Shed no-tears for Musharraf...he'll soon be free to flee, and visit his purloined/'numbered' bank-accounts elsewhere (as Bhutto recently returned from doing...).
Kissinger is a sarcastic-SoB, but (unfortunately) often 'right'. Ally with American-Interests (as a non-American) Openly or Covertly, and soon one will be treated as a 'competitor' and as a disposable-Asset [ask Bin Laden, or Hitler...!]. The very best-thing a leader/country can do for its own-Interests is to openly 'oppose' US-Interests, then capitulate-entirely (look how well that worked-out for Germany/Italy/Japan and, more-recently, the USSR). [If Iraqi's were to suddenly and completely 'give-up' their Soverignty and self-Interests, the people there would soon be living within the ME's 'new-Lebanon' -- albeit a DU-soaked 'Pearl of the ME'; the American public-Conscience loves its 'reformed-Enemies', the only-ones a 'big-loser' becoming the corporate/wealthy 'interests' in Iraq...not its people.]
There WAS a time when Pakistani-nukes were 'targeted on the ground' (just 'in-case'). But Yes, they have (many of them) been moved/'rigged' as a result -- not that you could blame a loyal-Pakistani for doing-such?
The US pushed Musharraf into 'ignoring his Constitution' from the beginning...since their Constitution specifically exempts/protects those "Pashtun tribal citizens who support nationalist and religious forces" from secular/Governmental "interference". And, it was the US-itself who funded/instituted/fomented the 'radical Madrass/Islamic' element there -- and in Afghanistan (even the texts-used were from the 'US Printing Office'). When the US pushed the ISA into its covert support/money-laundering role for the US-Interests in supporting 'jihadists', it played a dangerous-Game (and led the innocent-Pak's into 'betting on outcome', as well -- not to mention the long-suffering Afghan's). And lately, the US is 'doubling-down' on that grand-Bet...
Many here bemoan the paltry 10-billion spent supportive of Musharraf's nonsense, without consideration of the far-greater sums thrown at Egypt's Mubarak (and others of the easily-corruptible 'leaders' of Egypt, since Nappy-or-the-Brits perfected the Practice and Great-Game) -- it is the second-most-favored recipient of 'American-Largess' (second-only to Israel, of course, whose 5-million 'Chosen' have always & inexplicably received more American-aid than most-other 'needful'-countries, combined).
[Well, not 'inexplicable' -- merely 'unexplained'. I believe the US uses its 'little-Colony' because it wanted to exploit/build-upon its Myth/'Story'/'terrorist'-Rationale -- in defaming/Framing the Muslims -- which Israel HAD to do for supremacy-locally (being long-removed from the age 'permissable' for the kind of Genocide the US employed-once against its own-'natives'), but which the US adopted, subsequently, solely for its 'efficacy'/utility regards our own Chosen-path.]
'We reap what we sow...'.
I have great-trouble believing that almost-anything 'achieved' by US foreign-Policies (and covert-'operations'), over the entire post-War period, have resulted in any 'accidental/unintended-Blowback'.
[All things 'Globalistic' seem to be 'merrily going-ahead, as planned'...the 'Revolution' has already succeeded (as per PNAC) -- what is needed is Counter-Revolutionary thinking/actions/exposure...]

Couple things....

""Tell us of your superior (and they would have to be superior, given your sheer arrogance)"
Darn … im so sorry for hurting your feelings !!! Its a friggin blog … deal with it. Grab your cojones, take a deep breath and attempt to figure out who the real enemy is."

You quote me and your retort has nothing to do with the quote.

You never answered my question, what are YOU doing to help out? Specifically, what are you doing that is so great as to give you a moral judgment over someone else?

What does this being a 'blog' (kinda, not really, but close enough) have to do with anything? Are you upset someone called you on your childish attitude? Did I hurt -YOUR- feelings?

What about my 'cojones' has anything to do with this? Are you saying I'm balless? For calling you out on your obnoxious vehemence and arrogance aimed at another (good intentioned) poster? And here -I- thought it was the people who attacked the kind and gentle souls who didn't have 'cojones'. Go figure.

Oh, and I KNOW who the enemy is. It's an informal coalition of those who hold the reigns of power (and wield them to such cruel ends), those who's heads are so far up their asses that they cannot get past their ego or their 'team' politics or their 'moral' upbringing to see what's really going on, and those who are just punks who are willingly (for money, fun, whatever reason) divisive and derisive.

"Tell us of your superior (and they would have to be superior, given your sheer arrogance)"
Darn ... im so sorry for hurting your feelings !!! Its a friggin blog ... deal with it. Grab your cojones, take a deep breath and attempt to figure out who the real enemy is.

Hermes --"My sense of it from Paki friends is that Musharaf is widely popular"
If Musharraf was so popular, surely he wouldnt mind standing for elections right, so he can legitimize his popularity to his own people ? Musharraf has indeed 'tackled the westernized liberal elite' but thats an indication of lack of knowledge amongst western liberal elite about the happenings in South Asia. By any standards currently Musharraf is deeply unpopular with the Pakistani people at large, the judiciary, the media, the Left as well as the fundamentalists, but the Pakistani elite who benefit from his policies financially (that .01% on top) clearly love him !

Political chaos in Pakistan has thrown a spanner into neocon plans for World War IV.

**that's too bad. I for one was looking forward to it. Catastrophe brought on by climate change is just so boring. We need some nuclear fireworks to liven the show.

I was observing that the Afghans are surrounded now by nuclear armed countries: Iran, the Russians, and Pakistan. If a nuclear war is launched against Iran or Pakistan the fallout will probably drift towards Afghanistan too.

Our chickenhawk neocon war profiteers realize that WWIII or WWIV will mean nuclear ICBM's striking American targets to the joy of the rapturists, so true to their chicken hearts, they will back off. But will the rapturists?

Yeah, pretty damn soon things are about to go even more completely out of control, and such is possible. You can't put a cap on the inevitable forever. There's a sure bet.

Let's gather around the raTurists with big billboards with target signs printed on them. That way, it'll be quick and painless and sharper than any sword!

"Pakistan's nukes are heavily guarded by special army units and military intelligence, ISI."

This is precisely the problem. The close ties the ISI has with the fundamentalists, having nurtured all forms of terrorists from AlQaeda to Taliban to JEM/HUM/LAshkar all these years is bound to reflect into the equation. The Pakistani 'conundrum', supported and aided and abetted by us (U.S.) and cold-war nuts like Margolis, has finally come home to roost.

Indian (and Afghan) policy analysts and intelligence have warned all and sundry about Pakistani support for these terrorists but the U.S. and its bitches (the 'West') have turned a blind eye all these years.

Margolis of course blows with the changing wind. All of a sudden he is a democracy loving peacenik. His old fuckbuddies the 'reagan era freedom-fighters' are now in the hot seat.

dcbeltway, Iran is not a nuclear armed country.

Actually that is true Commander in Chimp.

you are starting to use your head chimp and powers of observation. that's good. follow evolution and try not to go back toward the other way where you are coming from.

not that I am having anything against the innate wisdom of simian primates.

and try to avoid feeling self indulged either.

"dcbeltway, Iran is not a nuclear armed country."

Give it a few months.

gyptian,

Do you have inside info, I mean like you've actually seen for yourself, or are you just getting this from the news that's on? Just curious is all.

It seems like there's a lot of speculation regarding issues like this. And all the speculation is not so good, literally.

There are many many sci fi interpretations on this and many sites, and very very few actual prophets. I can think of only one or two actual prophets here. I take their take on it pretty seriously. I'm sure names need not be named.

Actually, that is not true dcbeltway. And geoff, it will take more than a few months for Iran to be a nuclear armed country.

chimp,

I had a great teacher who once said, "you have a lot to learn." I didn't know.

I believe this is my last message until such time. Best of luck!

"One might call this the "Third World War." It is a war that has been fought by the United States against the Third World. Others call it the Cold War and focus on the anti-Communist and anti-Soviet rationales, but the dead are not Soviets; they are people of the Third World. It might also be called the Forty-Year War, like the Thirty-Year and Hundred-Year Wars in Europe, for this one began when the CIA was founded in 1947 and continues today. Altogether, perhaps twenty million people died in the Cold War. As wars go, it has been the second or third most destructive of human life in all of history, after World War I and World War II."

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Stockwell/JStockwell_quotations.html

"Political chaos in Pakistan has thrown a spanner into neocon plans for World War IV."

If that is true then the turmoil in Pakistan has been good for the world

Neocons are suggesting (read Fred kagan and Michael O'Hanlon's article in the Ny Times)a surgical operation by US special forces to secure Pakistan's Nuclear Weapons and actually move it to a secure location in the US. In addition to been bloodthirsy, ruthless and totally corrupted, i am convinced they are out of their fucking minds. How on earth Delta force will secure the most treasured and cherished assets of huge heavily armed and battled hardened Nation is beyond me.

These fuckers sound like they're writing a script for a Chuck Norris movie.

geoff -- "Do you have inside info, I mean like you've actually seen for yourself"

Yeah ... thats right ...i camped there last weekend and took a peek at the reactor. How does it really matter ? Bush and his Dick have already committed us to war with Iran (read Uri Avnery's latest piece ) and their able sycophantic cronies the Democ-rats are more than willing to carry on our proud warrior tradition of obliterating the world.
Are you suggesting that evidence that Iran doesnt have nukes or nuke related material is sufficient for these nuts to stop this war machine ? Just flash-back six years ...

Nothing of the sort. Uri Avery is very right on I haven't checked his piece. Counterpunch?

I just believe that it's more vital to just stick with what we know in the immediate here and now, you and I. life out your window, stuff that you experience on a daily basis living in the moment.

If you do that, I promise I have no argument with you whatsoever negative or positive though you may be.

I'll flash back six years for sure even without the "go back" machine, if you promise not to ask me to flash forwards about what there's no way for me to know except by rumor, or hearsay, or speculation.

Unless that is to say, you've actually got the word straight from the mouth, or are a certified profit and got just the word. But that's a tough life.

Yet again, American schemes to control politics in a developing country have gone awry and are in danger of producing the opposite effect of that intended. Our clueless meddling, directed by self-styled, culturally ignorant "experts" buttressed by devious, self-interested natives, produces a backlash. It's time we concentrated on letting people run their own affairs and supporting humanitarian projects in agriculture, education, microcredit, healthcare and other areas that would make us friends rather than enemies. Supporting dictators and sending weapons is not the answer, as one would think we would have learned long ago.

If Pakistani's nuclear weapons does fall into the hands of the Al Qaeda and other terrorists, what is most likely to happen?

1. They would immediately explode them in places ruled by pro-West puppets like Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, etc.

2. They would explode them in USA and other European countries.

3. They would use them to threaten Americans and Europeans and demand that the American and European governments remove their military forces from Islamic countries.

4. They would use it to threaten and bring down pro-West governments of Islamic countries and replace them with governments formed by Islamic parties.

The first two scenarios are very unlikely to happen because the logistics of doing so make it only remotely possible and, from the so called "terrorist's" perspective and self interests, these scenarios are logically self-defeating. There would be nothing left for them to build their caliphate after the Americans and the Europeans retaliate.

So that leave the third and the forth scenarios. They aren't so bad. We give up this delusion of imperial invincibility, stop interfering in what is essentially their own domestic business and we open a new chapter in coming to terms with Islamic governments and negotiate with them a more rational and equal relationship to replace the century old overlord-vassal-state relationship. We will still get our oil but at a higher price is all.

"that you experience on a daily basis living in the moment. "

Whew ! Who are you ...depak chopra or something ? If you are not a cynic you dont read enough !! Dont organize, dont protest, dont do nothing ... just stay in the moment ... its a beautiful world and all that shit. Now pass the bong along ...

Here is your flash forward moment ... our country the good 'ol usa is going to bomb another nation and kill another million innocent civilians because 'rumor' has it that they have nukkkular weapons which only we can have and no one else.

geoff,

"I just believe that it's more vital to just stick with what we know in the immediate here and now, you and I. life out your window, stuff that you experience on a daily basis living in the moment."

All due respect, if you're not experiencing what is happening in the world as part of "living in the moment," then odds are pretty high that you're not as aware as you may think. It's one thing to have awareness, quite another to be in denial. "If you aren't paranoid, you aren't paying attention" - Allen Ginsberg (who btw knew a thing or two about living in the moment).

Regardless of how it is portrayed by the conspiratorial left Musharaf is not entirely a Washington puppet. Recent events in Pakistan are certainly not in US interests. Musharaff is rather cosier with China than the US would like. At the same time, Mrs Bhutto is not the heroine the Western media portays her as. She is corrupt and unpopular. While the Western media are reporting "chaos" in Pakistan my friends there tell me that life goes on pretty much the same as before. Musharaff has tackled the westernized liberal elite and the Jihadists because both threaten to disrupt law and order. Musharaf is, in fact, on the sane side of politics and we should all be thankful that he and not someone else has control of Pakistan's nukes. And remember, the US has already threatened to bomb Pakistan "back to the stone age" according to Musharaf - hardly the words of a mere Washington stooge. My sense of it from Paki friends is that Musharaf is widely popular - but not with the Westernizers or the fundamentalists. Most Pakistanis respect what he has done for the country. Pakistan is nothing like Iran under the Shah (curse his memory!)

gyptian, go back and re-read this thread.

First, you start with the obnoxiously incorrect (and NeoCon Approved) PRONOUNCEMENT of Iran's nuclear weapons. Then you are GENTLY and RIGHTLY corrected.

Your response?
To paraphrase: 'What I said doesn't matter because a third-party is going to act as if they do. That actually WASN'T the context of my original statement, but fuck off anyway.'

Then you proceed to rip into someone for not doing anything (how the Hell do YOU know what anyone here does or doesn't do?) while trying to be cute with that snide little 'pass the bong' jibe. So what grand works have YOU done? What great monkeywrench have you thrown into the works of the machine? Tell us of your superior (and they would have to be superior, given your sheer arrogance) acts of peace-making and world-building.

Or, alternatively you can just drop a few pounds of big-head and realize that you WILL and SHOULD be refuted for making such an asinine declarations of Iran's (completely non-existent) nuclear weapons program. You could say 'yeah, I know I was being dramatic for emphasis and went a bit overboard' and let it go at that instead of viciously attacking someone who had the gall to be RIGHT.

"When the US pushed the ISA into its covert support/money-laundering role for the US-Interests in supporting 'jihadists', it played a dangerous-Game (and led the innocent-Pak's into 'betting on outcome', as well — not to mention the long-suffering Afghan's)."

This is only partially true. The Pakistani army and ISI were more than willing to accomodate the U.S. as it helped them in achieving their own strategic goals of dominating Afghanistan and carrying out a proxy war with India by aiding and funding kashmiri terrorists. Zia was the first to use jihadists successfully. The Taliban was even sanctioned by Bhutto when she was in power.

The very creation of Pakistan (another imperialist blunder) based on a two-nation state is flawed. It was never about a home for muslims of the sub-continent (the break-up of East and West Pakistan and the creation of Bangladesh set to rest the two-nation theory). It was really about the Muslim elite in pre-independance India wanting to appropriate more land and power.

"And here -I- thought it was the people who attacked the kind and gentle souls who didn't have 'cojones'. Go figure."
This protector of the downtrodden i suppose should get the next nobel compassion prize or something ... yeeesh ! get a life ...

Mush may be the villian of the day, but dont forget Benazirs past. The daughter of the East and darling of the West has plundered the wealth of her poor nation to the tune of up to a billion dollars and now she is getting ready to do it again with America's blessing.

The holes that America digs for itself in the name of promoting democracy.

Just be prepared for the blowback which should reach these shores by 2017.

Margolis says Pakistan's nukes are well guarded ( and they very much are), yet the Bushies still want to try and take them out?? And India had plans to take out Pakistan's nuclear arsenal - are we talking about the same Indian military intelligence that was caught napping when Pakistan's forces took strategically key positions in Indian controlled Kashmir??

There's already resistance within US armed forces to the occupation of Iraq, would the armed forces really fight another war with Iran or Pakistan? I know the neo-con war hawks at the Pentagon would like them to, but surely the people actually doing the fighting have some sense of how that is a militarily un-winnable war, or am I giving them too much credit?

"would the armed forces really fight another war with Iran or Pakistan? "

This is clearly another neo-con wetdream. To attack Iran they need Pakistan. The U.S. military cannot even handle another 'surge in resistance' leave alone fight another war. The Pakistani military ofcourse will sell their souls and their mothers as long as the all powerful U.S. $$$$ is rolling in. If anything the Pakistani military will probably hand over its nukes to the U.S. rather than letting the 'beards' get control of them.
India is maintaining a studious distance and staying out of this mess. Indian intelligence despite its many failures has been screaming to all who can hear about Pakistans insidious support to the fundamentalists. But ofcourse, we are too busy 'spreading democracy' to notice or react.

We had better all hope and pray that Iran's nuclear weapons in development come on line soon. A nuclear armed Iran is the only thing that will stop the lunatics in the white house. It's the only thing they really fear. And like all cowards they will never engage in a fair fight. A nuclear Iran aligned with a free Pakistan after Musharraf is overthrown will provide the counter point to keep the US and the zionist enterprize at bay. Neutralizing the US threat to global peace and security is the best thing that can happen until the US economy implodes and freedom can once again bloom in the developing world. The nightmare of US and zionist imperialism will finally be history.