You're making assumptions about a country based on what a complete crackpot has written. Imagine if the outside world started judging America by Fox News and some of the more far right columnists. As for the govt. using various stooges to test out its more far out views, well that is commonly now in Pakistan considered to be not done, at least not anymore. A lot of the english columnists are retired old men with any number of conspiracy theories which they firmly believe in.

I am going to write a long post over here.

I doubt that giving people like this writer a tour of 9-11 and any other places in America would change his views.

It's in no way the position of Musharref, stated or unstated. Nutcases abound in Pakistan.

KO,

OK, so we're in agreement that the guy is a crackpot who wouldn't be swayed by anything 9/11 related.

Now, as far as I'm aware, Pakistan still uses retired military personnel to send up these types of extremist trial balloons. If this has changed, I was not aware of that change. But I would be interested to know why the media in Pakistan would give such credence to these types of consipracy theorists. Fox certainly provides a contrasting coverage to the rest of the media in the US, but it also represents a large portion of the US population. I would be hard pressed to think that this guy does the same for Pakistan.

As for the charge that I'm making assumptions about the country based on the writings of one person, I was working under the understanding that trial balloons were still used, but I also have other reasons for thinking India will be a better ally in the war on terror.

Musharraf seems to have been becoming washy over the last few months. The fire just doesn't seem to be there for him. There has also seemingly been a rise in anti-American articles in the Pakistani press, which will translate to pressure on Musharraf to take a less friendly stance in relationship to the US.

Now it's all my opinion and my impression, but I'm beginning to think that the long term interest of the US lies in a tighter relationahip with India.

I was writing a reply to your comment, but I ended up writing a general diatribe which answers some of your points.

As for India being more in the long term interest of the US, I would have to agree with you as the fact the India's population is now over a billion people and has a growing economy overrides everything else. On most lists sorted by importance, India would come out on top.
But it seems to me to be overly simplistic to be judging countries like you would a person.

Pakistan has a large number of retired military personnel who consider themselves well qualified to comment on current affairs. A big percentage of them are also Mullahs, and a smaller percentage are rabidly anti american. Of those who are not Mullahs, I would say at least 30% are anti-american. That is a large number of people, and they go around writing what you call "extremist articles", and they do so without needing any urging by the govt. I am not trying to defend the Musharraf govt/regime, just trying to point out that he at the present moment he does not control the press and he certainly does not to push people to write anti american articles.

Pakistani papers do have balance, as for every anti american article in the same issue, usually next to that article there is a pro american one. And one more thing: Most people here are not anti-american, they are however very much anti the policies the current American govt. is following. One of the major reasons pakistan has a problem now is becasue of the billions of dollars the CIA and Reagan poured into the country setting up madrassahs and terrorist training camps to arm and train the mujahedeen to fight in Afghanistan. After the Soviets left, so did the US, leaving Pakistan and Afghanistan in a complete mess. The US actively supported and armed our last dictator, General Zia, who ruled far more opressively then Musharraf. While this is not known or forgotten in the US, it is still very much remembered here, and the effects of previous US policies continue to control and shape the country. It is perhaps the biggest disservice the US could have done to both Afghanistan and Pakistan is to not clean up afterwards. People are more so the bitter beacuse before the CIA started supporting every religious crack they coud lay their hands on, Pakistan was a pretty liberal state. The afghan war was not so long ago, and people in their 40's onwards can clearly compare the before and after and the US involement in it.

So people here have good reason to mistrust and yes, dislike the US. It is not based on what the leftist manual says, that the US is bad becasuse its an empire after oil and what not, but based on its actions.

KO is downright true about the current state of any sensible mind of Pakistan is not "anti-America" but "anti-American policies of Bush Government". Not only post-Zia period left our nation to lick their own wounds, there was very little the next civil governments could see the rising turmoil and unrest among its own people which resulted in breakup of 1971 in between. The isolation of an Army Colonel from the realities of World politics only became even more apparent in recent years and would the next democratic government be able to harbor the seeds of another next Marshal government remains vague.
Ejaz