And there have been several occasions since then when the threat might have been profitably renewed, given the widespread support in Pakistan for the jihad, even at the highest levels of the Musharraf government. “CORRECTED: U.S. threatened to bomb Pakistan after 9/11: Musharraf,” from Reuters, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:
NEW YORK (Reuters) – President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan said that after the September 11 attacks the United States threatened to bomb his country if it did not cooperate with America’s war campaign against the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Musharraf, in an interview with CBS news magazine show “60 Minutes” that will air Sunday, said the threat came from Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and was given to Musharraf’s intelligence director.
“The intelligence director told me that (Armitage) said, ‘Be prepared to be bombed. Be prepared to go back to the Stone Age,'” Musharraf said.
“I think it was a very rude remark.”
Rude, eh? Well, Pervez, you’ll have to pardon Armitage. He may have been a bit wrought up after 3,000 office workers went to work one morning and ended up meeting a horrible death at the hands of believers in an ideology that you have done little or nothing to eradicate.