Given their recent rhetoric, either George W. Bush or Pervez Musharraf is hiding something. Today's news revealed Mike McConnell, director of national intelligence, and Gen. Michael Hayden, CIA director, met with the Pakistani President on January 9th. After the meeting Pervez made a number of "uncooperative comments".
January 11th-President Pervez Musharraf said U.S. troops are not welcome to join the fight against al Qaeda on Pakistani soil. Musharraf warned in an interview published yesterday that Pakistan would resist any unilateral military action by the United States against militants sheltering in its lawless, tribal regions close to the Afghan border. He said U.S. troops would "certainly" be considered invaders if they set foot in the tribal regions without his permission.
Contrast this with Bush's Fighting to the Finish position, illuminated by Fran Townsend on a FOX News special, "The president has made perfectly clear that he wants Bin Laden brought to justice before he leaves office.”
January 22nd-"The 100,000 troops that we are using ... are not going around trying to locate Osama bin Laden and Zawahri, frankly," Musharraf told a conference at the French Institute for International Relations. "They are operating against terrorists, and in the process, if we get them, we will deal with them certainly."
This statement is odd, especially given the fact that bin Laden declared war on Musharraf in September 2007
January 25th- "Unfortunately there is a degree of, may I say, intellectual arrogance that I see in the West which thinks that these developing countries are some kind of people who do not know how to govern, they do not know anything."
So what's going on? Is Pervez hitting the fringe like past U.S. sponsored dictators, the Shah of Iran and Iraq's Saddam Hussein? Is Musharraf saying one thing to his public while doing another behind the scenes. The secret visit by McConnell and Hayden indicate something's up. How many billions did they dangle for landing bin Laden? And what better way to throw the Islamists off track, than to say "we're not looking for you" and neither is the U.S.
Something fishy is going on between Bush and Musharraf. Head fakes or break aways? It's hard to tell in today's divided world.
January 11th-President Pervez Musharraf said U.S. troops are not welcome to join the fight against al Qaeda on Pakistani soil. Musharraf warned in an interview published yesterday that Pakistan would resist any unilateral military action by the United States against militants sheltering in its lawless, tribal regions close to the Afghan border. He said U.S. troops would "certainly" be considered invaders if they set foot in the tribal regions without his permission.
Contrast this with Bush's Fighting to the Finish position, illuminated by Fran Townsend on a FOX News special, "The president has made perfectly clear that he wants Bin Laden brought to justice before he leaves office.”
January 22nd-"The 100,000 troops that we are using ... are not going around trying to locate Osama bin Laden and Zawahri, frankly," Musharraf told a conference at the French Institute for International Relations. "They are operating against terrorists, and in the process, if we get them, we will deal with them certainly."
This statement is odd, especially given the fact that bin Laden declared war on Musharraf in September 2007
January 25th- "Unfortunately there is a degree of, may I say, intellectual arrogance that I see in the West which thinks that these developing countries are some kind of people who do not know how to govern, they do not know anything."
So what's going on? Is Pervez hitting the fringe like past U.S. sponsored dictators, the Shah of Iran and Iraq's Saddam Hussein? Is Musharraf saying one thing to his public while doing another behind the scenes. The secret visit by McConnell and Hayden indicate something's up. How many billions did they dangle for landing bin Laden? And what better way to throw the Islamists off track, than to say "we're not looking for you" and neither is the U.S.
Something fishy is going on between Bush and Musharraf. Head fakes or break aways? It's hard to tell in today's divided world.
