Bill Roggio has a disturbing report about Nawaz Sharif:

With the return of former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to Pakistan, a dangerous new actor has now reentered Pakistani politics. ABC News's the Blotter reports that Sharif has accepted a bribe from none other than Osama bin Laden.

The report is based on the interrogation of one Ali Mohamed, who "served as a special projects coordinator for bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al Zawahri in the mid-1990s." Based on the Blotter report, 'Mohamed was also in charge of selecting bin Laden's personal security team." This would be the Black Guard, and this posting along with the special projects coordinator position would place Mohamed at the heart of al Qaeda's inner working.

Mohamed, who is now in a U.S. prison for his role in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Africa, has been cooperating with the FBI and providing them with a wealth of information on the inner workings of al Qaeda. Frmer FBI agent and ABC News consultant Jack Cloonan has questioned Mohamed over a period of years and believes the information he has provided to U.S. authorities is accurate.

Cloonan says that back in 1999 Mohamed told the FBI he arranged for a meeting between bin Laden and Sharif's representatives. Following that meeting, Mohamed told Cloonan he delivered $1 million to Sharif's representatives. Mohamed said the payoff was a tribute to Sharif for not cracking down on the Taliban as it flourished in Afghanistan and influenced the Northwest Frontier Province in Pakistan, according to Cloonan.
Sharif, who was deposed by President Pervez Musharraf in a coup in 1999, is now being courted by Musharraf to serve as prime minister in a new coalition government. U.S. ambassador to Pakistan Anne W. Patterson is set to meet with Sharif today.

As the Blotter noted, rumors of Sharif's links to al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden are not new. In 2005, Khalid Khawaja, a former Inter Services Intelligence operative, told Asia Times that Sharif and bin Laden met in Saudi Arabia in 1998. According to Khawaja, Sharif accepted cash to prevent the rise of political rival Benazir Bhutto.

After Gen Zia’s death in a plane crash (1988), elections were announced and there was a possibility that the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) led by Benazir Bhutto would win, which would be a great setback for the cause of the Afghan jihad against the USSR. The situation was discussed and all the mujahideen thought that they should play a role in blocking the PPP from winning the elections. I joined my former DG Hamid Gul and played a role in forming the then Islamic Democratic Alliance consisting of the Pakistan Muslim League and the Jamaat-e-Islami. The PPP won the elections by a thin margin and faced a strong opposition.

Nawaz Sharif insisted that I arrange a direct meeting with the Osama, which I did in Saudi Arabia. Nawaz met thrice with Osama in Saudi Arabia...

Nawaz Sharif was looking for a Rs 500 million grant from Osama. Though Osama gave a comparatively smaller amount, the landmark thing he secured for Nawaz Sharif was a meeting with the (Saudi) royal family, which gave Nawaz Sharif a lot of political support, and it remained till he was dislodged (as premier) by Gen Pervez Musharraf (in a coup in 1999). Saudi Arabia arranged for his release and his safe exit to Saudi Arabia,” he told Asia Times online.
Sharif is denying any links to the Taliban or al Qaeda. "Let me be clear I have been condemning all sorts of terrorism, whether in Pakistan or outside Pakistan," Sharif told the Associated Press. "We are moderates, we follow moderation and nothing except moderation. Remarks are made by other countries without taking (into consideration) our cooperation that we have extended in the past. To me this is unreasonable and I am disappointed."

Labels: al qaeda, foreign policy, pakistan, proliferation, war on terror

Investors Business Daily examines the flip side to the Pervez Musharraf regime -- there are certainly worse things. It's even more relevant given that our intelligence services haven't seemed to have corrected course in 10 years, or even since 9-11.

What would an Islamist terrorist not give to commandeer one of Pakistan's 50 or so atomic bombs?

Yet as recently pointed out by Andrew Koch, defense/security analyst with Washington's Scribe Strategies and Advisors consulting firm, to Agence France Presse: "We don't have absolute certainty we know where all of Pakistan's weapons are kept." That makes taking those sites out in such a large country more than tough.

Of the many blemishes the U.S. intelligence establishment has accrued over the years, this is one of the most glaring. Why don't we know? Our spies and surrogates should be ensconced in Pakistan's military and its intelligence service nine ways to jumu'ah.

But how could they be, what with a CIA so deficient it was shocked when India conducted an underground nuclear test in May 1998, shortly followed by a tit-for-tat underground explosion by neighboring Pakistan.

"The reporting from the CIA's station in New Delhi was lazy," as Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter Tim Weiner writes in "Legacy of Ashes," a history of the CIA published earlier this year. "The warning bell never rang. The test revealed a failure of espionage, a failure to read photographs, a failure to comprehend reports, a failure to think, and a failure to see . . . a clear sign of a systemic breakdown."

The Pakistan Army, which controls the nuclear arsenal, may well be pro-Western, as experts assure us. But the country's powerful Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), which the U.S. used in training, arming and funding Afghanistan's mujahedeen rebels against the Soviet occupation in the 1980s, has had ties to al-Qaida from its beginnings during that era.

What power would the ISI — or extreme elements within it — have over Pakistan's nukes if things got worse there?
All relevant questions. And it should be noted: Musharraf is 64 years old. He's not getting any younger. Maybe he'll last another 20 years. Maybe 20 days. But even if not now, the time will come when we have to face the facts of a changing Pakistan.

And the criticism of our lack of intelligence capabilities, especially after already having been burnt in 1998, just bolsters one's opinion of their incompetence. Like I said a couple days ago when noting their hiring of a Hezbollah-supporter, they're experts at leaking information to the New York Times. But at recruiting spies and infiltrating enemy organizations? Not so much.

Meanwhile, Democrats in Congress are far more concerned with opposing all things Bush than they are preventing that fourth hijacked plane from slamming into their own Capital Hill building!

Brian Faughan explains:

Was it really less than a month ago that House leaders tried to pass a deeply flawed rewrite of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act by running roughshod over the opposition? As we covered at the time, the House leadership version of FISA actually makes it harder to conduct surveillance of terrorists in a number of ways. For example, it requires a court order for surveillance any time a call might involve an American. Since we do not know who a terrorist may call in advance, it essentially requires a court order to target foreigners overseas.

It also subjects military intelligence to FISA--so our forces in Iraq, for example, would require a court order before being permitted to listen in on communications by suspected terrorists. It would also require intelligence agencies to compile a database of U.S. citizens potentially involved in targeted communications.

Observers of this debate will recall that when the Democrats tried to ram the bill through with no debate last month, they were stymied by a proposed 'motion to recommit' that would have said that nothing in the bill would prevent the United States 'from conducting surveillance needed to prevent Osama Bin Laden, Al Qaeda, or any other foreign terrorist organization…from attacking the United States.' Democrats complained both that the bill already contained this protection, and that they had to vote against it--which would have effectively killed the bill.

What have the Democrats learned from this experience? Not much. They have again brought their flawed FISA bill to the floor. They have not amended the bill to correct the problems it creates for intelligence agencies and they have again moved to block all amendments. The sole move they have made to ensure that this debate goes better than the first is to press all Democrats to vote against the GOP motion--no matter what it says.

Labels: Congress, intelligence, pakistan, proliferation, surveillance, TSP

The editors of the Wall Street Journal take a moment to expose the hypocrisy in Congress.

Whatever Pervez Musharraf's failings in Islamabad, his impact in Washington has been nothing short of miraculous. With his declaration of emergency rule, the Pakistan President has single-handedly revived the Bush Doctrine. The same people who only days ago were deriding President Bush for naively promoting democracy are now denouncing him for not promoting it enough in Pakistan.

"We have to move from a Musharraf to a Pakistan policy," declared Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden on Thursday. "Pakistan has strong democratic traditions and a large, moderate majority. But that moderate majority must have a voice in the system and an outlet with elections. If not, moderates may find that they have no choice but to make common cause with extremists, just as the Shah's opponents did in Iran three decades ago."

Joe Biden, neocon.

Labels: Congress, defending liberty, democrats, Hypocrisy, pakistan

Musharraf has made his choice, perferring power and stability over democracy and liberty. It's time for us to make ours, or suffer the consequences of hypocrisy. The situation in Pakistan is both serious and complicated, but one certainty is that enemies, allies and fence-squatters alike are watching how the United States reacts.

For many years the Bush team has made the argument that the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq were necessary to reverse the Cold War stategy whereby Western nations chose stability over liberty in the Middle East.

"Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe," President Bush said in November 2003, "because in the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty." Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice reiterated in September 2005, "For 60 years, we often thought that we could achieve stability without liberty in the Middle East. And ultimately, we got neither."

They were right then. It's time to be right now.

One understands the dilemma and contradictory view, most recently aired by Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, that should Musharraf fall it may not bring in an era of Bhutto-led democracy, but rather empower the very Islamic fascists with whom we're at war. But given a choice in this no-win scenario, at least stay true to your founding values. We have far more to lose than a strongman in Central Asia.

Here's a related commentary from the Wall Street Journal:

Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf says he imposed a state of emergency to limit terror attacks. Then why is he arresting so many nonterrorists?

Beginning Saturday, the main targets of police have been human rights workers and Mr. Musharraf's political opponents. While precise figures are hard to come by, more than 1,500 people -- mostly lawyers who participated in anti-Musharraf protests -- are thought to be incarcerated, either in their homes or in jails.

Topping the detainee list is Asma Jahangir, the Lahore-based head of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. Ms. Jahangir, a lawyer who is also a United Nations' special rapporteur on freedom of religion, agitated publicly for an independent judiciary and has represented the families of "disappeared" political dissidents. She was placed under a 90-day "preventative" house arrest on Saturday in Lahore.

Next comes Aitzaz Ahsan, president of the Supreme Court Bar Association, a member of Parliament and a former law minister. Mr. Ahsan, who defended former Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry earlier this year when Mr. Musharraf sacked him, stood up at a press conference Saturday and denounced the state of emergency. Mr. Ahsan is now in Adiala Jail near Rawalpindi.

Then there's Ali Ahmed Kurd, another lawyer for former Chief Justice Chaudhry, who human rights groups claim is now under the supervision of the Inter-Services Intelligence agency. Other lawyers in that case, including Munir Malik and Tariq Mahmood -- both former presidents of the Supreme Court Bar -- have also been arrested.

Other detainees include Javed Hashmi, the acting president of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's party; Imran Khan, a famous cricketer and leader of a new, small political party; and hundreds of workers for Jamaat-e-Islami, a large religious party. Mr. Khan managed to give the slip to his minders at his home and is now on the run.

If Mr. Musharraf wants to fight terrorism and move Pakistan toward democracy, arresting democrats and lawyers is an odd way of doing so. By targeting members of civil society, he's weakening the very forces that would have supported him had he moved forward with a power-sharing arrangement with Benazir Bhutto. Instead, he's angering the country's middle class and empowering militants.

Labels: Afghanistan, al qaeda, bhutto, defending liberty, National Defense, pakistan

4,000+ and counting; MI5 chief: 'al-Qaeda is recruiting teen terrorists from the UK' (UK Times)

Even Harvard Finds The Media Biased (Investors Business Daily)

The Media's Blackout On The Economic Boom (Investors Business Daily)

U.S. military aid to Pakistan misused for India, Not Al Qaeda (LA Times)

Most Ridiculous: CBS Correspondant: 'Manhattan Will Be Underwater by 2050' (NewsBusters)

Labels: climate, Economics, global warming, Iraq, media bias, pakistan, war on terror

Last week Benazir Bhutto returned to promote a power-sharing arrangement with Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf. Because Bhutto is 1) a woman, and 2) not an Islamic fanatic she was greeted with a bombing that killed 136 Pakistanis. Shame on the Islamic militants who committed murder, right? Oh, no! Not to Ann Curry of NBC's Today Show.

Instead, Ms. Curry took Bhutto to task with hysterical browbeating for daring to return to her country's politics. The "interview" Ann Curry conducted with Benazir Bhutto was mostly accusatory rhetoric and is both shameful and a telling statement about our mainstream media. I'm not exactly sure what Curry's point was. Mark Finkelstein opines that Curry's tone was "an over-the-top emotionalism that had the show's news anchor lurching from shouted accusations to the verge of tears."

CURRY: If you had not returned, these women would have their husbands, they would have their children. These 140 people [Curry's voice breaking] would be alive, these 500 people would not have been wounded. Do you regret coming back now, seeing what has happened? You knew it was going to happen.

BENAZIR BHUTTO: I knew an attempt would be made.

CURRY: So, you knew that people would be at risk!

BHUTTO: I knew that people would be at risk.

CURRY [shouting]: So was it worth that risk, given what has happened?

...CURRY: This was a very slow-moving motorcade, surrounded by millions of people. Did you make the right choice [pause for dramatic effect, then shouting again] TO COME BACK IN THIS WAY?

BHUTTO: Ann, I find this question very uncomfortable.

CURRY: Of course you do, it's a painful question.

BHUTTO: I'll tell you why. It means that terrorists can dictate the agenda.
I guess Ms. Curry's point is if we would just elect a bunch of illiberal, theocratic extremists who dictate Islamic Sharia-law to every aspect of our life we'd finally have the "peace" all the left-wing appeasers have been dreaming about since the death of their last utopia called Communism. But wait... last time I checked the Palestinians did just that and these days Islamic radicals from Hamas are killing Islamic radicals from Fatah... never mind then.

Labels: bhutto, defending liberty, media bias, pakistan

Major screwup this week by the Obama camp:

[ABC News] In a strikingly bold speech about terrorism Wednesday, Democratic presidential candidate Illinois Sen. Barack Obama called not only for a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, but a redeployment of troops into Afghanistan and even Pakistan — with or without the permission of Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf.

"I understand that President Musharraf has his own challenges," Obama said, "but let me make this clear. There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al Qaeda leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will."

Such false bravado! Putting debating the wisdom of the notion for a moment, were it a liberal like Joe Lieberman or maybe even Chris Dodd making this statement we'd all find it more credible. But Barack Obama...? Who does he think he's kidding? Barack Obama would never have the cajones to invade Pakistan. Even if he did there's every indication that Obama and fellow Democrats would stop short the moment it got even a little bit ugly. We know this because we know that if he ever did, or even came close to it, he's lose his constituents and could expect the same ultra-liberal press to run defeatist view after defeatest view just like they do Iraq today. Remember this is the same world press that turned on "lapdog" Tony Blair.

Like John Podhoretz said, "If the evil Bushitler Cheney Rumsfeld Monster wouldn't do it, nobody will do it."

Here's the full column by Podhoretz:

I'm getting a lot of enraged e-mails from Obama defenders who are accusing me of caricaturing his position on Pakistan, or of being an apologist for somebody or other, or something. So let me be clear about one thing: Obama is full of it. This country is never — never — going to stage a major military action against Pakistan. Pakistan is a nation of 170 million people that has nuclear weapons and whose admittedly problematic and troublesome regime has, to some extent, cooperated with the United States in the war against Al Qaeda both in ways we know and ways we have no idea about. The concern that this strategically vital county might become an Islamic fundamentalist state is, should be, and will be paramount in every and all discussions about how to conduct the fight against Al Qaeda.

What's more, every serious person knows the United States won't invade Pakistan, even with Special Forces — since the reason we canceled the proposed action against Al Qaeda in 2005 is that it was going to take many hundreds of American troops to do it. This isn't 15 people dropping like ninjas in the darkness. It's an invasion, with helicopters and supply lines and routes of ingress and escape. It would have had unforseen and unforeseeable consequences, but it would have been reasonable to assume the Pakistanis would have turned violently against the United States and hurtled toward Islamic fundamentalist control.

If the evil Bushitler Cheney Rumsfeld Monster wouldn't do it, nobody will do it. And you can bet there isn't a single person in line to run a Democratic State Department or Democratic Defense Department who would give the idea three seconds of thought. Obama is using Pakistan to talk tough, in the full knowledge that he will never actually pull the trigger.

He is trying to put one over on the American people, which is certainly using the "audacity of hope" in an entirely new way.
Also, it must be pointed out, Obama's comment about "terrorists holed up in those mountains" is ignorant.

Let's not fool ourselves, there are massive populations within Pakistan who are sympathetic and supporters of not just al Qaeda and the Taliban, but the overall ideology that drives such groups. The US would never be able to enforce military operations - true, blue, military operations - without it spilling into Pakistan proper.

Recall the US-Pak alliance caught the two masterminds of 9-11, Khalid Sheik Mohammed and Ramzi Binalshibh, not "in those mountains" on the Pak-Afghan border, but instead in Rawalpindi - just seven miles from Pakistan's capital city of Islamabad - and in Karachi, respectively. Binalshibh lived there for a full year before his capture. And the only reason he was caught is because both he and Khalid Mohammed were stupid and let their guard down -- they agreed to be interviewed by Al Jazerra's Yosri Fouda, who did not know he was being tailed by Western and Pakistani intelligence services. KSM was captured a little more than a year after that.

One doubts Zawahiri or bin Laden would ever be that foolish. Why wouldn't we likewise expect to find Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri in similar protected territory and not "in those mountains"? It's possible they are but in many ways it would be far more difficult to find them in the population than "in those mountains." They may be disguised now - Fouda reported bin Laden has 4 separate doubles - but there's no reason to believe that they are not traveling freely and protected by both Pakistani citizens and even possibly parts of the Pakistani government not loyal to Musharraf.

The point is, if Democrats are declaring defeat in Iraq - flat terrain, 26 million - how will they have the stomach to invade Pakistan - mountains, 165 million.

And what of the Democrat's argument that invading Iraq just "created more terrorists." If true, one could say the same of any country invaded by the US, including (or especially) Pakistan, right? But I guess that's another post. Label under: hypocrisy.

Labels: 2008, Afghanistan, Iraq, Obama, pakistan