Pakistan and the bomb

(Photo of Musharraf)

Pakistan is mostly a Muslim country. It is possible that bin Laden is hiding in the mountains of Pakistan or just across the border in the mountains of Afghanistan. Pakistan has many members of al Qaeda residing within its territory. Some believe that Pakistan has actually helped bin Laden hide from U.S. forces.

Pakistan is an ally of the United States. I'm not sure why that is so, but the United States gives bushels of money to Pakistan every year. Because Pakistan is an ally of the United States, the government of the United States, i.e. the Bush gang, allows Pakistan to build nuclear weapons. That this could create one hell of a problem in the Middle East doesn't seem to worry da Bush and friends very much.

In 2004, a Pakistani scientist, AQ Khan, confessed that "he was solely responsible for exporting nuclear technology to Iran, North Korea and Libya." The Pakistani government has said again and again that it knew nothing of these exports. Dr. Khan was put under house arrest in 2004, but lately those restrictions have been relaxed.

More recently, Dr. Khan has been talking to the media via telephone. He says now that his "confession" in 2004 was false, and made only because "he had been persuaded that it was in the national interest." As compensation for that confession, Dr. Khan was to have been given his freedom, but he says that promise was not honored.

President Musharraf did pardon him, however, for his "illegally transferring [of] nuclear secrets to other countries..."


So Dr. Khan has retracted his confession and claims it was the Pakistani army, in 2000, that was involved in transporting nuclear material (centrifuges) to North Korea. Musharraf was in charge of the army at that time.

"It was a North Korean plane, and the army had complete knowledge about it and the equipment," says Dr. Khan. Khan also claims that he made a trip to North Korea in 1999 with a Pakistani general to buy shoulder-launched missiles.

Musharraf, through a spokesman, "dismissed Dr. Khan's claims." Other governmental agencies are not commenting.


But here's the bottom line: someone or some group in Pakistan (our ally!) gave nuclear material to several countries, two of which were on Bush's "axis of evil" list.

Iran was one of Pakistan's beneficiaries; da Bush wants to attack Iran, despite intelligence which says Iran has halted its nuclear program, a program that received material from our ally, a Muslim country called Pakistan.

Maybe we should make Iran our ally and attack Pakistan? That would make more sense as Iran has oil and Pakistan, I think, does not. Furthermore, another of our allies, India, has the bomb, too, and India and Pakistan hate each other and have threatened to start shooting nuclear warheads at each other.

So, if we took out Pakistan, the threat of nuclear conflict between India and Pakistan would be dissolved. Iran would become our ally so we could back off sending the bombers to Iran. In fact, if Iran were our ally, we could help them with their nuclear program.

We'd take over Pakistan 'cause obviously we can't trust the Pakistanis at all. We'd shut down their nuclear program and head for the mountains to capture bin Laden.

What a world this would be!