Cheneys House of Cards

In the last weeks, the relationship of the United States with Pakastani Military Dictator, General Musharraf has come under increasingly close scrutiny.
The continued crackdown on Pakastani civil society and the rise of a new generation of Al Qaeda leaders with in the country led the New York Times to editorialize last week that "Washington needs to disentangle America quickly, from the generals damaging embrace."
The Bush administration is in the embarrassing position of propping up the Muslim worlds mostt powerful Military dictator in its half baked attempt to spread Democracy through out the Muslim world.
In yesterdays Washington Post, Ahmed Rashid, a respected analyst of Pakastani policy, explained the key problems.

"The problem is exacerbated by a dramatic drop-off in U.S. expertise on Pakistan. Retired American officials say that, for the first time in U.S. history, nobody with serious Pakistan experience is working in the South Asia bureau of the State Department, on State’s policy planning staff, on the National Security Council staff or even in Vice President Cheney’s office. Anne W. Patterson, the new U.S. ambassador to Islamabad, is an expert on Latin American “drugs and thugs”; Richard A. Boucher, the assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs, is a former department spokesman who served three tours in Hong Kong and China but never was posted in South Asia. “They know nothing of Pakistan,” a former senior U.S. diplomat said.

Current and past U.S. officials tell me that Pakistan policy is essentially being run from Cheney’s office. The vice president, they say, is close to Musharraf and refuses to brook any U.S. criticism of him. This all fits; in recent months, I’m told, Pakistani opposition politicians visiting Washington have been ushered in to meet Cheney’s aides, rather than taken to the State Department."

In effect, the man who has made and has been linked to the most damaging actions and policies carried out under the Bush Regime, the origins of the war in Iraq, warrantless domestic spying, the expansion of presidential authority and the authorization of torture, now has his inept, brutal and bloody finger prints on the failing US/Pakistani Policy as well!