Axis of Acceptable Evil

The Agonist has a report from the Friday Times of Lahore, India which claims that rogue Pakistani nuclear scientists Abdul Qadeer Khan and Sultan Bashiruddin Mehmood had held meetings with Osama bin Laden and other Al Qaeda leaders, exchanged letters with militant organisations like the Lashkar-e-Toiba and attended their gatherings and rallies.

Yet another reason to wonder about the Bush administrations logic in selling F-16 fighter/bombers with the capability to drop nukes to a rogue state that is simply very clever at playing the international field.

Yet another reason to wonder at the blatant hypocricy displayed by the White House when they label Iran and North Korea as part of the famed "Axis of Evil" and try their hardest to add Syria to the list at the same time as Jordan is torturing dissidents, Suadia Arabia is bankrolling Wahabist extremism and acting as World headquarters for the same and Pakistan is denying culpablity while arming every tinpot nutcase with nukes. Yep, these are the kind of states the US wants to sell weapons to - advanced weapons, not the 100,000 AK-47s Venezuala wants to buy from Russia and over which Rumsfield is making such a big noise, saying "I can't imagine that if it did happen, that it would be good for the hemisphere."

In the convoluted Alice in Wonderland reality of the Bush government, a bunch of old rifles sold to a country that has oil is more destabilising than selling advanced fighters to a nation that has systematically covered up it's involvement in arming terrorists and rogue states with atom bombs. Nice.