A Letter To President Musharraf

Noose is getting tighter and tighter for the fascists mulla brigade, every suicide bombing, attack on civil society brings their fate ever so closer to their end. To claim otherwise is delusional and will not change anything.

Like I have said b4, If Mush cannot do the job then someother General will have to do it, and if there is no general willing, then Uncle Sam is itching to pull the plug. Now we also have our dear friend the Chinese breathing down our necks, that cud mean only one thing, International forces have decided enuff is enuff and Pakistani establishment has no choice but to eliminate these cells of terrorism or face extinction.

For the chutya mulla supporters, is'nt one Afghanistan enuff, do they want another fkng qabristaan in Pakistan? I guess, for these egomaniacs its their way or no way, so I say let them be decimated for the good of peace loving majority.

Well, It looks like curtains for Mushy the Mighty Warrior of Muslims.......

By Vali Nasr
Fri Jul 20, 4:00 AM ET

Washington - The National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) released this week paints a bleak picture of Al Qaeda's renewed strength and determination to attack America. And a major part of the blame, US officials charge, lies with someone President Bush has described as a critical ally in the war on terror: Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf.

Since 9/11, Washington has looked to President Musharraf to uproot Islamic extremism in South Asia. Nearly six years later, however, Pakistan is still a nuclear-armed crucible of jihadi culture, exporting terrorists and destabilizing its neighbors.

For too long, Washington has coddled the Pakistani general, turned a blind eye to his crushing of democracy, and read too much into his pro-West rhetoric. The US must change course. And there are signs it's about to. "There's no doubt that more aggressive steps need to be taken," White House spokesman Tony Snow said.

After almost a decade under Mush-arraf's rule, Pakistan hasn't changed much. He has initiated reforms and revamped the economy. But where he was expected to do most, fighting Islamic extremism, Pakistan's record is most disappointing.

Al Qaeda and the Taliban use Pakistani soil as a haven and training ground. Recent deals between the government and Pashtun tribes have in effect ceded the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Taliban and their Al Qaeda allies. A big reason Al Qaeda's influence is growing, according to the NIE, is the operational capability it enjoys in Pakistan.

Musharraf speaks of "enlightened moderation," but he has done more to pulverize secular democratic parties than contain Islamist ones. It was his electoral rules that helped Islamist parties win their largest parliamentary representation ever in 2002, marginalizing the larger secular parties that threatened him.

Islamabad is happy to nab foreign jihadis when pressured by the West or ban extremist groups that get out of hand, but it has been reluctant to uproot the infrastructure of extremism.

Extremist groups proliferate and operate in the open. Musharraf finds them useful in convincing Washington and Pakistan's middle classes that the military is all that protects the country from a Taliban-like Islamic state.

It is not a coincidence that the government's recent battle against extremists associated with the Red Mosque came on the heels of nationwide antigovernment protests following Musharraf's summary dismissal of the country's chief justice. Musharraf hopes that the crisis will persuade secular-minded Pakistanis to abandon the barricades and align behind him.

The government was fully aware of what went on in the Red Mosque, just a mile from the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence headquarters. Yet Musharraf chose to ignore the extremists between January and June, even as they sought to impose Islamic law on the capital city. It was not until he sensed public anger at his dithering, and confronted a diplomatic crisis when the extremists abducted Chinese nationals, that he stormed the mosque.

Frustrated with developments in Pakistan, many in Washington look to elections and a civilian government for solutions. Democracy should be wel-comed, but it will change little. The last time there was a transfer of power to a civilian government, in 1988, the military still chose the foreign minister and informed the prime minister that it would control the nuclear program, intelligence, security, and policies toward Afghanistan and India. This time, too, the military will continue to call the shots – especially when it comes to Afghanistan.

Without Pakistani cooperation, NATO and the US will have to substantially increase their commitments to contain the Taliban. That cooperation will not be forthcoming until the US addresses Pakistani interests. Afghanistan has always been a strategic concern for Islamabad. Pashtuns make up 40 percent of Afghanistan, but there are more Pashtuns in Pakistan, where they constitute 15 percent of the population. Afghanistan has never recognized the border (Durand line) between the two countries, and for most of Pakistan's existence, Pashtuns in control of an independent Afghan state have been allied with India and laid irredentist claims to Pakistan's Pashtun Northwest Province.

It was only when Pakistani-backed Afghan mujahideen or the Taliban ruled Kabul that Pakistan felt secure in its relations with Afghanistan. Pakistani generals counted on the "strategic depth" that their neighbor to the northwest would provide in a war against India.

These days, they see Afghanistan as an adversary. They are irked by Afghan President Hamid Karzai's strong ties to Delhi and the mushrooming of Indian consulates across Afghanistan. The territory that they "owned" until 9/11, thanks to the Taliban, is now at best neutral and at worst the playground of their arch rival, India. Pakistan does not view Afghanistan through the prism of the war on terror, but in the context of its own vulnerabilities in the competition for power and influence with India. That's why Islamabad has everything to gain by playing the Taliban card, giving its fighters and their Al Qaeda allies a lair in Pakistan's border region, to keep Kabul weak and southern Afghanistan free of Indian influence.

In dealing with Pakistan, Washington has preferred to see the logic of the war on terror as self-evident, not recognizing that even close allies will not cooperate if it does not serve their interests. It is only by addressing Pakistan's interests that Washington can secure greater cooperation from Islamabad.

Washington cannot give Pakistan the sphere of influence in southern Afghanistan that it desires to make sure it will not be encircled by India. However, Washington can give Pakistan greater interest in Afghanistan's stability than it has now by encouraging Kabul to include Pakistan's allies and clients in government; and more important, to finally recognize its international border with Pakistan.

Tiger Aziz,

A new hero is born in pakistan, the fire brand jihad preaching mullah tried to escape in a burka and in the great pakistani tradition, he has been called the Tiger Aziz. That is the title given to general Niazi for surrendering 90,000 pakistani troops.

Zeemax, please post the picture of Tiger Azix being arrested, you can see a wet burka at the same place that you have identified for the indian soldier.

For a long time the Tiger Aziz will be worshipped in the madrassas of pakistan.

A great pak hero

burka mulla options

Pakistanis are ashamed of the burka mulla, but here are a few ways to make it into a success

1. Auction the burka at Christies. This will be the first time in history a jihad preaching mullah tried to save his life. This event in at par with the demolition of bhumian buddahas by jinnah-islamists. The burka is more than likely to be purchased by the British museum.

2. Create new line of escape burkas. These could be in military fatigue to make the escape easier.

3. Create a new line of mullah burkas, all in dark black, with a cut out to show the beard so that the people know that it is a mulla in burka.

All of the above can show that the land of TNt is setting new trends in islamic fashion.

Re: # 526My point was that there is a much greater link of Gandhi to Moplahs and indeed Jamia Hafsa ... than the two nation theory that Jayp wants to malign and has even taken to inventing quotes... you know could care less to bring them together but if someone can so illogically argue and try to link the Islamo-fascist tendencies in a small minority of Muslims to our legtimate stance for Pakistan... then one should point out the obvious links between Gandhi and true Islamic fundamentalist and terrorist movements of South Asia... I do not wish to dwell Gandhi honestly but if this line of argument is taken... should I not point out the facts?


Achyuth Patwardhan, one of the Socialist stalwarts in the Congress, has given a remarkably candid and self critical analysis of the Congress Party vis-a-vis Khilafat: ’It is, however, useful to recognise our share of this error of misdirection. To begin with, I am convinced that looking back upon the course of development of the freedom movement, THE ’HIMALAYAN ERROR’ of Gandhiji’s leadership was the support he extended on behalf of the Congress and the Indian people to the Khilafat Movement at the end of the World War I. This has proved to be a disastrous error which has brought in its wake a series of harmful consequences. On merits, it was a thoroughly reactionary step. The Khilafat was totally unworthy of support of the Progressive Muslims. Kemel Pasha established this solid fact by abolition of the Khilafat. The abolition of the Khilafat was widely welcomed by enlightened Muslim opinion the world over and Kemel was an undoubted hero of all young Muslims straining against Imperialist domination. But apart from the fact that Khilafat was an unworthy reactionary cause, Mahatma Gandhi had to align himself with a sectarian revivalist Muslim Leadership of clerics and maulvis. He was thus unwittingly responsible for jettisoning sane, secular, modernist leadership among the Muslims of India and foisting upon the Indian Muslims a theocratic orthodoxy of the Maulvis. Maulana Mohammed Ali’s speeches read today appear strangely incoherent and out of tune with the spirit of secular political freedom. The Congress Movement which released the forces of religious liberalism and reform among the Hindus, and evoked a rational scientific outlook, placed the Muslims of India under the spell of orthodoxy and religious superstition by their support to the Khilafat leadership. Rationalist leaders like Jinnah were rebuffed by this attitude of Congress and Gandhi. This is the background of the psychological rift between Congress and the Muslim League’.

and

’Since the Khilafat agitation, things have changed and it has been one of the many injuries inflicted on India by the encouragement of the Khilafat crusade, that the inner Muslim feeling of hatred against ’unbelievers’ has sprung up, naked and unashamed, as in years gone by’.

and

A terrible and gruesome fallout of the disastrous Khilafat experiment of Mahatma Gandhi was the Moplah Rebellion in Malabar District in 1921. According to the Report of the ENQUIRY COMMITTEE OF SERVANTS OF INDIA SOCIETY, the number of Hindus murdered by Moplah Muslims was 1500, the number of Hindus forcibly converted 20,000 and the value of property looted about Rs three crore. When the national and local leaders appealed to the virulently anti-Hindu Moplah Muslims in the name of Mahatma Gandhi to follow the ways of peace and non-violence, they replied bluntly with Islamic fervour: ’GANDHI IS A KAFIR, HOW CAN HE BE OUR LEADER?’ Dr Anne Besant declared: ’The Moplah Muslim marauders murdered and plundered abundantly, killed or drove away all Hindus who would not apostatize. Somewhere about 100,000 people were driven from their homes with nothing but the clothes they had on, stripped of everything’. She also accused all the Khilafat religious preachers for all this terrible atrocities. J Campbell, chief of the Intelligence Department, Government of India, held the Khilafat leaders squarely responsible for inciting racial hatred resulting in Moplah carnage.

http://www.newstodaynet.com/2006sud/06aug/2208ss1.htm

Mahatma Gandhi’s attempt to harness the feeling for the cause of national independence backfired and led to the uprising in Kerala known as the Moplah Rebellion. It took the British several months to put it down at the cost of thousands of lives.



Moplahs were very much part of the grand Khilafat Movement that Gandhi was spearheading and Gandhi kept apologising for them


The Dravidian Moplahs had directed their revolt with class venom against some Aryan high-caste Hindus with property as well as Britishers: Brahmanical elements tried to use that to spark a crisis in Hindu-Muslim relations all over India. Gandhi tried to hold a balance: like the U.S. press and the Negro nationalists who read it he stressed that the Moplah uprising could be made part of a united drive for independence by Indians of all sects.But he was also aware of the pan-Islamic dimension: in a December 1921 call to the British to suspend their attacks against the Moplahs, he was to observe that the Moplahs saw themselves as fighting for a religion with methods they considered religious: Yogesh Chadha, Rediscovering Gandhi (London: Century 1997) p. 254.


And lets not forget the Tehreek-e-Hijrat Fatwa that Gandhi’s right hand man Azad gave to Muslims which gave Muslims two options "JEHAD" or "HIJRAT".

The Muslim Ulema, thinkers and activists called for the boycott of foreign goods and non-cooperation with the British government. Meetings were organised in order to rally the masses to support these issues. The meetings were organised under the banner of Mo’tamar al-Ansar (The Workers Conference) and various newspapers such as Al-Hilal of Maualana Abul Kalam Azad and The Comrade of Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar. Both Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad and Maulana Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar were put behind bars for publishing anti-British articles in their newspapers. The latter spent four years in prison between 1911 and 1915CE.


The allegiance of the Muslim intelligentsia of India at that to the Khilafah is unquestionable. Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad summed up their view when he wrote in his newspaper al-Hilal on 6th November 1912 that the Ottoman Sultans possessed the only sword which Muslims had for their protection. Insofar as the “caliphate was essentially a religious integration of the shari’a�, it became “necessary by revelation, is of God’s institution and that obedience to its authority is farz, or positively commanded�.


The Khilafat Movement


In September 1919, Maulana Muhammad Ali and his brother Shaukat Ali, together with Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad, Dr. Mukhtar Ahmed Ansari, and Hasrat Mohani, started a new organization, the Khilafat Movement (1919-1924). Their avowed aim was to use whatever leverage they had to protect the Khilafah. They organized Khilafat Conferences in several northern Indian cities. It is noticeable that the scholars and activists that were part of the Khilafat movement came from different schools of thought and backgrounds, for example Maulana Abul Kalam Azad was known to be a ‘ghayr taqleedi’ (non-taqleedi – who believed Taqleed to Mazahib is prohibited) and Maulana Mahmood Hasan was Deobandi who are followers of the Hanafi Mazhab yet they were united in the objective of working for the maintenance of the Khilafah.


In 1919, the Bombay Khilafat Committee agreed on two important organisational goals: “first, to urge the retention of the temporal powers of the Sultan of Turkey as Caliph, and second to ensure his continued suzerainty over the Islamic holy places.�

Delivering the presidential address at the Calcutta meeting of the Bengal Provincial Khilafat Conference in 1920, Maulana Azad discussed the importance of Khilafah he declared, “the purpose of this institution was to organise and lead the Muslim community in the right path, to establish justice, to bring about peace, and to spread God’s word in the world. For all this it was absolutely necessary for the caliph to possess temporal power�. Maulana Azad had no doubt that “without an Imam, their lives were un-Islamic and that they would be damned after death�.


Maulana Azad published a book in 1920 called Masla-e-Khilafat (The Issue of Khilafah), he stated: “Without the Khilafah the existence of Islam is not possible, the Muslims of India with all their effort and power need to work for this�.

In the same book page 176 Maulana Azad said, “There are two types of ahkam shariah, the first is related to the individual like the commands and prohibitions, the fara’id (obligations) and wajibat in order to perfect oneself. The second is not related to the individual but is related to the Ummah, nation, collective obligations and state politics like the conquering of lands, political and economic laws�.

According to Peter Hardy, Maulana Azad believed that, “The Muslim who would separate religion and politics for Muslims is an apostate who works silently�.


The loss of political power in India and the threat posed by a combination of forces to the temporal authority of the caliph, was so worrisome for the leaders of the Muslim community that some of them felt compelled to issue fatwas ‘in favour of migration (hijra)’ from India.


Maulana Abul Kalam Azad issued a fatwa which was published in the daily Ahl-e-Hadith of Amritsar on 30 July 1920. In his fatwa he urged Hijrat from India as an alternative to non-cooperation with the British. (YLH’s note: Was the Hijaz Born Azad a "Wahabi"... note "Ahle-Hadith)

Maulana Abdul Bari’s fatwa said, “every Muslim residing here should adopt non-cooperation but if (that is) impossible, should proceed for hijrat�. Maulana Shaukat Ali issued a statement on behalf of the Central Khilafat Committee, “expressing the hope that all dedicated Muslims would stay in India and work for the non-cooperation. Only if it did not succeed would they consider resorting to hijrat�. The impact of the fatwa was electrifying and thousands of Muslims preferred to leave the Dar al harb of India where their religious rights symbolized in the position of the Turkish Caliph was being infringed.


And most amazing was the fact that Gandhi’s encouragement led to Deobandi ulema creating the Jamiat ulema Hind ... which in its numerous forms and heads plagues South Asia even today... and all these groups are spin offs of the same.

....

Today's Bomb Blast.....A Bomb A Day Makes a Pakis day...

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - A suicide car bomber rammed a paramilitary checkpost killing four people in Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal region on Friday, the latest attack in a wave of violence sweeping the country in recent weeks.

"Four people including a paramilitary soldier and three civilians have been killed," a security official told Reuters.

Six people, including three civilians, were wounded, he added.

A wave of bomb attacks has swept across Pakistan, killing more than 180 people, since the army's siege and assault earlier this month on the Lal Masjid or Red Mosque complex, a militant stronghold in the capital, Islamabad.

While militants are believed to be avenging the mosque assault, pro-Taliban fighters have abandoned a peace pact in North Waziristan, adding to concern over a deteriorating security situation in the volatile northwest.

Reactions from All Weather Friend...With second thoughts....

July 20, 2007
CHINA has condemned a suicide bomb attack in Pakistan that targeted a convoy of Chinese workers and left at least 27 Pakistanis dead.

"China strongly condemns the terror attack (in Pakistan) and expresses its grief over those killed and offers its condolences to their relatives and to those injured," the foreign ministry said in a short statement today.

The attack was a reminder for China of the harsh realities of becoming a global power.

In Pakistan's southwestern industrial town of Hub, a suicide car bomber last night blew himself up as a convoy of Chinese citizens and security forces passed by, killing at least 30 Pakistanis but no Chinese nationals.

Police who were guarding the Chinese convoy were among those killed, according to authorities in Pakistan who said the bombing was a suicide attack.

The attack comes as Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf, under fire from multiple suicide bombers, pressured by the White House and facing a key court ruling, was today set for one of the toughest days of his eight-year rule.

A wave of suicide attacks sparked by an army raid General Musharraf ordered on a pro-Taliban mosque last week reached a new, bloody peak yesterday, claiming 51 lives and bringing the death toll from the backlash of violence to almost 200.

Apart from the Chinese convoy bombing, there were two other attacks - bombers targeted an army mosque and a police college.

Hardline mullahs today, the Islamic day of prayer, were set to call for the downfall of the US-backed military ruler a week after protesters enraged by the Red Mosque raid burnt him in effigy, along with a puppet of Uncle Sam.

But while General Musharraf has repeatedly vowed to step up the hunt on militants in the country's lawless Afghan border regions, the United States has challenged him to do more - and threatened to go it alone if he doesn't.

Analysts and officials in Pakistan say that Islamic and tribal militants are attacking Chinese in order to harm Islamabad's relations with China, its powerful ally and biggest military supplier.

Yesterday's attack came two weeks after China demanded better protection for its citizens in Pakistan following the killing of three Chinese men in the northwestern city of Peshawar by suspected Islamic militants.

In February last year, three Chinese engineers working for a cement plant were gunned down in Baluchistan, the same province as where yesterday's attack occurred.

The attacks will come as a stark reminder to Beijing of the risks inherent in China’s bolder approach to the extension of its interests and influence beyond its borders, particularly in Asia and Africa. More than 4 million Chinese now work overseas.

Pakistani security forces have stepped up protection for the 3000 Chinese working on development projects across the country since the siege and assault on Islamabad’s radical Red Mosque.

The violent end to the siege was triggered by the kidnapping of a group of Chinese women by women students from a seminary linked to the Red Mosque. Leaders of the mosque, who modelled themselves on the Taliban, accused the six Chinese of working as prostitutes in a massage parlour.

Pakistan traditionally has enjoyed close ties with China. However, relations were strained when members of the Muslim separatist movement in the Chinese provinces of Xinjiang and Uighur sought refuge in Pakistan’s tribal region after fleeing from Afghanistan in 2001. They became closely linked to Pakistan’s radical Islamists.

Islamic militants loyal to al-Qa'ida swore revenge after Pakistan handed over to China a number of senior Muslim leaders captured in Kashmir in 2002.

They included Ismail Kadir, the Uighur leader who has led a violent struggle to set up an independent East Turkestan state in predominantly Muslim Xinjiang, which borders Pakistan, Afghanistan and restive Central Asian states. In January 2004 China drew up a list of militants linked to al-Qaeda who operated within Pakistan’s tribal areas. Many are believed to have been killed in Pakistani military operations in Waziristan.

China says that its role overseas is to promote neighbourliness and understanding, in countries as diverse as Angola and Antigua. However, the main beneficiaries of China’s overseas investment are poorer nations, such as Sudan, that are rich in the natural resources China needs.
There is a growing sense of unease in countries that are beneficiaries of China’s overseas investment about what many perceive as a new form of colonialism.

China wants its Third World friends to act in accordance with the spirit of the struggle against colonialism and hegemony, but has difficulty grasping the idea that increasing numbers of people believe that it lacks sincerity.

The antagonism ranges from rage felt by Islamic radicals in Pakistan over China’s policies to suppress pro-independence Muslim movements, to resentment among small merchants and tribesmen in Kenya who see their jobs and businesses being taken over by Chinese contractors.

Ahmed Rashid, a political analyst in Pakistan, said that anger was simmering over perceptions that the Chinese were stealing their livelihoods. “The Baluch feel that all the contracts are going to Chinese and they use only their own labour,� he said. Chinese contractors bring in many of their own engineers and labour.

They live in tight-knit communities that operate in a virtual vacuum inside whichever country they have been assigned. That breeds resentment among locals who fear for their livelihoods and are suspicious of outsiders.

In April nine Chinese workers and 65 Ethiopians were killed when guerrillas attacked an oil installation near the Somali border. Rebels abducted a Chinese mining executive searching for uranium in the Sahara, adding Niger to the list of states where China’s hunger for minerals has led its nationals into trouble.

In a recent report, Stratford, the security consultancy, said: “China now faces the dilemma of any country that undertakes an active foreign policy, particularly one based on the acquisition of resources. It must now decide how much to get involved in other countries’ internal issues.�

The idea is anathema to Beijing, which regards non-interference in other countries’ affairs as a fundamental plank of its foreign policy.

- The Times, AFP, AP

Dacca Syndrome

In the military parlance surrender without fight is called Dacca syndrome, named after the surrender of 90,000 pakistani troops by general Niazi.

Pk army is a latin army that cannot fight a war, they can only rule the civilian population.

A few suicide bombs in the past few days, the generals are back talking with the taliban on surrender terms, the Dacca syndrome is at work.

Then there is the 7 chinese captured by the lal majids. None of them were killed and all back at work. The 7 were rounded up from 7 brothels in Islamabad, one cannot believe that the army has given visas to several chinese to operate brothels.

Pakistan reduced to Sindh

Pakistan was created for the muslims of India. Those who embraced this idea are called mohajirs and most of them are in sindh.

Hence it is the realisation of the vision of Jinnah that only sindh should be part of pakistan, that si where all the mohajirs are, the true believers of jinnahs idea.

Going back to the Jinnah doctrine of TNT, helps to identify the configuration of pakistan after its iraquisation.

NWFP to afghanistan where most are pushtoons
POK to India
Pakistan to be re-named as Sindh.

this will be consistent with Jinnahs vision, at last there is a home for indian muslims.

Re: # 522

Oh come now Jayp...

Surely You mean GANDHI-Islam... for I must have proved million times that it was Gandhi who brought these Mullahs into politics against all counsel from Jinnah.

Abusing Jinnah TNT Pakistan etc for Gandhi's creation is rather funny if you ask me.

Benefits of carpet bombing

Many reports say that some parts tora bora mountains are greener than ever before. The carpet bombings have created craters where water has accumulated leading to re-growth of plants and animal lives. The nomadic tribes of afghanistan are finding the mountain ranges more inhabitable than before.

Waziristan is another backward area where a little of soil conditioning by B52s will be most welcome.

Any tru lover of pakistan like tahmed cannot seriously deny some economic prosperity for that region.

Beginning of the end.

US is slowly softening the pak elites that bombing of waziristan is only weeks away. Predator UAV was over the lal masjid, that is the first right step, then the missiles will strike at the jihadis.

The only complaint I have with the predator is that the missiles on board are named hell-fire, if only the americans could re-name it as houri-gift, no jihadi will complain.

#517 by harish_hyd

PS: Could even be a Jihadi. Terrorists wearing police/army uniforms is not uncommon.

Thanks zeemax for the picture of the dead indian police man and the detail with which you have analyzed the dead. This is what I had been always telling on chowk, jihadi takes pleasure in seeing the dead, he is a killer, a general purpose killer and his joy first is in seeing the sight of death and probably he will go to the jinnahic heaven with that last scene in his mind.

Thanks zeemax, more of the pakistanis on chowk like the tahmeds will be happy with your pictures. These are the people who perpetuate this by denying the satanic verses. It is they who pose as koran experts while the people who spent their lives learning and interpreting koran run the lal majids and jihadi trainings.

#499 by zeemax

Looks more like a Kashmiri Muslim (skin color and beard), probably a policeman. Hindu cops are not allowed to grow beards (except during wars) or in extreme climatic conditions like in Siachen.

Giuliani on Pakistan & Musharaff.........

By Susan Page, USA TODAY
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani said Thursday that the United States should do more to capture Osama bin Laden and dismantle al-Qaeda operations in Afghanistan and northern Pakistan — even at the expense of an ally, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.
While he wasn't explicitly critical of President Bush, the Republican presidential contender outlined in an interview with USA TODAY a more aggressive stance and a different emphasis than the administration has pursued in the region that spawned the terror network.
The United States has been distracted "for a while" by military setbacks and political heat surrounding the Iraq war, Giuliani said, not focusing enough on al-Qaeda's resurgence in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
"This cannot be like a horror movie," he said. "You know, in the horror movie you kill the monster, and the hand re-emerges. And if you're not looking, the hand grows back and then the monster's there again. That cannot be allowed to happen."
Giuliani, who has led the GOP presidential field in the USA TODAY/Gallup Poll through the year, was interviewed near the end of a two-day campaign trip to Iowa. He visited an ethanol plant and promised as president to appoint "strict constructionist" judges who would not reinterpret the Constitution.
His presidential campaign has been tied largely to his leadership in New York after the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center. Giuliani was most animated when he turned in the interview to the subject of battling Islamic extremists, with a copy of the National Intelligence Estimate that was released Tuesday at his side. They were his first substantive comments on the formal assessment of the nation's terrorist threat.
The report warned that al-Qaeda has significantly strengthened its operations over the past two years, creating a "heightened threat environment" for the United States.
Some of Giuliani's comments echoed critics of the war in Iraq who argue that the invasion drew attention and resources away from the battle against the home base of al-Qaeda, which carried out the 9/11 attacks. Giuliani, however, called the Iraq war "enormously important," but he said other challenges from Islamic terrorism also demanded attention.
"I said it a long time ago … America is too consumed with Iraq," he said. "We've got to be patient and committed (in Iraq), but we've got to multitask. We've got to have conversations beyond Iraq. We've got to talk about Iran — Iran is more dangerous than Iraq — and we have to get the job done in Afghanistan and in Pakistan."
He said that might involve reorganizing United Nations forces, committing more U.S. resources, considering U.S.-led airstrikes on al-Qaeda targets in northern Pakistan or taking a tougher line with Musharraf — or pursuing all those steps.
Giuliani expressed little patience with the Pakistani president, who last fall brokered a cease-fire with tribal leaders in northern Pakistan that let them police their own territories. The White House said this week that the deal helped open the way for al-Qaeda to rebuild its infrastructure.
"Musharraf is important to us to the extent that he helps us remove this existential threat to him and to us," Giuliani said.
"And to the extent that he recognizes that it's an existential threat to us and to him, he's valuable to us. To the extent that he doesn't, he isn't," Giuliani said.