The Question that needs to be asked...Why did Bush Cultivate Pakistan as an Ally?

[joeybee12]

Everyone else was evil in that area, but he courted Pakistan. Why? My answer--because he knkew they could protect Bin Laden, the man Bush DIDN'T want to capture.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/04/world/asia/04binladen.html?hpw

WASHINGTON — Tensions between the American and Pakistani governments intensified sharply on Tuesday as senior Obama administration officials demanded answers to how Osama bin Laden managed to hide in Pakistan, and the Pakistani government issued a defiant statement calling the raid that killed the Al Qaeda leader “an unauthorized unilateral action.”

John O. Brennan, the top White House counterterrorism adviser, said there were many questions about how the sprawling compound “was able to be there for so many years with Bin Laden resident there and it didn’t come to the attention of the local authorities.”

“We need to understand what sort of support network that Bin Laden might have had in place,” Mr. Brennan said during an interview with ABC on Tuesday.

The suspicions have intensified efforts by some members of Congress to scale back American aid to Pakistan, or cut it entirely, as lawmakers described Pakistan as a duplicitous ally undeserving of the billions of dollars it receives each year from Washington.

[madinmaryland]

1. Because Pakistan has nukes?

[joeybee12]

5. So does India...

and for some reason a country that had a brutal dictator was not part of the Axis of Evil.

[yellerpup]

2. Capturing or killing him would have put the Iraqi

oil grab in danger. Obama was smart about not sharing intelligence. Now, if we could only get our nukes back.

[Atman]

3. There must have been money in it somewhere for the Bush family

:shrug:

[efhmc]

4. We would have to eliminate about 1/2 of our allies if we

dump all of those who are duplicitous.

[blm]

6. Musharraf had a long relationship with BFEE, before Bush took office in 2001. BCCI facilitated

Pakistan's ability to get nukes (AQ Khan-BFEE). And we should all know by now that what BCCI was doing for decades in funding and nurturing global terrorism was exactly what Poppy Bush and his global fascist elite wanted.

[tularetom]

7. The administration is going to open a can of worms by pursuing this

Not that it would be a bad thing.

Your point is well taken, I don't think cheney and his minions really want anybody digging around in Pakistan to find out why Osama was allowed to hide there in plain sight for six years.

I expect a big outcry from their media puppets as the realization begins to sink in.

[RegieRocker]

8. Probably for the same misguided reasons Osama was cultivated

as a ally.

[joeybee12]

9. Misguided? I think I can sum up the reason succinctly...

Oil.

[RegieRocker]

13. There is no oil in Afghanistan and that is where we propped up

Osama.

[joeybee12]

14. No, but there's oil in that whole area of the world, and that's why

we seek people who can help us strategically...and wasn't some pipeline destined to go through there?

[RegieRocker]

15. I believe so. It was more for the coraling the Russians is my take

on it. Not far from China either.

[Poll_Blind]

10. Musharraf gave a very plainspoken answer to Jon Stewart on this very point. (VIDEO)

About how and why Pakistan joined the U.S. "War on Terror". Now, I imagine you have some preconceived notions about what he said so I'd direct you to listen to him for yourself by watching the video HERE. From 2:45-5:00 minutes (although it's interesting if you continue watching passed that mark) is the information I'm speaking about.

While I don't necessarily trust Musharraf on other issues, I think you'll see his account of how he was approached by the U.S. and especially his openness about saying things might have swung the other way (if it was in Pakistan's national interests) are pretty candid.

PB

[valerief]

11. War is $$$$ and OBL alive justified the war. Lip-service-wise. nt

[theoldman]

12. Pakistan was our ally long before Bush became president.

If you go back many years when Pakistan broke away from India you will understand our love/hate relationship. At one time India was very friendly with Russia so we sided with Pakistan. Now Pakistan has nuclear weapons so we cannot afford to see the government fail.

[newspeak]

16. remember reading that General Mahmoud (sp) from

Pakistan allegedly wired money to one of the 9/11 terrorists, Atta? And it was the ISI who found Daniel Pearl's body. Did Daniel know something was going down? Then, I believe * forgave Pakistan's debt.

And, after 9/11, I also believed that military surgical strikes were more effective, rather than starting high casualty,money draining wars. Of course, I don't believe that was Little Boot's agenda, getting OBL.
Rachel Maddow's show last night was very enlightening. However, after 9/11 there was some of OBL's writing, and the one thing that caught me was that the man was a good rich capitalist and knew a lot about business and the stock market. His goal was to bring our country down financially--it's there in his writings. Our intelligence had to know his grand scheme, so why did the * administration buy into it? Little Boots did exactly what OBL schemed, funneling money to private contractors, billions to Iraq--our money flying out of the treasury as fast as they could drain it--creating more security agencies while privatizing even some of our intelligence--doing all of it while eroding the constitution and the bill of rights, all in the name of protecting the citizenry. We already had a great government security mechanism in place--it was not our security, it was those at the top who did not heed the warnings. The August PDB report, the FBI (Coleen Rowley), they were the canaries in the coal mine, and yet, the top seemed to not heed the warnings.

The well being of our citizenry, the safety of our infrastructure, and our economic stability ARE SECURITY ISSUES. If we are going to be afraid of every bogeyman, or follow the corporate MSM telling us who we have to fear today, then our country will continue to shovel money to stop Emanuel while further enriching those who have profited so well while bankrupting us.