LeT men are patriotic, let them form a political party: Musharraf

Former Pakistan president General (retd) Pervez Musharraf on Saturday said he was ready to enter into an alliance with Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) for Islamabad's 'safety and security'.

This statement has come almost a month after he claimed he was the biggest supporter of the two parties.

"They (LeT and JuD men) are patriotic people, they have laid their lives for Pakistan, who can object if they form a political party," ARY News quoted Musharraf, as saying.

So far the two parties have not approached him but if they desire to enter into an alliance with his party, he has no objection, he added.

He further said, "I am a liberal and a moderate but that doesn't mean that I detest religious elements, I am the biggest supporter of Lashkar-e-Taiba and I know that they too like me, the people from Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD)."

Musharraf, a month back, had said he liked the global terrorist, JuD chief Hafiz Saeed, and had met him.

The former president added he was always in favour of terrorist action in Kashmir, and the LeT and the JuD were the biggest forces to take on the Indian Army in the state.

The US had strongly condemned the release of LeT leader Hafiz Saeed from house arrest and called for his immediate re-arrest and prosecution.
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Pervez Musharraf: The Pakistani General who wouldn't go away

Along stretches of highway and railway tracks across Pakistan, walls bear a familiar inscription: Mard kabhi boorha nahin hota, a man never grows old. It’s an advert by quacks and herbalists peddling eternal virility to aging Pakistani men. It would appear that Pakistan’s former military leader Gen. Pervez Musharraf has taken this roadside assurance too seriously.

Nine years after his ouster from the presidency, and many humiliating attempts to reclaim political relevance later, he is at it again. In a recent interview with Sky News, he said that if he could return to power now he would have more legitimacy than the first time around because back then some people thought he was a dictator. He said this with a straight face.

Musharraf’s dreams are as hopeless as the claims of the roadside quacks, but that doesn’t stop him from coming up with elaborate plans to bring them about. Despite what the aphrodisiac sellers say, men do get old, and they don’t get any wiser with age.

Back in his day, Musharraf sold himself to the world as the last man standing between the Taliban and Western civilization. In the bargain, he achieved everything that a developing country’s military dictator could want: a trip to Camp David, a house in Dubai, a flat in central London, a book deal, his own TV show. You would think that after all that, he would retire, play golf and occasionally show up on the after-dinner lecture circuit. But earlier this month he announced the creation of a 23-party political alliance and appointed himself its chairman.

Many of those parties were previously unheard-of, and some of the ones that were known announced that they had nothing to do with Musharraf or his grand alliance. Still, within days Musharraf was back on TV reminiscing about his glorious rule and pitching himself as a savior-in-waiting — the man who would deliver Pakistan from its current political crisis, caused by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s disqualification from office on corruption charges.
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