Reply #5: With friends like these [View All]

[ovidsen]

I realize that Musharaf's walking a tightrope in his country. He's trying to drag much of his country kicking and screaming into the 20th century. Or maybe the 19th.

But handing out thousands of "get out of jail free" cards to extremists who want all of us in the "decadent West" dead because we're not inclined to adopt a 16th century version of strict Islam does not strike me as a good long-term strategy for him. Or for Americans who are in no great hurry to be zapped by al Qaeda types again.

On the other hand, were the freed "fighters" hard core insurrectionist types? Or were lots of them just warm bodies captured in the fog of war? Like the hundreds of warm bodies jailed at Guantanamo who were guilty of nothing more serious than being in the wrong place at the wrong time?

I don't know. But I fear the General is in a lose lose situation here.