President Sees Good Sign...Taliban Leader Released

Only the President of the United States, George Bush, would see positive developments in Pakistan at a time when the country is in the grips of a military dictator who is suppressing and arresting dissidents and, at the same time, releasing high-ranking Taliban leaders from prison, like Mullah Akhund, also known as the highest ranking Taliban leader ever arrested by the Pakistani military.

Mullah Akhund is a terrorist, every bit as dangerous as Osama bin Laden, and for this government to express anything but the highest outrage at Akhund's release is a travesty unto itself. For the President to praise the Pakistani government while it purposely thumbs its nose at our efforts to eradicate terrorism says volumes about President Bush's lack of vision and underscores his ineptitude in carrying out an effective campaign against terrorism.

Currently, the real 'war against terrorism' - in Afghanistan - is being overshadowed by the continuous strength sapping civil war in Iraq and the increasing unstable situation in Pakistan.
The resurgence of the Taliban, via poppy production and the heroin trade, has been directly linked to the failure of U.S. policy to help rebuild the economic infrastructure in Afghanistan, a failure that left a vacuum only the Taliban appeared ready to fill.

Against this backdrop, it's hard to see much that is rosy about the situation in Pakistan, as the President does. Then again, this is the President who saw weapons of mass destruction in Iraq that weren't there.