[International Herald Tribune, France]
Dawn, Pakistan
Mumbai Terrorists
Prospered Under U.S.-Backed Musharraf
"The capabilities of
Lashkar-i-Taiba, which mounted the Mumbai attack, grew on the watch of General
Musharraf - a military strongman supported by American dollars and a White
House that believed he was its best bet for taking on, in the tribal areas,
al-Qaeda and the Taliban."
EDITORIAL
December 9, 2008
Pakistan - Dawn - Home Page
(English)
Never far from the news,
Pakistan has been firmly in the global spotlight since the Mumbai attacks. The
steady drip of leaks from investigators in India and comments by Indian and
American officials suggest that a Pakistan connection to the Mumbai attacks has
been irrefutably established, at least in the eyes of the wider world. There
is, however, a second, sometimes unspoken line of charges against Pakistan:
that we are a state with weak governance where terrorist groups have long run
amok. "Enough is enough, now put your house in order," the world led
by India and the U.S. is saying to Pakistan. We wish the world, and in
particular the United States, wasn't so selective in its memories of what has
brought Pakistan to such a pass.
If Lashkar-i-Taiba 
reached the
kind of position of strength that it was able to execute the Mumbai attacks
with such consummate ease, it didn't do so in a vacuum. The Lashkar’s
capabilities grew on the watch of General Musharraf, a military strongman
supported by American dollars and a White House that believed he was its best
bet for taking on, in the tribal areas, al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
Posted by WORLDMEETS.US
Even as it became clear that
General Musharraf wasn't delivering on American demands and perhaps was playing
the dangerous double game of covertly supporting militant groups, the Americans
steadfastly stood by their man. The past year provided a particularly
unedifying juxtaposition of a desperate general clinging to power and the
resurgence of the two largest political parties, the Pakistan Peoples Party and
the Pakistan Muslim League, Nawaz Branch , both which unambiguously support closer ties to
India. Throughout that tussle, the U.S. remained a silent spectator, keen not
to upset a fading dictator. So it must be said that militancy is a problem not
only because of Pakistan’s numerous sins of commission - but also because of
sins of omission by the U.S., whose interests in Afghanistan led it to back a
ruler who made neither Pakistan nor the region safer.
Lashkar-i-Taiba:
Did the U.S. have a hand in fostering the
group responsible for the terrorist attack on Mumbai?
Making the region
safe is no easy task now. The torching of 150 trucks laden with NATO supplies
and vehicles outside Peshawar on Sunday confirms that a dangerous game of
whack-a-mole is under way - hit the militants in one area and they pop up in
another. This is possible because the militants are neither a monolith nor
neatly divisible into separate groups; they have overlapped and melded in ways
that have extended their overall reach. So for Pakistan the priority then must
be to push back against all militants, not just the ones that the U.S. or India
wants us to stamp out. To do so will require a well-thought-out plan. However,
no plan will succeed if foreign countries narrowly focus on their own interests
and regard terrorism in Pakistan in a piecemeal way.
[Posted by WORLDMEETS.US
December 10, 8:47pm]
