The Independent reports:
President Pervez Musharraf's regime in Pakistan is resorting to increasingly heavy-handed methods to quell protests against him that are growing by the day.
In Islamabad yesterday hundreds of police fought protesters outside the Supreme Court. And as the protests continued, riot police stormed the Geo private television station, which was broadcasting pictures of the protests, tear-gassed the staff and smashed up the studio.
How close are Bin Laden sympathizers in Pakistan to Republican supplied nukes?
Republican President Ronald Reagan in 1981 broke Congress's ban on dual-use parts to Pakistan and racist South Africa and allowed both nations to acquire nuclear weapons:
Reagan certified Pakistan's compliance in 1986 despite the fact that, according to the November 4, 1986, Washington Post, US intelligence reports and non-proliferation experts had concluded that Pakistan was between two weeks and "two screwdriver turnd from having a fully assembled bomb".
Reagan's Nukes, the ones he handed Pakistan's military, are now one dictator away from falling directly under the control of Islamicist extremists with close ties to Osama Bin Laden, thanks to the feckless incompetence of an even dumber Republican occupant of the Oval Office: George W. Bush.
Let's be clear. We can't find Bin Laden. If Bin Laden gets nukes, does anyone think we're going to find them?
Pakistan knew in July 2001 of US plans to go after Bin Laden later that year. Bin Laden struck first. Funny that. Bin Laden's excellent relations with Pakistan's Intelligence service pre-date 9/11.
How popular is Osama with "mainstream" politicians in Pakistan today?
As the WaPo reported this time last year: He's Welcome in Pakistan.
Indeed, the disastrous policies of the United States and Pakistan, starting with the aftermath of the war in 2001, have only hastened the radicalization of northwest Pakistan and made it more hospitable to bin Laden and his Taliban allies. The region has become a haven for bin Laden and a base for Taliban raids across the border back into Afghanistan which they had fled.
Not that you'd be able to tell any of that from what Bush administration officials have been saying. Almost everything the administration claims about the al Qaeda leader is tinged with bravado and untruthfulness. "We are dealing with a figure who has been able to hide, but he's on the run," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said earlier this month. Here in Pakistan, however, the view is different. Bin Laden is not considered to be on the run, but well protected by friends who are making his life as comfortable as possible.
After all, his number two, the Egyptian doctor Ayman al-Zawahiri, appears to have a busy social calendar in Pakistan's Pashtun belt. U.S. missiles narrowly missed him at a dinner party held in his honor on Jan. 13.
Read the whole thing.
What is clear is that Pakistan is spiralling out of control. Republican suppled Pakistani nukes are currently "secure" as long as Gen. Musharraf remains alive and in power. The Independent article documents how Musharraf's attempts to pound the popular Islamic parties into submission are backfiring:
Several high-profile figures were arrested for taking part in demonstrations around the country, including a former president and the leader of one of the main opposition parties. An MP claimed he had been beaten by police at the demonstrations.
Inside the Supreme Court, Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhary was attending his second closed hearing before a special tribunal. At the centre of the row is President Musharraf's attempt to sack Mr Chaudhary. He has accused the judge of "misuse of office", but the move is widely suspected of being politically motivated.
The authorities had already ordered one of Geo's most popular news programmes off the air for its critical coverage of the President's move against Mr Chaudhary. As the channel defied pressure not to broadcast images of the protests, riot police burst into its Islamabad studio to shut it down by force.
But the tactic appeared to misfire badly when Geo was able to broadcast live images of the helmeted policemen forcing their way into the building.
Outside the Supreme Court, police baton-charged protesters who responded by throwing rocks. Qazi Hussain Ahmad, the head of the MMA, a coalition of Islamist political parties, was arrested along with at least seven other MPs. In Lahore, a former president, Rafique Tarar, was arrested leading a demonstration.
Osama's friends, the Taliban, and Pakistan's MMA have a lot in common, according to this 2002 report:
The North West Frontier Province's new chief minister Akram Khan Durrani is resurrecting a Taliban-style purge of sins such as listening to music, gambling and drinking alcohol, to the horror of Pakistan's elite and to the joy of Islamicists who believe the success of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) may finally have put them on the road to winning control of Pakistan.
The MMA coalition's first steps have been eerily reminiscent of the five-year fundamentalist nightmare in neighbouring Afghanistan. First they ordered the banning of music on public buses as un-Islamic, and they have promised a crackdown on illegal drinking and gambling. There's been grand talk of bringing in Sharia law, which in Afghanistan meant amputations and savage public executions, although the regional governments have limited powers in this area.
Surely MMA President Qazi Hussain Ahmaed and Osama couldn't be pals, could they? Actually, they could. Although, MMA leader Ahmed now claims his relationship with Osama is no big deal:
"When asked about his meeting with Osama Bin Laden, he played down the question by saying that meeting with Osama had now became things of past and the government was projecting the issue unnecessary."
But what about the rest of the MMA and Osama? One Pakistan authority claims that no less than "15 top Pakistani leaders have links with Osama": (via the Times of India)
NEW DELHI: At least 15 members in the senate, national and state assemblies of Pakistan have not only met Osama bin Laden, but had a close relationship with him.
No Indian propaganda this. Mohammed Amir Rana, a journalist with Pakistani newspaper 'The Friday Times' has made this and several other startling revelations in his new book "Seeds of Terrorism".
Rana quotes the example of Maulana Samiul Haq of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) who is supposed to have sworn allegiance on the hands of Osama along with Maulana Fazlur Rehman. (my bold)
Even considering the Indian coverage of the story, Ahmed and other leading Pakistani politicians clearly have strong links with the popular (in Pakistan) Bin Laden and his organization.
Osama and his supporters and sympathizers have gained in power, prestige and influence ever since George Bush came to power. That's the simple un-varnished truth.
George Bush fired Richard Clarke and failed to act in time to stop Osama from attacking the United States. Bush's disastrous, half-hearted attempts to capture or kill Osama over the last five and a half long years have only made Bin Laden into a hero to many around the world. How could it have ever come to this?
Now, after Abu Ghuraib, the WMD fiasco, the Plame/Wilson debacle, the Niger forgeries and the resurgence of both the Taliban and opium trafficking in Afghanistan, not to mention the Iraq Civil war, the "escalation" and Katrina, we now face the "fresh hell" of our worst possible nightmare.
Pakistan's nuclear arsenal looks to fall into the hands of Islamic radicals with close links to Osama Bin Laden.
Repression doesn't seem to be working.
Osama must be rubbing his hands, literally, watching his allies rally on the way to taking power in Pakistan, riding the wave of anti-American sentiment everybody and their dog warned would result from an American invasion of Iraq.
Barring a major change, Bush misguided attack and occupation of Iraq, and other disastrous policies, are going to put Reagan's nukes into the hands of allies of the man who really planned and executed 9/11.
God alone knows what happens after that.
Surely, Bush and his minions have to be held to account.