The Red Mosque

The B.C.C. reports some deeply disturbing news about the Red Mosque in Pakistan. Our chief ally in the war without end (amen) against terrorism can't control his own capital against hard line Islamists. While he can grossly violate the rights of some of his citizens by disappearing them, he has been flummoxed by burka clad ladies wielding Kalashnikovs.

Now in a real country with a real leader no one would tolerate a religious institution occupied by gun-toting ladies. Ask the people of Waco Texas what happens when a church starts to arm-up with high caliber weapons. The response of the U.S. government was brutal, vicious and over-the-top. The Feds were so over-the-top that B.A.T.F. and the F.B.I. re-thank their procedures.

But Pakistan is not a real country, it hasn't been one since Muhammad Ali Jinnah died all those years ago. It has suffered under Dictatorship and or Kleptocracy since the first military coup in 1958. It is a teetering, tottering mess one riot away from a failed state.

The present Tin-Pot dictator in charge of this roiling cauldron of ethnic dis-union is Gen Musharraf. Far from being master of all he surveys, Musharraf is hanging on for dear life. It is not a good thing that elements of his own I.S.S. are way too chummy with the religious radicals. It is as if the CIA and FBI had links to the Christian Identity Movement

The leader of Pakistan can not clean out the riff-raff occupying an illegal constructed mosque. Not any mosque, but a mosque that is violently opposed to his friendship with George W and the whole U.S. effort against terrorism. He can't shoot those ladies down for fear of his own populace. He can't shoot them down because his own troopers might just turn their guns on him.

Musharraf is in a deep pickle. The Commander guy is pushing him one way but realities on the ground are pushing him in the opposite direction. His "security" apparatus is sympathetic to the goals of the Islamists and are helping A.Q. Khan spread nuclear joy. These are very bad actors and Gen Musharraf isn't able to whack their nose with a rolled-up newspaper and say "bad boy."

Our Mis-Adventure in Iraq is blinding us to the real threats in the region, it's not Iran nor Iraq it's Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. The Saudis are exporting a volatile form of Islam to a tinder-box state. Pakistan is not our friend it is at best a confused and at worst a duplicitous actor.

Both of these nations are our supposed friends. With the Saudis and the Pakistanis as friends, who needs enemies.