Author: Editorial
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: August 8, 2002
URL: http://www.indian-express.com/archive_full_story.php?content_id=7264
Introduction: So does this bowl
out the US war on terrorism?
General Pervez Musharraf's reported
statement that Osama bin Laden could not have masterminded the attack on
the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon last year must come as a major
surprise worldwide.
His efforts to exonerate Osama on
the grounds that he could not have planned the details of the terrorist
operations is like arguing that Nawaz Sharif or Musharraf himself was not
responsible for invading India across the Line of Control in Kargil because
detailed planning was done by others! But Musharraf is an honourable man.
His assessment, possibly based on the analysis of Pakistan's agency for
covert operations, the ISI, goes contrary to everything that the US has
been saying at the highest levels.
In fact, the logic of the US war
against international terrorism is premised on the role of Osama bin Laden
and the Al Qaeda in acts of terrorism against the US, especially that on
September 11 last year. If Musharraf is to be believed, then the US has
been fighting the wrong enemy all this time. This would be curious, to
say the least. As it is, after having been substantively rescued from the
deep economic morass in which its misgovernance had placed it, Pakistan
has been dragging its feet on cooperation in the international war against
terrorism. But the present articulation would appear to divert the responsibility
for international terrorism from Osama, and possibly Al Qaeda, to the field
operators who actually carried out the dastardly acts.
Assuming General Musharraf is right,
that the actual planners of the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the
Pentagon were different, the question must be addressed: who could they
be? Since the attacks were undoubtedly coordinated, how many people would
be involved in the process? And are they different from the Osama-Al Qaeda-Taliban
combine? What implications do these questions and their answers have on
the role that the Pakistan army played through its ISI directorate in the
process?
These and many questions that inevitably
arise from General Musharraf's statement, would need to be considered seriously
in future. But it is clear that even Musharraf believes that Osama may
have been the motivating force and the US may choose to take cold comfort
from this.