Author: Editorial
Publication: Washington Post
Date: January 25, 2006
URL: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/24/AR2006012401528.html
President Bush famously declared that other
countries must choose between supporting the United States and supporting
terrorism, and that those that harbored al Qaeda would be treated as the enemy.
In the years since, he has refrained from applying that tough principle in
practice -- which is lucky for Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf.
Ever since the war on terrorism began, this meretricious military ruler has
tried to be counted as a U.S. ally while avoiding an all-out campaign against
the Islamic extremists in his country, who almost surely include Osama bin
Laden and his top deputies. Despite mounting costs in American lives and resources,
he has gotten away with it.
Gen. Musharraf and his aides, such as Prime
Minister Shaukat Aziz, boast that Pakistan has arrested hundreds of al Qaeda
militants and deployed tens of thousands of troops in the border region near
Afghanistan. Yet Gen. Musharraf has never directed his forces against the
Pashtun Taliban militants who use Pakistan as a base to wage war against American
and Afghan forces across the border. He has never dismantled the Islamic extremist
groups that carry out terrorist attacks against India. He has never cleaned
up the Islamic madrassas that serve as a breeding ground for suicide bombers.
He has pardoned and protected the greatest criminal proliferator of nuclear
weapons technology in history, A.Q. Khan, who aided Libya, North Korea and
Iran. And he has broken promises to give up his military office or return
Pakistan to democracy.
The consequences of this record are that al
Qaeda has continued to operate from Pakistan, while U.S. and allied troops
have been unable to pacify southern Afghanistan. More than 125 American soldiers
have been killed there in the past year, many of them by militants crossing
the border. Osama bin Laden is apparently secure enough to have released an
audiotape last week threatening more attacks inside the United States.
The Bush administration is still providing
Gen. Musharraf $600 million in annual military and economic aid and treating
him as a major ally. But in the absence of effective Pakistani action, it
has also stepped up its own clandestine operations in the border areas where
al Qaeda and its allies are based. At least three times in the past year,
drone aircraft armed with missiles have attacked terrorist targets; most recently,
a strike on a Pakistani village this month killed at least 13 people, several
important al Qaeda operatives possibly among them.
In keeping with his double game, Gen. Musharraf's
government publicly criticized the latest attack even though his intelligence
service reportedly cooperated with it. Now he and Mr. Aziz, who met with Mr.
Bush yesterday, are saying U.S. forces should carry out no more such attacks
without Pakistani agreement. We'll assume that's more of their bluster. Even
if it is not, Mr. Bush should ignore it. Gen. Musharraf perhaps cannot be
forced to side decisively with the United States against the terrorists, as
the administration once hoped -- though much more could be done to raise the
price of his feckless cooperation. But Mr. Bush must take every available
measure to eliminate the al Qaeda and Taliban operations in Pakistan. If targets
can be located, they should be attacked -- with or without Gen. Musharraf's
cooperation.
