion in U.S. aid delivered to Pakistan since 9/11 to
fight al-Qaida and the Taliban actually went into
weapons systems against another U.S. ally, India.

The more nuclear weapons Pakistan has, the more the
U.S. has a vested interest in protecting them. As The
Washington Post reported last week, even before the
Bhutto assassination U.S. Special Forces were planning
a vastly increased presence in Pakistan in 2008, 'to
train and support indigenous counterinsurgency forces
and clandestine counterterrorism units.' The Glasgow
Herald now reports that U.S. Special Forces 'snatch
squads' are in Pakistan, prepared to secure the nuclear
warheads in the event of the government's collapse.
What Pakistani author Tariq Ali told me recently about
Afghanistan equally applies to Pakistan: 'The people of
Afghanistan ... do not like being occupied by foreign
powers. They didn't like being occupied by the
Russians, and they don't like being occupied by the
United States and the NATO armies in their country. And
as long as this foreign occupation lasts, there will be
forms of resistance against it.'

The CIA coined the term blowback. It applies to
situations like Afghanistan in the 1970s and '80s when
the U.S. armed and trained the mujahedeen, including
Osama bin Laden, to counter the Soviet occupation. When
the Soviets were finally forced out, the mujahedeen set
their sights on a new target: the U.S. That's blowback.

While the Bush administration pushes for quick
elections in Pakistan, it is important to raise these
issues in our elections here at home. The assassination
of Bhutto put foreign policy back on the front burner
in the U.S. presidential race-though you would think
that 2007 being the deadliest year yet in Iraq for U.S.
soldiers (at least 900 dead) would have accomplished
that. The candidates could use this as a 'teachable
moment' to talk about the wrongheaded long-term U.S.
support-Republican and Democrat-for Pakistan's corrupt,
human-rights-abusing nuclear regime. Did any of the
leading Democratic contenders use the moment to
demonstrate that they represent a true opposition
party? While they each tout themselves as true 'change'
agents, they have yet to prove it. We are waiting.


[Amy Goodman is the host of 'Democracy Now!,' a daily
international TV/radio news hour airing on 650 stations
in North America.]

(c) 2008 Amy Goodman