Pakistan to Bin Laden: “No, You’re Cool.”
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in The War On Terrorism, The World
According to the Bush Doctrine, isn’t Pakistan now fair game?
Osama bin Laden, America’s most wanted man, will not face capture in Pakistan if he agrees to lead a “peaceful life,” Pakistani officials tell ABC News.The surprising announcement comes as Pakistani army officials announced they were pulling their troops out of the North Waziristan region as part of a “peace deal” with the Taliban.
If he is in Pakistan, bin Laden “would not be taken into custody,” Major General Shaukat Sultan Khan told ABC News in a telephone interview, “as long as one is being like a peaceful citizen.”
Oh, but wait…there’s so much more:
In addition to the pullout of Pakistani troops, the “peace agreement” between Pakistan and the Taliban also provides for the Pakistani army to return captured Taliban weapons and prisoners.“What this means is that the Taliban and al Qaeda leadership have effectively carved out a sanctuary inside Pakistan,” said ABC News consultant Richard Clarke, the former White House counter-terrorism director.
So, what are we going to do about this? Just a ploy by Pakistan for Osama to let his guard down? Or is the real deal?
And frankly, isn’t this highly coincidental? I mean, the same day the President talks about our policy shifting away from al Qaeda, this is announced?
More as it develops…
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September 6th, 2006 at 4:41 am
A Safe Haven For Al Qaeda In Pakistan?
Musharraf is heavily criticized for fighting alongside (to a degree at least) the US against Muslim extremists. This could be a solution that will result in a win-win situation: the US takes out Bin Laden, Musharraf remains in power of Pakistan.
September 6th, 2006 at 6:01 am
The problem with the validation, as described by L&J, is that the US would now have to move into Waziristan to take out not only to the AQ and Taliban, but also those Pakistani’s providing sanctuary to the fundamentalist militants. If their ‘theory’ were to be correct, then the GWOT has expanded.
Regardless what Ms. Martha Radick and her ABC News blog has to say, the only people who have been caught flat-footed on this story have been the American people. The administration has been aware of this story, because the story actually broke on 1 SEP 2006 on the McClatchy Washington Bureau blog (link below). The story tells us,
“The Pakistani regime of Gen. Pervez Musharraf has been negotiating truces – with the Bush administration’s encouragement – with Islamic separatists in North Waziristan and South Waziristan, mountainous tribal areas along the Afghan border where U.S. officials think bin Laden may be hiding.
In return, Pakistani officials are promising to restrict the country’s troops in the area to major bases and towns and to pour huge amounts of aid – much of it from the United States and other nations – into the destitute region, according to American officials.
But as the truces take hold, separatists have been crossing into Afghanistan to fight alongside Taliban and al-Qaida fighters, according to Western and Afghan officials.”
In an earlier newspaper article, dated 16 AUG 2006, the same reporter tells us the administration has been helping to modify the Pakistani truce by letting the Pakistani army to move to its barracks along the border with India, and $150M will be pumped into Pakistan for other projects. Those projects include ‘training’ border guards using people from the tribal areas, set up an industrial area along the border, and possibly provide clinics and schools if the Pakistani militants put aside their agressive ways. Great idea but it will work as soon as monkeys fly.
I have been critical with the admininstration’s plan for a while – the political and military resources have been either misplaced or misused. I want the US Government to do a better job of placing the right force in the right place with the right amount of resources to do the job. These ‘whack-a-mole’ and ‘birth-pangs’ strategies are totally wrong. I am called as as a ‘cut and run’ groupie and an appeaser to aid the enemy because I criticize the strategies. Then this new strategy is unfolded to enable the administration to shift the focus from AQ (who has attacked the US a fair number of times since 1998) to Iran. The new strategy is WRONG – we are taking to much on our plate at one setting. We need to make sure we have enough resources to do the job correctly and we are spreading ourselves out even thinner. Heaven help us from this woe!
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/columnists/jonathan_s_landay/15419933.htm?source=rss&channel=krwashington_jonathan_s_landay
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/columnists/jonathan_s_landay/15289315.htm
September 6th, 2006 at 6:12 am
I am not picking on L&J. Hot Air had a blog entry early last night describing this scenario of a ‘win-win’.