Yahoo wrote:President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan says the United States threatened to bomb his country back to the Stone Age after the 9/11 attacks if he did not help America's war on terror.
The threat was delivered by Richard Armitage, then the deputy secretary of state, to Musharraf's intelligence director, the Pakistani leader told CBS' "60 Minutes."
"The intelligence director told me that (Armitage) said, 'Be prepared to be bombed. Be prepared to go back to the Stone Age,'" Musharraf said in the interview to be shown Sunday on the CBS television network.
It was insulting, Musharraf said. "I think it was a very rude remark," he told reporter Steve Kroft.
But, Musharraf said he reacted responsibly. "One has to think and take actions in the interests of the nation and that is what I did," he said.
The White House and State Department declined to comment on the conversation.
Armitage told CNN on Thursday that he never threatened to bomb Pakistan, wouldn't say such a thing and didn't have the authority to do it. Armitage said he did have a tough message for Pakistan, saying the Muslim nation was either "with us or against us," according to CNN. Armitage said he didn't know how his message was recounted so differently to Musharraf.
In a speech in January 2002, four months after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Musharraf gave a speech in which he clearly came down on the side of reform at home and opposition to Islamic fundamentalism.
Pakistan to this day is considered a close ally of the United States in the struggle with militant groups. Sometimes, however, Pakistan appears reluctant to go after Taliban, which controlled neighboring Afghanistan until 2001 and has intensified its insurgency in the southern part of the country in recent months.
He is scheduled to meet on Friday at the White House with President Bush and then see Bush again next week in a three-way meeting with President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan.
Musharraf told 60 Minutes that Armitage's message was delivered with demands that he turn over Pakistan's border posts and bases for the U.S. military to use in the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan. Some were "ludicrous," such as a demand he suppress domestic expression of support for terrorism against the United States.
"If somebody is expressing views, we cannot curb the expression of views," Musharraf said.
quite the coalition of the willing we have
Lyion wrote:Unfortunately, Arabs are notorious cowards and these are people who are easily knuckled under.
It has become obvious now that these terrorist fanatics are determined to do harm to all that oppose them and their religious beliefs. Their threats are not confined to the United States.
Get on fucking board. Neutrality is not an option. If the neutral countries had any brains, they would realize terrorism is just as much a threat to them as it is to us, if they had any balls, they wouldn't sit back and watch it happen.
When this thing first started, I was very opposed to the notion of dropping nuclear bombs on the "problem areas" now I'm starting to sway in the other direction.
While I agree that being neutral will probably not keep the terrorists out, every country should have the right to no get involved. To give every country an ultimatum of you’re with us or against us was just the US throwing its power around. Countries end up supporting us, not because they agree but because they are more afraid of us then they are of the terrorists. I wouldn't be at all surprised if other nations were left with the impression that we would act on the "You’re with us or you’re against us" policy with force.
For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.
I personally wouldn't threaten to blow a country back to the stone age. I wouldn't threaten with bombs at all. I would just cut all ties with the country.
Richard Armitage is the guy who supposedly said this.
He's also the guy who really outed Valerie Plame, and was Colin Powell's right hand man, and not a friend of W's or the Defense Department.
More from Yahoo, it's interesting how the AP completely had the Pakistan Tribal/Taliban thing wrong and never bothered to correct it, also.
Yahoo wrote:Earlier Friday, White House counselor Dan Bartlett said he didn't know the specifics of what Armitage might have said to the Pakistanis.
"But we have made very clear that we went straight to President Musharraf in the days after 9/11 and said it's time to make a choice: Are you going to side with the civilized world or are you going to side with the Taliban and al-Qaida," Bartlett told CBS' "The Early Show."
White House press secretary Tony Snow that he didn't know what Armitage said. Armitage no longer is in the administration.
"Mr. Armitage has said that he made no such representations," Snow said. "I don't know. This could have been a classic failure to communicate. I just don't know."
"U.S. policy was not to issue bombing threats," Snow said. "U.S. policy was to say to President Musharraf, `We need you to make a choice'."
In his meeting with Musharraf, Bush played middle man in a thorny foreign policy problem that has bubbled up between Islamabad and Afghanistan — two U.S. allies in the war on terrorism who accuse each other of not doing enough to crack down on extremists.
Bush must work to placate the concerns of Pakistan, which is helping the United States track Osama bin Laden and restrain bin Laden's al-Qaida organization, as well as the struggling democratic government in Afghanistan, which is suffering its heaviest insurgent attacks since U.S.-led troops toppled the Taliban in late 2001.
Afghan officials have alleged repeatedly that Taliban militants are hiding out in neighboring Pakistan and launching attacks across the border into Afghanistan. Pakistan, which has deployed 80,000 troops along the border, rejects the accusation and says it's doing all it can to battle extremists.
The bombing to the stone age comment did make me lol. I don't find it hard to believe someone after 9/11 made that comment.
What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step. – C. S. Lewis
Hell, I know I was rather emotional at the time. I drove around the neighborhood with my window down shouting, "FUCK MUSLIMS." Not the smartest thing to do while living in an Islamic country lol... Good thing it was late at night ;p
Markarado wrote:Hell, I know I was rather emotional at the time. I drove around the neighborhood with my window down shouting, "FUCK MUSLIMS." Not the smartest thing to do while living in an Islamic country lol... Good thing it was late at night ;p
Markarado wrote:Hell, I know I was rather emotional at the time. I drove around the neighborhood with my window down shouting, "FUCK MUSLIMS." Not the smartest thing to do while living in an Islamic country lol... Good thing it was late at night ;p
you're so patriotic!
so patriotic that you live in another country, wtg
Markarado wrote:Hell, I know I was rather emotional at the time. I drove around the neighborhood with my window down shouting, "FUCK MUSLIMS." Not the smartest thing to do while living in an Islamic country lol... Good thing it was late at night ;p
you're so patriotic!
so patriotic that you live in another country, wtg
You ever have one of those big inappropriate laughs, but not inappropriate because it isnt something to be laughed at, but inappropriate because it just wasnt that funny. Like you laughed way more than called for?
I just did that.
