Musharraf: US threatened to bomb Pakistan

Devar

Jedi
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article1696179.ece
Musharraf: US threatened to bomb Pakistan

By David Usborne in New York

Published: 22 September 2006

The President of Pakistan, General Pervez Musharraf, reveals in an interview to be aired at the weekend that, soon after the terror attacks of 11 September 2001, the United States threatened to bomb his country "back into the Stone Age" if he didn't offer its co-operation in fighting terrorism and the Taliban.

The revelation was made by General Musharraf during his visit to New York for the annual General Assembly of the United Nations. It comes after a week in which the US has been criticised by a number of foreign leaders for trying to impose its will on other nations.

Talking to a correspondent of the CBS news magazine 60 Minutes to be shown on Sunday evening, General Musharraf claims that the warning was delivered to his own director of intelligence by the US Assistant Secretary of State, Richard Armitage. "The intelligence director told me that [Armitage] said, 'Be prepared to be bombed. Be prepared to go back to the Stone Age'," General Musharraf said, according to excerpts of the interview released by CBS last night.

President George Bush has been battered at the UN this week, notably from President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, who bluntly called him the "devil", and by Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Shortly after 9/11, Pakistan indeed ended its support of the Taliban and became a frontline ally of America in the "war on terror". However, General Musharraf makes no secret of his distaste for the strong-arm tactics he faced from Mr Armitage. "I think it was a very rude remark," he says in the interview. "One has to think and take actions in the interests of the nation, and that's what I did."

[...]
 
Some possible outcomes from best to worst:
-- Musharrraf's statements embolden others to speak up about the strong-arming the US has given them, also.
-- Endless stream of blah-blah damage control from the administration using typical tactics until it blows over.
-- Musharraf himself changes his tune (if someone whispers him another threat).
 
See my comment on SOTT today:

Well, isn't that just odd?! Do they expect us to buy that? Well, yeah... how soon we forget.

But, allow us to remind the reader of the following:

The 9-11 Terrorists did not act in a vacuum. They were instruments in a carefully planned intelligence operation supported by Pakistan's ISI, which owes its allegiance and existence to the CIA.

The purported 9-11 ringleader - Mohammed Atta - according to ABC news, was financed by "unnamed sources in Pakistan." According to Agence France Presse and the Times of India, an official Indian intelligence report informs us that the 9-11 attacks were funded by money wired to Mohammed Atta from Pakistan, by Ahmad Umar Sheikh, under orders from Pakistani intelligence chief General Mahmoud Ahmad. The report said: "The evidence we have supplied to the U.S. is of a much wider range and depth than just one piece of paper linking a rogue general to some misplaced act of terrorism." [Michel Chossudovsky]
Guess what? General Mahmoud Ahmad was in the U.S. on September 11.

Where was General Mahmoud on the morning of September 11, while Dubya was in Florida reading upside down books?

Why, the good general just happened to be having breakfast with Florida's senator, Bob Graham - our esteemed chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Also present at breakfast was Pakistan's ambassador to the U.S. Maleeha Lodhi. There were other members of the Senate and House Intelligence committees present.

In fact, the News of Pakistan reported the visit BEFORE September 11:

ISI Chief Lt. Gen. Mahmoud's week-long presence in Washinton has triggered speculation about the agenda of his mysterious meetings at the Pentagon and National Security Council. Officially, he is on a routine visit in return for CIA Director George Tenet's earlier visit to Islamabad. Official sources confirm that he met Tenet this week. He also held long parleys with unspecified officials at the White House and the Pentagon. But the most important meeting was with Marc Grossman, U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. One can safely guess that the discussions must have centred around Afghanistan ... and Osama bin Laden. What added interest to his visit is the history of such visits. Last time Ziauddin Butt, Mahmoud's predecessor, was here, during Nawaz Sharif's goernment, the domestic politics turned topsy-turvy within days. [Amir Mateen, News Pakistan, September 10, 2001 as quoted by Michel Chossudovsky]

Nawaz Sharif was overthrown by General Pervez Musharaf. General Mahmoud Ahmad, who became the head of the ISI, played a key role in the military coup. [Michel Chossudovsky]
The existence of an ISI-Osama-Taliban-CIA-US government axis is a matter of public record. However, what was NOT expected - obviously - was the revelation by Indian intelligence - that the $100,000 bux was paid to Mohammed Atta on the orders of the guy having breakfast with Bob Graham - the same guy who was meeting with all the likely conspirators.

The Bush administration's relations with pakistan's ISI- including the week of meetings and "consultations" with General Mahmoud Ahmad prior to September 11 - raise not only the issue of "cover-up" but of DIRECT COMPLICITY. At the very least, this suggests that key individuals within the U.S. military-intelligence establishment knew about the attack in some detail and failed to act. At worst, it suggests that the many irregularities noted about the behavior of Bush and his gang prior to, during, and following the 9-11 attacks were indicative of direct participation in the planning of the events, even to the "piggy-backing" of the drone plane attack on the Pentagon to divert suspicion away from the U.S. military.

See: Mahmoud Ahmad and The Secret Cult of 9-11
 
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