Pakistan, which was running a nuclear WalMart in the meanwhile and still has jehadis operating within eyesight of its military headquarters in Islamabad - gets billions of dollars of US taxpayer money.

We are going to establish democracy in Iraq - but we were trying to pass off these caucuses which would have put in pro-US people in power. Anyone who disagrees with the Bushies is weak on terror. The French and now the Spanish are evil, but the Saudis are our allies. And the media swallows and spits all this out dutifully.

This is not too far from George Orwell's 1984.  

Before reflexive Europe-bashers rush to toss Spain into their bulging "coward" bin, they should remember that the Spanish, like our German and French critics, did not come to this position because they lacked a will to fight terrorism. In fact, they speak from much raw and painful experience as colonial powers. As Rodriguez Zapatero put it, "Wars such as those which have occurred in Iraq only allow hatred, violence and terror to proliferate."

 That is the most serious charge that can be leveled at the Bush foreign policy, which has weakened our security as well as that of the rest of the world. Instead of facing up to the threat posed by Islamic extremists and their sponsors and apologists in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, the U.S. sent 200,000 young Americans to overthrow an already defanged dictator in Iraq -- a secular nationalist who was himself high on Osama bin Laden's hit list -- leaving the United States bogged down in a state of near-total disarray and chaos.

 What Bush has never grasped is that when it comes to fighting terrorists, the United States' democratic allies are in an excellent position to be mentors. They have a much better understanding of the Muslim world, for example, and have better intelligence assets there. Yet the hawks in the administration continue to belittle democracies when they dare to disagree with us while embracing military dictators who pretend to do our bidding.

 To give just one egregious example of the lack of logic, clarity of goals or consistent methodology in Bush's version of the war on terror: Before 9/11, the United States had wisely imposed sanctions on Pakistan for being an active proliferator of nuclear weapons technology. Yet, after the attacks, Bush lifted those sanctions to buy Pakistan's nominal support for coming wars. In recent weeks, however, we have learned that Pakistan's role in nuclear proliferation was our nation's worst nightmare: It was selling kits for making uranium-based bombs to such rogue nations as North Korea, Iran and Libya.

In America's Strategic Choices, a book published over three years before the events of September 11, the authors predicted that a strategy for global domination would lead U.S. policy makers to inflate threats in order to justify questionable interventions abroad. Conversely, the same quest for global primacy also creates "sacred cows," such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, as evidenced by the Bush administration's tendency to omit references to misdeeds attributable to the two nations.

In the case of Saudi Arabia, its financial support for jihad continues, but this is often downplayed given its role as a U.S. ally enabling unquestioned American strategic dominance in the Middle East. Similarly, a long-term U.S. strategic hold in South Asia is accorded a higher priority than forcing Gen. Musharraf to shut down the entire terrorist infrastructure for good, and getting Pakistan's nuclear assets out of the reach of jihadis hell-bent on destroying America.

Should the next administration continue on a path towards increasing U.S. primacy in the world, even if it means compromising in the war on terror? Is the quest for global primacy more important than national security, and is such primacy even feasible, given that such a quest has helped push the nation towards destabilizing budget deficits? The 2004 presidential campaign will be a chance for the American electorate to understand and question such vital choices that are being made at the highest levels of strategic policy making.

Where we are left now (and the Bush guys don't want us to spend our brain cells thinking too much about it), is that Pakistan has supplied nukes to just about every "rogue nation" in the world. And no one knows where the dividing line is between jihadis and Musharraf's military and intelligence agencies. And many of his nuclear scientists regularly attend jihadi conferences. And two of Pakistan's four provinces are ruled by parties that support the Taliban.

And we just spent the past two years or so taking our eyes off the ball and instead marching on to Baghdad.

http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/tucker/index.html

The simple truth is that the United States should be engaged in a grueling, long-term campaign against Islamist fanatics. But that sort of war would likely have entailed an invasion of Pakistan instead of the distraction of Iraq. Pakistan has done everything that Bush falsely claimed Iraq had done: it sheltered al-Qaida, and its scientists sold secrets and parts for making the mother of all WMD -- the nuclear bomb -- to North Korea, Libya and Iran. But a war against a nuclear power like Pakistan may have involved thousands of U.S. casualties. It would have been a real war.

Here's a direct quote from today's Washington Post: 'Rather than moving to impose sanctions on Pakistan -- action that might be expected for a government that has been caught providing the technology for nuclear weapons to such countries as Iran, Libya and North Korea -- it has swallowed his coverup and even congratulated him on it. "We value the commitments Mr. Musharraf has made to prevent the expertise in Pakistan from reaching other places," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said yesterday. "We think that Pakistan is taking serious efforts to end the activities of a dangerous network." As for the pardon of Mr. Khan -- who by Pakistan's account is probably the worst criminal in the history of nuclear weapons proliferation -- "I don't think it's a matter for the United States to sit in judgment on," Mr. Boucher said.'

President Bush is going against his own "pre-emptive doctrine" by giving Pakistan a free pass, while he spent the past year waging war on Iraq.

Subodh

Pakistan, as the prime intersection of Al Qaeda, Taliban, functioning terrorist camps, active jihadi groups and 10s of thousands of madrassas, as well as the world's nuclear WalMart, should have been the prime focus of the war on terror. But President Bush considers its devious dictator Pervez Musharraf a tight ally, and conveniently neglects to mention repeated Pakistani actions that endanger the US.

Musharraf makes tall speeches about fighting extremism and about confidence in control over his nuclear weapons. But terrorist leaders operate with impunity in his country. The HQ of one of such leaders is within eyesight of a Pakistani military base in its capital. And Musharraf has not allowed investigation into leaking of nuclear secrets to America's worst enemies to touch the Pakistani military. Meanwhile the Taliban continue to regroup from bases in Pakistan. In addition, Pakistan has also supported warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, whose militia is harassing US-led forces in Afghanistan.

Pakistan's intelligence chief resigned a few weeks after 9/11, suspected of having funded the attacks. Has his role in the attacks been thoroughly investigated by the US? Pakistan's air force chief also was suspected of connections to 9/11. According to Gerald Posner's book, "Why America Slept", the air chief died in a mysterious crash not long after the suspicions came to light. Many in the nuclear establishment (which is now being made a scapegoat in the nuclear trade scandal) are known to be jihad sympathizers.

Not surprisingly, foreign journalists have been banned from traveling outside three main Pakistani cities. Barry Bearak of NY Times magazine recently called Pakistan a "hub of duplicity", with Bernard Henri-Levy's book last year going into extensive detail about the goings-on inside that nation.

What was that about "with friends like these...". It would be enlightening to see a debate about Pakistan policy between the president and the eventual Democratic nominee.

Subodh