Bush's Shielding of Musharraf at Risk: "The main centre of global terrorism is in Pakistan…"

WASHINGTON, Jul 7 (IPS) - The growing crisis over Islamic extremism in Pakistan is drawing attention to the complicity of that country's military government in the rise of the biggest haven for Islamic terrorism in the world.
The issue, which is also linked to the threat to U.S. troops in Afghanistan from Taliban bases in Pakistan, is likely to push aside the George W. Bush administration's campaign to portray Iran as the primary external source of instability and violence against U.S. troops in the region.


The serious impacts of the policy of accommodation practiced by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf toward the Taliban and its extremist supporters in Pakistan has been dramatised this week by the clashes between security forces and Islamic extremists at the Red Mosque in Islamabad.
That crisis came only a few days after a report in the New York Times Jun. 28 that the Pakistani Interior Ministry had warned Musharraf earlier in June that a "general policy of appeasement towards the Taliban" had " further emboldened" the Islamic extremist forces.


But despite these indications that the news from Pakistan is likely to shed a harsh light on its Pakistan policy, the Bush administration has continued to offer unqualified endorsement of Musharraf's policy toward terrorism.

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The Musharraf government's deals with pro-Taliban groups in 2004 and 2006 in the border provinces of South and North Waziristan helped the Taliban generate increased manpower and logistics support for cross-border raids into Afghanistan by Taliban guerrillas based in those provinces.
According to a report by the International Crisis Group last December, after the September 2006 accord, the government "released militants, returned their weapons, disbanded security check posts and agreed to allow foreign terrorists to stay if they gave up violence." The new accommodation with the Taliban "facilitates the growth of militancy and attacks in Afghanistan by giving pro-Taliban elements a free hand to recruit, train and arm," the report said.


When New York Times correspondent Carlotta Gall visited border towns without permission in January, she reported finding "signs that Pakistani authorities are encouraging the insurgents, if not sponsoring them."


The result of the policy of appeasement of the Taliban is that Pakistan has madrassas in the border provinces that churn out committed jihadists by the tens of thousands every year, and the number of active supporters of Islamic terrorism in Pakistan appears to be in the hundreds of thousands.
In testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that put the Bush administration's portrayal of al Qaeda in Iraq as the main foreign terrorist threat in perspective, New York University's Rubin declared, "The main centre of global terrorism is in Pakistan…"


Al Qaeda forces in Iraq, which Bush has highlighted in recent speeches as the central front in the administration's war against terrorism, have never been estimated at more than a few thousand.
Musharraf's failure to act against religious extremists and their madrassas is widely understood to be part of a fundamental strategy by the military regime of using political parties that embrace extreme Islamic ideology as a political base of support for the military dictatorship to ensure against the return of democratic forces seeking to reverse Musharraf's 1999 coup.

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The Bush administration has been protecting Musharraf's regime from the domestic U.S. consequences that would have followed any official acknowledgement of the truth, despite its awareness knowledge of Musharraf's bad faith. As the risk of political backlash at home over the issue increases, however, that policy is certain to come under severe pressure.

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"What this indicates is that in the months following the release of
our recommendation that the administration ``aggressively'' address the
foreign government involvement in 9-11, the Bush administration not
only failed to pursue and investigate foreign government involvement,
the administration misused the classification process to protect the
foreign governments that may have been involved in 9-11. There is no
reason for the Bush administration to continue to shield make-believe
allies who are supporting, either directly or indirectly, terrorists
who want to kill Americans." -----Senator Bob Graham

Congressional Record: February 2, 2004 (Senate) Page S337-S341