Allies: With Friends Like These....?

Well by now the whole world has heard of President (General) Musharraf's statement that an American under secretary promised that the USA would "bomb Pakistan back into the stone age" if it did not get on board with the war on terror. Of course Mr. Bush denies any knowledge of such a promise, and the under secretary, a certain Mr Armitage, who was recently revealed as the source of the leaking of a CIA agents name to the press, has denied making any such statement. He did however say that he stressed the urgency and resolve of the Americans to bring Pakistan into its' alliance in the war on terror. It was more of a "with us or against us" kind of thing.

America has a long history of alliances with military dictators, absolute monarchs, and all-round despots. The threat of violence is never far from the surface, but by far the strongest incentive is the promise that force will not be used to overthrow them. This promise, along with arms deals and other economic concessions, is usually enough to guarantee America yet another great ally in it's global war on whatever foe it might be at war with at the moment. The cold war was the beginning of Americas love affair with these dubious allies and despicable despots.

It was not all that long ago that Saddam Hussein was one of Americas trusted allies. Saddam and America did great business during the Iraq/Iran war, lots of hand-shaking and back-patting and plenty of pocket-lining went on. Then there was the Osama Bin Laden connection in which Osama's little rag-tag band of "freedom fighters" took on Americas great enemy (at the time) the Russians and were financed, trained, and armed by the CIA. I think this all falls under the "It'll come back to bite you in the ass" theory of American Foreign Policy.

Musharraf who, like Saddam and many others (Dubya for example), often appears in military uniform in front of home crowds. He seized power in a military coup and has been promising to "restore" democracy ever since. He has even held an election, declared corrupt by the UN, in which he was declared the absolute victor. Big surprise there. I think Saddam employed the exact same political strategy (wasn't Dubya embroiled in a similar election scandal?).

Anyway, I hope that the whole "back into the stone age" thing doesn't stop these two love birds from continuing their special alliance. It would be a shame for Mr. Musharraf to find himself following Saddam into ex-ally status. But that is not very likely..you see he already has nuclear weapons so I doubt that even Dubya would be daft enough to invade a country that really does have WMD's.