Musharraf OKs US Attacks On Al-Qaeda in Pakistan

I. Citation

Title-
Date Written- 3-24-08
URL- Indian Express
http://www.indianexpress.com/story/287812.html

II. Summary
The U.S. in the past has been trying to get approval from Pakistan to search the mountains in that area for Al-Qaeda. (Intelligence has told us that Al-Qaeda may be hiding in these areas.) Pakistan has not approved these urgent needs until now. President Perez Musharraf has now allowed American planes to search the mountainous region in hopes of finding Al-Qaeda home base. America was given authority to search in all restricted areas and in the Afghan border line. America has already dropped missiles on three specific targets killing 20 so far. The Pakistani cabinet has tried to keep this approval under cover and silent due to the fact that it may ruin Musharraf title since he hopes to start a democracy in Pakistan.

III. Reaction

· I believe that this article relates to the theme, “Changes in functions and structures of states and in attitudes toward states and politics…” This is because Pakistan has always disapproved of anything America wanted to do. Although, now Pakistani government has changed its mind and allowed America to search for Al-Qaeda in the mountainous region.

· Since 9/11 Americans have really taken into consideration who and what Al-Qaeda really is. They are an Islamic Militant Terrorist group founded in 1988. The current leader of this Terrorist Group is Osama Bin-Laden. They believe they are to spread there religion to the rest of he world though war and can also be known as Jihadists. Our main objective is to find this group and stop them from doing the horrible things they are doing (keeping hostages, bombings etc.) They seem to be currently hiding in the Mountains of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

· We can’t make any assumption to who is actually the writer of this article. We are not given any information about the writer. Although he does say in his article, “officials here fear that the new civilian government will be hostile to such an offensive.” This could possible mean that he is in Pakistan and possibly Pakistani causing him to be insider of President Perez Musharraf side of the story. (Pakistan is currently going through a government change.)

· The writer of this article uses the world, “rebuffed” in a very opinionated way. He uses the word to describe how adamant President Musharraf was to allow the United States the search the mountains of Pakistan and Afghanistan. The writer tries to create an image of how President Musharraf acts. This is why we must always question the validity of ones article.

· I would like to here from President Musharraf because he seems to be neglecting his decision of letting America search for Al-Qaeda. Pakistan’s decision is described as a, “silent” one. I am not getting a very colorful and vivid picture about why Musharraf chose the decision he did.

· I believe that letting America into Pakistan territory to search for Al-Qaeda is not only a step to finding these Terrorist group, but also will increase stronger and positive ties with Pakistan. This would be better for America if there was a Middle Eastern country on its side. Allowing America to find Al-Qaeda will give more hope of stopping these people from the horrible things they are doing all over the world. If we do complete are mission of stopping these people I believe that this war in this world will rest.