The below news story does make one pause for consideration the truth concerning Musharraf's support to fighting border terrorists.  His open contempt for Cdn. losses, not to mention that suffered by the Brits, Aussies, Germans, Yanks, etc. does not give one confidence in him.

 

Leverage is a thing that does not last forever. After Sept 11 and during the initial attacks on the Taliban we had tremendous leverage to put as many men in Afghanistan and possible conduct raids into the tribal areas. Pakistan cowered because at the time they felt the US meant business. Our leaders have squandered that leverage and now the only way to really root out Al Qaeda in the tribal areas risks confronting the Pakistan army.

 

Pakistan has logically concluded that the American adminstration is not hell bent on capturing Bin Laden at all costs. The Americans are not and were not willing to put in massive amounts of troops and they have practiced restraint on allowing Taliban and Al Qaeda to operate for fear of breaking Pakistan sovereignty. Pakistan also realizes even if Bush changed course today their is no longer momentum to increase operations in Afghanistan so his logical conclusion is to ensure Pakistan border sovereignty and appease tribal areas to avoid internal strife.

 

Pakistan feels it has nothing to fear from the US or NATO, sadly it is correct. We can keep our heads in the sand as the architect of the mission (Rumsfeld) is heaped with praise for a mission that has not accomplished it's supposedly singular objective. Bush will not get rid of the guy , so we can expect the next several years to go as well as the last 5. We'll continue on this course probably for another couple of years before the plug on funding is finally pulled and the Taliban come back to power. It is a text book case of a leader that had a mandate to get something accomplished but he flinched , lost focus, and applied some of his MBA learned cost-cutting to the mix so he could try to get things done on the cheap.

Its funny how short sighted many people and especially the media are today.  How many are quick to point fingers without having done any research or knowing basic facts about this war on terrorism.

First of all, these militant groups cum Al-Qaeda & Taliban where set-up and trained by the Americans/CIA with considerable assistance provided by M16 of England and financial support from US Allies such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE; all of whom have quietly washed their hands of this past association.  They(militant groups) where 'heroes'  in the 80s when they where fighting the then Soviet Union and were dropped off in Pakistan the then front line nation against communist aggression during the cold war.  There is no way possible that Pakistan could have established these groups giving its poor economy and limited finances/resourses.  Many of these groups where also provided with better arms then even those used by the Pakistani armed forces!  Now, here we are a decade later, and these very groups have 'turned' and have become the west's worst enemies.  So now all the finger pointing goes towards Pakistan! How convenient.  Pakistan has not only remained a steadfast ally in all of this, it has also lost the most number of troops fighting against these very militants so it comes as no surprise that while no media covered Pakistans losses which are nearing now close to @1000 that the country is a bit sarcastic.  It has sacrificed the most in the war on terror, now has an antagonistic government in Afghanistan, continually suffers from domestic attacks on vital national infrastructure(which it can ill afford) and has stretched out its army (which is running the country, patrolling its Eastern border especially along the volatile Kashmir region and also fighting Al-Qaeda/Taliban in the west).  This is not about Pakistan not fearing Nato/US, its about how much can be expected out of this trusted ally that has been used over and over again and the critism it is currently absorbing.  Apathy and betrayal would be a better word.  Pakistan has been and still is the main force on the forefront of the war on terror.  And they are trying every means at their disposal including military, political and pressure tactics.  If the the Americans are too busy in Iraq to spair more soldiers, one needs to question their intentions and sincerity to solving this problem which they created in the first place! How can a poor nation with 30% of its people living in abject poverty be expected to perform better than western developed nations? wheres the logic in that.  Pakistan needs to be given more support and aid and especially positive incentives in order to help it win this war on terror and come out on top both domestically and internationally.  Critism and finger pointing only work in the favor of the militants.