Bemusing Pakistani denials

Spate of suicide bombs in London and Egypt. All the terrorists with either proven or suspected connections to Pakistan and how do the Pakistanis respond?

After the London bombs, Pakistan's foreign minister said that Britain should examine how the British society might have contributed to such a terrorist attack and that they should not blame it on Pakistani Madarassas.

Yesterday, Musharraf averred with blind optimism that the Al-Qaeda's command and control center has been completely destroyed and that Al-Qaeda now did not have the organisational wherewithal to plan and execute such co-ordinated attacks.

I don't know what Musharraf is smoking but I sure would like to try it. It is just empty bluster. Whether or not Al-Qaeda carried out these bombings, the fact remains that Pakistan has a huge terrorist problem. Pakistan is America's "ally" in the war against terror. This friendly label is one of desperation on the part of America. A desperation to find a neighbouring country to wage war against Al-Qaeda and Taliban in Afghanistan. Since America has had some history with Pakistan since the cold war it naturally become the "ally" and not because Pakistan is a beacon of liberalism, democracy or plurality.

Even assuming that there has been a volte-face in governmental policy (i.e. a new will to actively curb Islamic fundamentalism) it is impossible that Musharraf has succeeded in this. It would take decades of educating the people - not the kind of blind education dished out by some of the Madarassas but meaningful, diversity embracing, forward looking education. There are illiterates in many countries. But, the reason why the Islamic illiterates are falling prey to fundamentalism is because of the bigoted, misguided education of certain Madarassas. Complicating the scenario is the underdeveloped economy of most of Western Pakistan. Although certain regions of the country and certain sectors of the economy are doing well, most of western Pakistan is grossly underdeveloped.

A bigoted education + lack of jobs means that the chances of becoming a fundamentalist are pretty high.

Musharraf and his government have done nothing to address these issues. Au contraire, he is viewed as the lap-dog of the Americans by many Pakistanis. This has enfeebled him and left him powerless to drive any meaningful change. Given such realities it would be better for Musharraf to shut-up and help the investigations in the UK and Egypt than to make meaningless, blatantly deceitful claims.