January 22, 2004

Musharraf Vows to Prosecute Scientists Who Sold Nuke Secrets

Pakistan's president vowed Thursday to prosecute any scientists found to have sold atomic secrets amid growing suspicion that Pakistani experts aided the nuclear programs of Iran, North Korea and Libya.

President Gen. Pervez Musharraf said his government has never exported nuclear know-how, but he said it was possible individual scientists may have sold secrets.

"We are carrying out a thorough investigation of any proliferation that may have been done by any individual for their personal financial gain," Muer implicated in a scheme to sell high-tech centrifuge technology to Libya and have also been named in probes into North Korea's nuclear program.
[Unfortunately, the Islamist elements within Pakistan's nuclear community are thinking about more than "financial gain;" they are striving for an "Muslim Bomb" and a world subjugated to Islam by force and death.--J.T.]

Pakistan has acknowledged detaining "five to six" scientists and administrators for what it calls "debriefings." Most have not been released, relatives say, and no formal appearances or charges have been made in court.

"Let me assure this gathering that Pakistan is an extremely responsible state," Musharraf said. "All the nuclear and strategic assets are under total custodial control. The Pakistan government has never and will never proliferate."

[...]
Musharraf said his government is also trying to crack down on extremists. He survived two bombings last month believed to have been carried out by Islamic militants, who despise him for allying Pakistan with the United States in its war on terrorism. [They despise him even more for taking an "accomodating" view on the subject of Kashmiri indepence. See Musharraf quote below.--Jen]

"We are fighting the Al Qaeda and Taliban on the western borders [with Afghanistan], and we want to negotiate a peaceful settlement of the Kashmir dispute with the Indians on the eastern one," he said. "At the same time we are fighting sectarian and religious extremism within our country.

"So I'm treading on a lot of toes, and that has led to these extremist attacks on me, but I call them occupational hazards. And I also believe that I haven't outlived my nine lives as yet. I have a number of lives left still."

Musharraf said he believed his efforts to bring "sustainable democracy" to Pakistan had taken root and would survive.

"Islam is not in conflict with democracy, modernism or secularism. Islam is democratic in essence. It believes in human rights, freedom of speech and freedom of expression."

President Bush was so right when he said that Musharraf was a "stand-up guy."
He's that and a lot more.
Since 9/11, Musharraf has endeavored to bring the Muslim world, or at least his Pakistani part of it, into the secularism, democracy and rationality of the 21st Century, often with his fellow citizens and fellow Muslims screaming and kicking (and sometimes blowing up people and buildings.)
After President Bush, Pervez is one of my favorite world leaders and he is also one of its "great" leaders, great here meaning for the greater good for the planet in these seminal times and for Pakistan as an emerging nation-state.
Not only has he allowed our own FBI agents to detain and interrogate these suspect Islamist nuke scientists--once national heroes-- that were in charge of the Pakistani program (and who supported the Taliban in Afghanistan and very well may have sold nuke technology and secrets to the NorKs, Iran and Libya) in the time before Musharraf took power in 1998, but he has ended the 50-year-old call for a referendum on Kashmir, made peace with India with whom Pakistan has come close to nuclear war at least 3 times, upheld womens' rights in his country as well as other human rights compromised by sharia, as well as aiding us as much as possible in conducting Operation Enduring Freedom and the entire WOT by providing major assistance in rounding up, incarcerating and imprisoning IslamoNazi killers within Pakistan's borders.
May God (Allah) continue to bless him and give him a long and frutiful life, which we can only pray will be as productive and fruitful as it's already been!
Like President Bush here in the US, Musharraf has taken a bold and courageous stance on virtually all the big issues, at great risk to himself and to lots of other brave and good people.
And if Kashmir--which is mentioned by Osama and the other jihadi killers time after time as one of 3 or 4 key places to wage jihad--can be taken off the table as an Islamist battleground with the West and the rest of the non-Muslim world--then we'll all benefit and the world will be an infinitely safer and more peaceful place!
I just pray that nothing happens to Musharraf and that he is gathering around him other Pakistani men and women who share his vision for Pakistan as a Muslim, but secular and democratic nation-state.
Musharraf is leading Pakistan into the future by acting out the idea that Islam, capitalism, democracy and modernity can peacefully and happily co-exist.