A.P. photo/ Anjum Naveed -- Shocked father of detained businessman
The Times Square bombing is having a ripple effect, as Pakistan detains a widening circle of people over it.
The government of Pakistan has now arrested an army officer and a businessman for helping introduce the bomber to trainers and for doing some of the planning.
Details are murky; denials are rife. The officer is called “disaffected.” The network for associating trigger men with trainers is called “informal.” The question is asked whether there are a few men in the Army who support terrorism (Jane Perlez, NY Times, 5/22, A1).
“A few?” My series on a New York Hindu leader indicates that Pakistan is dedicated to terrorism, though now it is beginning to defend itself from terrorism. Like Saudi Arabia, Pakistan encourages terrorism but does not want terrorists to turn against it.
Pakistan birth featured mass-murder and expulsion by the million. The Pakistani Army committed purges, and on a genocidal level, when trying to keep Bangladesh from independence. Muslim terrorism against Indians in Kashmir is so prevalent, it has to be sponsored by Pakistani intelligence. Pakistan has thousands of madrassas run by radicals who generate terrorists.
When the U.S. intervened indirectly in Afghanistan against the Soviets, it channeled money and weapons for the resistance through Pakistan, without monitoring it. Turns out that Pakistan delivered that aid to radical militias. Hence the rise of the Taliban. What does that tell you about Pakistan and terrorism?
Not all of the help for the Taliban, however, was to assist jihad. Pakistan wants to somewhat control bordering Afghanistan, and considers India its enemy. On the other hand, if Pakistan were not militantly Islamic, it would not need to consider India an enemy, regardless of who controls Kashmir.
The question is not whether the Pakistani Army has some disaffected individuals, but whether the pro-terrorist intelligence outfit determined policy and still determines it.
There was a credible report a few years ago, that when he was President, Musharraf told fellow Islamists that at times, he would have to act as if he opposed them, but he was one of them. This is like the secret meeting of Muslim government leaders with Arafat, that I reported some years ago, in which, as he was about to sign Olso’s peace pledge, he reassured them that Oslo is part of his phased plan for the conquest of Israel. Like Janus, two-faced: one face to the West, another face to jihad.
Deception is part of the Islamist code. The U.S. needs to recognize this and assess more realistically. Then the U.S. might finally develop foreign policy in its own interest.
(For a path back to prior news on the bombing, click here )
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