To the Editor:

Re “Keep Pakistan on Our Side" (op ed, Aug. 20):

I find it chilling that smart people in the State Department like Mr. Armitage continue to play Pakistan President Musharraf's cynical game--prop me up despite my undemocratic authoritarian rule, my military and spy agency's support for terrorism in Afghanistan and India, my benign neglect of the A.Q. Khan nuclear bazaar and my intermittent, perfunctory pursuit of al-Qaeda affiliates operating at will in my country. Because if you don't, be very scared of the alternative!

Mr. Armitage knows well that in the torrid history of U.S. and Pakistan relations, every armament given to Pakistan was conditioned on the premise that it could not be used in aggression against India. And still, from the Eisenhower Administration through the Clinton years, in the four wars Pakistan started against India, Pakistan used American armaments in every instance. And now the Bush Administration is pushing the sale of another thirty-six F-16's to Pakistan--can any Indian citizen truly believe these will be used in the War Against Terror and not in fulfilling another iteration of the Pakistani military obsession of wresting away Kashmir from India?

If this perverse logic holds, another international terror plot hatched in Pakistan gets exposed and Mr. Musharraf is on his way to Sweden to claim his Nobel Peace Prize!

Sincerely,

Aseem R. Shukla, M.D.
Member, Board of Directors
Hindu American Foundation