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Riaz Khokhar, General Musharraf's Buddy, Spills
the Beans on 'Diane Rayme
Show' (WAMU )
"Pakistan Does Not See
Israel
as Threat": "Normal
Relations" will be
Established
Musharraf, Karzai and FBI Working in Close
Coordination: Islamists Don't
Matter
On June 23, 2003 the Diane Rayme Show, a
well-known radio program
coming out of American University in Washington,
DC, had three guests: Riaz
Khokhar, former Pakistani ambassador to the
U.S.,
Prof. Akbar, well-known Pakistani
secularist presented as an expert on Islam, and
Prof. Cohen. Most of the
discussion was between Riaz Khokhar and Ms.
Rayme, the host of the show about
Pakistani coup leader, General Musharraf's visit
with President
Bush
starting June
24.
[This report is VERY IMPORTANT FOR READERS IN
PAKISTAN who are
consistently being fooled by Musharraf's
propaganda team.]
In response to questions by Ms. Raymes, Riaz
Khokhar made the following
points:
1. President Bush is completely satisfied with
the performance of General
Musharraf. When Armitage visited Pakistan
recently, he made it clear that the
U.S. is thoroughly satisfied with Musharraf's
efforts.
2. Pakistan is not permitting anyone from going
into
Kashmir
to fight the
Indian
forces. Not even one camp of the fighters
is now in existence in Azad
(free Kashmir) [controlled by Pakistan].
3. Khokhar is trusted in the most sensitive areas
of Musharraf's operations
against Al-Qaida. Khokhar was part of and
responsible for the "security talks"
held between the regimes of Karzai, Musharraf and
the U.S. to coordinate the
"mop up" operations against Al-Qaida and the
Taliban.
4. Khokhar denied that RECOGNITION of ISRAEL is
on the agenda in the
forthcoming talks between coup leader Musharraf
and President Bush. However, he said
"PAKISTAN DOES NOT SEE ISRAEL AS A THREAT" to
Pakistan. Down the road,he said,
one day Pakistan will have normal relations with
Israel.
5. Musharraf has excellent relations with Karzai.
A "hot line" has been
established between them. Before leaving for the
U.S., Musharraf talked for
half-an-hour with Karzai.
6. There is a minor problem from the Taliban and
'we' are working together
to eliminate the remaining "pockets" of Taliban.
[NOTE: When Khokhar says "Pakistan," he means
Musharraf.]
SUMMARY of the rest of the interview:
Riaz Khokhar seemed to be living in the
days of 2001 when small
demonstrations were held against the attack on
Afghanistan and Musharraf claimed that
these were only "5%", the extremists in Pakistan.
Khokhar still talks of the
"few fundamentalists" opposing the regime. He
also indulged in outright lies,
claiming that Musharraf has "turned around" the
economy and that the education
system has improved.
What came across from Khokhar was the crass
arrogance of the typical
Pakistani secularist for whom the majority of the
people don't count and for whom
Islam as a polity has no relevance.
Prof Akbar played second fiddle in the show
but he was in a supporting
role for Khokhar and claimed that Pakistan had
been created to be a "modern
democratic" state and completely left out the
Islamic essence of Pakistan. He
fudges about the significance of Islam in
Pakistan and comes up with his theory
of "urbanization" to explain the turmoil. One
wonders if he has ever been to a
mosque in Pakistan, and here he is an expert on
Islam, actually teaching
Islam at an American university.
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2003-06-24 Tue 18:32ct