With friends like Pakistan...

Mmmm, extreme pie.

 

Here's a long (5,000 words), but very useful primer on Pakistan-US relations and the current military vs. civilian rule issue.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200710/musharraf?

 

Is there anyone who thinks a secular Democracy headed by someone other than Musharraf will be more aggressive or successful in hunting down al Qaeda and Taliban forces in the frontier provinces?

 

Doesn't sound like it from that article. Physically, it's hard to get into that area, it's by and large an independent state within Pakistan, with a large extreme Islamist population that will hide Bin Laden. That won't change with a new President/Prime Minister/General.

Also, the backlash from civilian deaths from military raids in that region will be high, no matter who's in charge.

 

This seems to be nothing more than a blatant power grab by Musharraf to me, using national nuclear security as his fig leaf.

Perv knows he will get away with it in the end because the U.S. backs him and his internal foes are still weak. That plays into his timing, I suppose: elections coming up in his country, as well as ours. Hillary probably won't countenance these shenanigans like Chimp Boy does.

 

I saw a preview for "Charlie Wilson's War" the other day -- script by Aaron Sorkin, which I didn't know -- and it got me thinking about what a mixed blessing the whole Afghan escapade has turned out to be. Helped the Soviet Union fall, and, with it, the Eastern bloc. Hooray. But blowback that's going to go on for decades. Not just Osama and the big win for Islamic radicals over a mechanized state power, but inextricably binding the US to Pakistani intelligence, which plays all sides against the middle.
Not judging. Just thinking.

 

One of the most interesting aspects of "The Looming Tower" was how little impact Osama and his misfits had on the Afghan war. Yet they were/are so deluded that they think they actually brought down the Soviets, when it was the native Afghans who did the overwhelming majority of the dirty work. But if your propaganda machine is good enough (and bin Laden's is), you can make people across the Islamic/Arab world believe you felled the mechanized state power. The perception's as valuable as the reality.

 

See Hitler, Nazi Germany.