'Washington is 200 per cent behind me,' Musharraf claims during crucial talks

My complaint about Bush's policy regarding Pakistan has always been that it's not a Pakistan based policy, it's a Musharraf based policy, built totally on the fact that he will do Washington's bidding when it comes to the war on terror, whether this is popular with Pakistanis or not.

I took some faith from the fact that Negroponte had been dispatched to the region and from what he had to say when he met Musharraf:

"Emergency rule is not compatible with free, fair and credible elections," said John Negroponte, a day after meeting the Pakistani leader.

Mr Negroponte, the US deputy secretary of state, said he had urged Gen Musharraf to stick to his pledge to step down as head of the army, and encouraged him to release political prisoners.

"Recent political actions against protesters, suppression of the media and the arrests of political and human rights leaders, runs directly counter to reforms that have been undertaken in recent years," he said.

Although he stuck in the obligatory "but" which hinted that all which came before it may have been bullshit:

However, the US envoy praised Gen Musharraf as a valued ally in the war on terror.

Now, Musharraf has given us his reading of what was actually said at the meeting with Negroponte:

As President Pervez Musharraf held crisis talks yesterday with a senior US envoy, the Pakistani leader robustly defended his decision to impose a state of emergency – saying Washington was privately "200 per cent" more supportive of him than in its public statements.

"They are liking me because we are fighting terrorism together," Gen Musharraf, who yesterday met John Negroponte, the US Deputy Secretary of State, told an interviewer. "They show concern on the democratic front, they show concern over my uniform, but they are totally onboard on what we are doing on the terrorist front. They think what we are doing is the right directions."

So there we have it. They "show concern" about things like military coups, but privately they are "200% more supportive" than their public statements imply as long as he keeps doing what they want regarding the war on terror.

That's not a policy, that's a suicide pact.

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Tags: Musharraf, Negroponte, Pakistan, USA, war on terror, military coup