Different Views, Different Wars

Always interesting to see the views our media doesn't encounter while it's being inundated with the paid 'expert' communities of the hired guns and the Pepperdine shills. Wouldn't you know it, there are Pakistanis we never hear from, who are trying to get their country back? While Musharraf has used our aid to keep his power, they have been helped out by the ones we like to call insurgents, or al Quaeda, or whatever we are claiming is going to come bomb over here if we stop dropping those smart bombs on them and their neighbors, kids, cows, and whatever else is in the area. The following is from "Negotiate with Bitter Pashtuns who Cling to Religion, Guns."

Many conservative Pakhtuns believe that the fighting in Swat, Kohat and Waziristan is a war of liberation against US occupation of Afghanistan; they fight the Pakistani state because of its alliance with the US. However, it does not make it a US war alone. Whatever may be the case at the start, this is now Pakistan's war, since the objective of the insurgents is to change the nature of the Pakistani state. To fellow Pakistanis I would say that it is our war, whether we like it or not.

Compare what Aziz has written to General Musharraf's speech on September 19, 2001, when he told Pakistan that his aim was to "save Afghanistan and Taliban." What Musharraf said in that speech was that supporting the war against the Taliban was the "lesser of two difficulties," compared to driving the U.S. into the arms of India. All negotiations with militants pursued by Musharraf's government had as their aim to balance the imperative of acting against al-Qaida with that of saving the Taliban as a strategic asset for Pakistan.

Aziz says the opposite: the Taliban and other militants are fighting "to change the nature of the Pakistani state," and that therefore "It is our war, whether we like it or not." Negotiations in support of the expansion of democracy and federalism in Pakistan are not the same as negotiations in support of balancing military action against al-Qaida with preservation of the Afghan Taliban. The program of the new government in Pakistan and NWFP, unlike that of Musharraf, corresponds to the aspirations of the majority of people in the NWFP and FATA, including many conservatives, and it can win their support. If negotiations do not suffice to disarm the militants, the required military action, in support of an elected government trying to extend democracy and social services, will gain far more domestic support in Pakistan than Musharraf's balancing act ever could have. This government of Pakistan has articulated goals consistent with international objectives in the region and believes in pursuing negotiations in support of those goals without abandoning its own vision of a stable democratic Pakistan at peace with its neighbors.

One positive aspect of our occupied White House and its blatant, constant, lying is that the media has lost credibility as it continues to report the official line, and it continues to prove itself to be false.

The war that has been inflicted on America, on Iraq, and on an Afghan community that would have helped if they hadn't been abused, has discredited the policy of inflicting war and proved once again that sound leadership involves seeking peaceful resolution of conflicts. Proof continues to mount that it was the drive to war with Iraq that obsessessed and blinded our leaders so that they failed to see 9-11 developing. Now they are ruining a military, such that any future emergencies will not be countered by the prospect of American defenses.

The experts that have been proved right, the ones with the credentials and the background, are re-establishing their potential. In an administration that seeks actually to protect, not to mislead, this country, a role is deeply shown for the real authorities, the experts qualified by study and experience.

Being wrong all the time has not established the right wing as what this country needs in leadership.

Quite the opposite.

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Denial of the public's right to public information was in court today.

"On appeal before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, government attorneys said the president has a well-established right to seek advice privately.

"Releasing lists of visitors would trample on that right, said Justice Department lawyer Jonathan F. Cohn, and the logs should be treated like other White House documents.
(snip)
"Rather than balancing the president's interest with the public's, Tatel said, the government was simply disregarding the Freedom of Information Act. He said the policy would allow the president to 'draw a curtain around the White House.'...

The occupied White House is trying to hide from the public what it has every right to know, in this case and in the case of its papers in the library they want to impose on SMU's reputation. Only if the rights of the public prevail in court will the worst administration ever let us see what it did and who came and went, a routine matter. They have a lot they need to hide, evidently.