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Musharraf's googly

Musharraf's googly

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.
 


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