Our Man Musharraf

Few people did not feel outrage and sadness at news of the death of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. Indeed, according to Colin Powell, Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s dictator, “took it pretty hard because he was trying to do everything he could to keep [the murder] from happening.” Echoing Powell, State Department flack Richard Boucher characterized Musharraf’s efforts at finding the missing journalist as “full-edged and full-bore.”

Diplomacy certainly requires a degree of circumspection and linguistic sleight of hand. However, that the aforementioned comments appeared in a February 23 Washington Post story — under the headline “U.S. Praises Musharraf’s Battle Against Terrorism; Powell, Others Applaud Pakistani Leader’s Efforts on Behalf of Slain American Reporter” — leaves us wondering if the Post isn’t aspiring to the status of “semiofficial newspaper,” happily serving as handmaiden to U.S. government policy. Because not only is the story bereft of any sentiment remotely critical of Musharraf — whom numerous scholars, diplomats, and intelligence agents see as yet another Pakistani strongman playing both sides against the middle in the “War on Terrorism” — but it doesn’t mention Musharraf’s derogatory and deranged remarks on the Pearl case, which were quoted in the Post a few weeks earlier. The American Prospect