1 Maybe I'm being silly but seeing generals as heads of government just makes me queasy.

2 Yes, agreed, Musharraf has been a champ for the West, and in my opinion, a pretty decent leader for his own people as well. There are guys who are just shills for the West, and then there are guys who understand that you can't be all you can be without hooking up with the West at some point. Musharraf has done a decent job of walking that fine line. Some people have a misconception of Pakistan, however. The country has actually been pretty moderate. They had a female prime minister for much of the 90's; they supported the Taliban solely for convenient political reasons, not because of ideological similarities. Still, Pakistan was somewhat in chaos in the very late 90's and Musharraf of course came to power in a coup. For a guy who came to power in a coup, he's been comparatively selfless in looking out for Pakistan rather than just for himself (although you could say there's a little of that too). In short, Pakistan was NOT Afghanistan. Pakistan was a potentially strong ally either way, but thanks to their awkward support for the Taliban, which happened to be sheltering America's public enemy number one, they didn't have much choice but to cooperate with us. If not for Pakistan's support of the Taliban, the Taliban probably would have collapsed and bin Laden might have been homeless, or least a lot less comfortable. Pakistan wasn't out to get us, but it certainly didn't look good. The other point to make is that Afghanistan is NOT Iraq. The war in Afghanistan was part of a sensible war on terror, and the world agreed and got enthusiastically behind the US. The war in Iraq is something else altogether. It's a sham, and a disaster in for our efforts to reduce terrorism. It indicates that the Bush administration simply has no clue how to wage a campaign against terrorism. They were gunning for Iraq to a small degree from the very beginning of the Bush administration, and turned on the afterburners within months of the invasion of Afghanistan -- distracting us completely from our true priorities while creating all kinds of new problems and side-effects that we simply didn't need. So, Musharraf: A-OK in my book. The Afghanistan invasion: no problem. The Iraq invasion: totally asinine.

3 Musharraf Has been an excellent leader, statesmen, head of the Pakistani forces. They have done more against the Taliban and Al Qaida than anyone. He should be given lots of credit and respect and gets it from our government. He is still rounding up taliban fighters, Al Qaida terrorists, breaking up terrorist groups and oh, so much more. He has arrested so many people and lately there have been arrests on a daily basis and through them, they are getting some information and attacks are being averted. Not unlike Bush, I must add. ~C

4 Uh, Mike, your President is, in effect, a general. Bush, like George Washington before him, is the supreme commander of the U.S. Armed Forces. The Commander-in-chief. Irk, to say that an invasion of Iraq is somehow a strategic flop in the war on terror is to ignore the threat of Iran. Having friendly access points on the east (Afghanistan and Pakistan) and west (Iraq and Turkey) of Iran is invaluable for putting real pressure on them to disarm. If we supply enough pressure, the chance of a student-led insurrection/revolution in Iran increases over time, which increases the chance of reform in the existing "democracy".