Yesterday, India’s Congress Party, part of the ruling coalition, suggested that Pakistan be declared a terror state due to the release of Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan. On Friday, Islamabad set the ringleader of a nuclear proliferation gang free after five years of house arrest that followed a hastily arranged confession and pardon.
Khan sold nuclear technology to terrorist states Libya, North Korea, and Iran. Yet that does not necessarily make him a terrorist, nor does it make his country a terrorist state. What does, however, is Islamabad’s support for the ongoing series of attacks against India. It appears, for instance, that the November raid on Mumbai was planned at the highest levels of the Pakistani intelligence services, specifically the ISI, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence. Islamabad has long supported and protected Lashkar-e-Taiba, which carried out the horrific attack, and Lashkar’s front organization, Jammat-ud-Dawa. Pakistan is also behind terrorism in India’s Kashmir and in other parts of its rival. Yet Pakistan is not one of the four nations-Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria-currently on the State Department’s list of terrorism-sponsoring states.
Nor is China, which has continually backed both Iran’s campaign of terror against Israel and Pakistan’s campaign against India. The terrorists attacking Mumbai used Chinese equipment — the distinctively blue Type 86 grenades, manufactured by China’s state-owned Norinco, which has continually supplied terrorists operating inside India. China has given Pakistan most of the ordinance that the ISI gives to terrorists. Almost all of the sophisticated communications equipment used by terrorists in India, especially Kashmir, is Chinese-made and was routed through the Pakistani army, which acted as a conduit. Training the Chinese give to Pakistani personnel is leached to terrorists-with Beijing’s knowledge. Furthermore, China blocked U.N. sanctions against and censure of Lashkar and Jammat in April and May 2006, May 2007, and August 2008. And Beijing has worked with terrorist groups, including the Taliban, outside South Asia.
If we are serious about fighting all terrorism, then we need to add Pakistan and China to the State Department list. And if we’re not serious, we will surely lose the global struggle. How can we prevail if we cannot even identify our adversaries?
