Why does Bush court Saudi Arabia & Pakistan

[ftwhd]

>6 out of the 12 people arrested for the Kenyan bombing are pakistanis.
>A lot of the Al-Qaeda members received training not just in
>afghanistan, but in pakistan as well. Almost a third of the talibani's
>were pakistanis (who were bred in special islamic schools all across
>pakistan founded my president Mushraff) and after being run out of
>afghanistan, they have blended back into the pakistani culture. Osama
>is allegedly hiding somewhere in pakistan where he is revered as a
>hero. Numerous financial links are uncovered between these terrorists
>and Saudi oil tycoons (the source of the wahabi brand of islam).
>
>It is clear that Saudi is the exporter of the ideology and Pakistan
>its hired goon to do the dirty work. Yet, for some reason, the leaders
>of this country continue to court the very two countries that have
>wreaked the most havoc on the world. US continues to play footsie with
>the Saudis and offer them protection against Iraq and placate them
>with how "peaceful" islam is etc. etc. US continues to offer pakistan
>weapons and financial support to pakistan and forgiving billions in
>past debts presumably because that aid will be used to fight
>terrorists (but who are they kidding?! The people getting this support
>from the US *ARE* the terrorists themselves. Mushraff was the brain
>behind the Taliban. Out of pressure from Bush, Mush turned into a
>turncoat against his own children. Now that they are threatning to
>kill him and Bush's pressure seems to have eased off somewhat, he is
>courting these Talibanis again).
>
>But US leaders are instead shifting public focus on Iraq and trying to
>connect it to Al-Qaeda. Now don't get me wrong. I do believe Saddam is
>scum and his body needs to be dumped in a gutter asap. But he is a
>diffent type of scum compared to the islamic extremists. If there is
>one thing I know about Iraqis (I lived for several years in the middle
>east) is that their mind set is not that of the kind of people that
>make up Taliban or Al-Qaeda. That is, Iraqi muslims are typically more
>moderate than Saudis or Pakistanis. Prior to the gulf war, Baghdad was
>well known for its night clubs and greater mingling among the sexes
>than most other islamic countries. This is not a defense of Iraq.
>Saddam is clearly a danger - but not because of any religious
>fanaticism, but due to his power hungry mindset (sure, he may use
>religious epithets once in a while to back up his claim of
>righteousness against the satanic west and lately he is even trying to
>align himself to the islamic cause as a tactic to get support from the
>rest of the middle east countries). But that is the tactics of one
>man; a dictator and not his people.
>
>If Bush wants to go after Saddam, then he should at least try to be
>upfront about the reasons of why he is doing it rather than having his
>own people in washington saying there isn't a shred of evidence
>linking Saddam and Al-Qaeda. Even if most americans can't quite put a
>finger on it, most realise that there is something wrong about the
>justifications of Bush for shifting his focus to Iraq as more
>immediate threat rather than the terrorists.
>
>The war against terrorism needs to be fought on both fronts - against
>islamic based terrorism as well as against tyrants like Saddam. But
>the reasons need to be spelled out clearly. It is time to stop being
>politically correct and publicly acknowledge what the real issues are
>rather than obfuscating them. The link between saudi funding and
>pakistani islamic terrorism schools (madrasas) need to be broken.