In what has to be one of the world's greatest ironies, Pakistan has agreed to join the US and Russia in combating global nuclear terrorism. Well, almost. As Pakistan's Foreign Ministry spokesman Tasnim Aslam said, "While joining the initiative, Pakistan has declared that the Global Initiative does not cover Pakistan's military nuclear facilities or activities." So Pakistan is willing to combat global nuclear terrorism while choosing to ignore one of the greatest potential sources of said terrorism, their own nuclear facilities. (The Hindu: Pak. to join global initiative to combat nuclear terrorism.)
On paper, Pakistan is penciled in as a US ally in our current war against Radical Islam. The reality, though, is that Pakistan is the source, training ground, and refuge for the radical Islamic groups that threaten the rest of the world. Terrorists in Pakistan breed faster than cockroaches and they are just as difficult to exterminate. While it may be true that Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf is a US ally, on paper at least, it is also true that his conversion to our way of thinking came at gun point, and it is equally true that the US does not hold favor with the overall general population in Pakistan. Truly treating Pakistan like an ally is absurd.
In 2004, a former Pakistani nuclear scientist, Abdul Qadeer Khan, admitted to running a vast nuclear proliferation network that provided nuclear technology to North Korea, Iran, and Libya. What was the official response from President Pervez Musharraf? He pardoned Khan and called him a national hero. So much for our ally, Pakistan.
Make no mistake about it. Pakistan is a terrorist state with nuclear capabilities. Worse yet, the only thing that stands between them and a fundamentalist radical Muslim regime is Musharraf, and his hold is tenuous at best. Once he is out of the picture Pakistan will be run by the Radical Islamic elements that we are fighting world wide. A nuclear equipped Pakistan simply means that it is inevitable that the terrorists prosecuting their side of the Radical Islamic War will also have nuclear capabilities.
Musharraf cannot currently control his population, nor does he appear to have any real desire to do so. It is only a matter of time before the US is forced to deal harshly with Pakistan. They are providing safe haven for our enemies, they stymie any attempts by the US military to pursue our enemies into Pakistan, and they have already admitted to providing other rogue nations with nuclear technologies. How much more proof do we need that Pakistan is itself a rogue nation?
So it is nice to hear that Pakistan will join the US and Russia in a global fight against nuclear terrorism. I say we start right there, in Pakistan. Eliminate their nuclear capabilities and we've already accounted for the major source of nuclear proliferation to other rogue nations in the region. Once that is accomplished, we can focus on the other major source of nuclear proliferation to rogue nations: Russia. But that's another topic for discussion.
1 comment :
'Breeding faster than cockroaches'
Ahem, but wouldn't you say this is a bit lurid! I'm thinking the only thing that really breeds faster than cockroaches is GOP hyperbole but I really can't quantify that as I can't say I have first-hand knowledge of the breeding rate of cockroaches.
'Rogue' nation
Isn't this a country that does something counter to whatever the U.S. wants it to do? This kind of semantic loading is, in my view, detrimental to the position. The Bush administration has done it more than any I have seen previously and not to good effect.
Your points are nevertheless valid but I suspect this is on the same order as gun control in the U.S. The genie is already out of the bottle and it's not so much a question of controlling it but rather defending against it. I can almost hear you say there's nothing like a good offense but the administration has botched the current offensive so completely that there's no way the public will buy into another one.
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