Bush is so concerned about not getting immunity for the Telecom industry in the latest proposed legislation to amend FISA that he has likened the Democrats to Hitler appeasers. Meanwhile, his own failure to capture Osama Bin Laden has come back to haunt him, as fundamentalist Islamic extremists backed by Al Qaeda expand their influence and gain territory at the expense of our “ally in the War on Terror” President Musharraf of Pakistan:
SWAT, Pakistan – Muslim extremists are expanding their control of northern Pakistan, challenging the U.S.-backed government of President Gen. Pervez Musharraf and adding to the lands where terrorists allied with Osama bin Laden find refuge.
Once restricted to pockets in the mountains along the Afghanistan border, radical mullahs and their followers now wield power in vast areas of northwest Pakistan. They have moved in the past few months beyond the tribal regions and into northern Pakistan cities and the Swat Valley. […]
“I can tell you there is money coming from al-Qaida and if al-Qaida did not lead these things we couldn’t fight,” said Abdul Samad, a stocky militant from Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar province who serves as a liaison between Taliban groups on both sides of the border. Even during the fighting, radicals have made themselves available to speak with visiting journalists. […]
“The Pakistanis, and by extension the United States, have almost no control of events” in the northern, ethnically Pashtun regions, said Milt Bearden, a former CIA station chief in Pakistan.
“I don’t think anyone in Washington really gets it,” he said. “Losing Swat is shocking.”
Pakistan is a country that does have real live nuclear weapons. Imagine what might happen if a regime friendly to Osama Bin Laden ever gained power there. Then ask yourself why Bush is spending so much time and effort demonizing Iran, a country without nukes which is an enemy of Osama. Doesn’t quite compute, does it. At least it doesn’t if you buy into the malarkey the Bush administration has always used to justify its conduct of the war on terror; i.e., a clash of civilizations between the free countries of the world and Islamofascism. Yet the greatest threat of terrorists and Islamic extremists obtaining control of a nation-state which has weapons of mass destruction is simply being ignored by the Bushies.
Then again, Bush has always preferred to have Osama and Al Qaeda out there as this mysterious bogeyman able to issue threats when convenient. Threats which require an unprecedented curtailment of our civil liberties and an equally unprecedented power grab by the Executive branch back in America, rather than taking steps to actually eliminate the risk posed to our security by that particular terrorist organization and its affiliates. So it should come as no surprise that he and his administration of chicken hawk warriors just doesn’t get it when it comes to Pakistan. They’re too busy fighting the Islamofascists of their dreams in Iraq (and soon maybe in Iran) to pay attention to the real security threat posed by Al Qaeda and its extremist allies in Pakistan.
When Al Qaeda gained a safe harbor in Afghanistan during the late 90’s, it was able to pull off the attacks on the USS Cole, US embassies in Africa, and most infamously the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. Imagine what they could do if they gained control of a nuclear armed state? Then ask yourself what the hell Bush and company are doing ginning up a military confrontation with Iran when Osama and his gang of merry terrorist killers are still on the loose? Maybe the people claiming Bush needs psychiatric help shouldn’t be so readily dismissed. Because his policies are definitely insanely dangerous to all Americans.
