Musharraf: Planet Is Unsafer Now

[maplesyrup]

The Pakistani president, General Pervez Musharraf, said last night that the US "war on terror" had failed to address core problems, and that the world was in consequence a far less safe place.

Gen Musharraf, who took power in a coup in 1999, sees himself as close to the centre of the "war on terror" because he has Afghanistan on his border.

Asked on Newsnight whether he thought it had made the world less safe, he said: "Yes, absolutely."

Although he is regarded as a close ally by Tony Blair, whom he met in Downing Street yesterday, and George Bush, whom he saw at the weekend in Washington, Gen Musharraf is at odds with them over the consequences of their strategy.

He reiterated one of his central themes, that while he supports the need to strike at al-Qaida militarily, the root causes of terrorism have to be addressed and the west has failed to do so.

He said: "We are not addressing the core problems, so therefore we can never address it in its totality. We are fighting it in its immediate context, but we are not fighting it in its strategic, long-term context."

I think Canadians would do well to listen to this individual, as probably more than any other world leader, Musharraf has been living the reality of terrorism, and he no doubt knows a lot more about it than Bush, Blair, Martin and Harper combined.

How refreshing it is to get a blast of intelligent reporting rather than the typical hot air propaganda flowing up to Canada from South of the border.

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