Down With General Musharraf

The world will be a better off without General Pervez Musharraf leading Pakistan.

Strangely, the United States supported Musharraf for years. Yet, when he was just a general, before his coup ousting Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in 1999, Musharraf was fomenting an Islamic terrorist insurgency in India's Kashmir territory, and this helped create a rift between himself and Sharif. This is just one of many examples of the US supporting "freedom fighters" who turn against us. Which is why the US must learn to mind its own business.

It appears that either Sharif or Benazir Bhutto (or both in a unity government) will come out on top of Pakistan in 2008. This will be good. The US should give moral support to democracy in Pakistan, and try to have friendly relations with Pakistan's rulers, but we should not repeat the mistakes we made supporting Musharraf with billions of dollars in foreign aid.

Instead, we should make it clear to the next government in Pakistan that we expect them to rein in the Islamic insurgency in its western, tribal regions, and give us Osama bin Laden, or else we will take matters into our own hands. After all, we are at war with al Qaeda.