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| India-Pakistan |
| US hopes Islamabad will end terrorism |
| 2002-05-23 |
| Oh, I love that headline. I hope we end war and hunger and all sorts of ugliness. I hope to someday be 30 again, with my hair back and minus the spare tire. I hope to be handsome, witty, intelligent, a magnet to good-looking women... You get the drift. Hope in one hand, spit in the other, see which fills first. The United States believes that the political will exists in Pakistan to stop terrorism and that Gen Pervez Musharraf is committed to removing extremism as an activity in Pakistan , but it also feels that it hasn't obtained the total results it wants on "cross-border infiltration". Ummm... No. Not quite total. The US view was outlined by Ambassador Frank Taylor, the State Department's Coordinator for Terrorism, in reply to questions at a briefing to the foreign press on Tuesday afternoon following the release of the department's annual Patterns of Global Terrorism report. The questions reflected skepticism voiced in India and in the media here about the Musharraf government's determination to move against Pakistan-based militants. If you can't believe Perv, who can you believe? Ambassador Taylor said the January 12 speech by President Musharraf and his commitment to move Pakistan away from extremist violence was a watershed. But like anything, it would take hard work to make it happen and could not happen overnight. Apparently it won't happen in six months, either... "But we do believe that President Musharraf is a man of his word and is committed as a leader of Pakistan to challenge extremism and to remove it ... as an activity within Pakistan." If they held more funeral processions, that would let off some steam. But having a funeral implies somebody's dead, so that would have an adverse effect on the murder rate. Perhaps if they took up football hooliganism as a substitute...? Mr Taylor said terrorism that indiscriminately killed innocent civilians "in the name of freedom fighters, or whatever you want to call it, is unacceptable anywhere in the world, be it New York, be it Kashmir, be it Tel Aviv, Jerusalem. We've also made it very clear to President Musharraf that it's very important, in lessening the tension (over Kashmir), that there be no infiltration across the line of control that had been a problem in the past. We've not gotten where we want to be." That certainly sounds like a stern talking-to. Obviously that's a tack that's been very effective, too. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |