The Truth About Musharraf and Pakistan (VIDEO)

The United States Pays $80 million a month to fund the country that fuels the Taliban.

A soldier from Afghanistan stares across the Pakistan border, this is where all of the attacks come from in the Pesh Valley. Pakistan is a refuge, skirmishes are frequent and the enemies disappear quickly because the U.S. is undermanned with aircraft suitable of carrying the fight to the enemy as the flee back into Pakistan. Photo by: Tim King

(SALEM, Ore.) - "This is about personal ambition to continue on as President when he thought he wouldn't be able to." That is how one former diplomat to Pakistan describes the goals and future plans of Pakistan's military President Pervez Musharraf.

An independent judiciary is one of the positive things to pop up in the country's recent political past. Musharraf ended that this week. He also called off the upcoming January election, along with a suspension of Pakistan's constitution.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has been a key ally to the United States and that relationship is not new. But allied forces forces in Afghanistan will tell you that Musharraf's policies allow terrorists to travel freely between the countries, so who's friend is he?

The terrorists that comprise the Taliban and other anti-Coalition militias hail from Pakistan, they are the ones who kill American, British and Canadian soldiers on a regular basis.

Fire Base California in the Pesh Valley a remote outpost near the Pakistan border

Now Musharraf has launched martial law, even though his government denies that is what it is.

This, as the United States pays out $80 million a month to Pakistan, while our President vetoes healthcare and American troops stationed near the Pakistan border continue to die.

The news reports detail some aspects while skipping over some major components to this story. It is important to realize that the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan is uncontrolled. Militants flow freely into Afghanistan while we talk about building walls along the Mexican border.

When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979, millions of people there fled to neighboring Pakistan to avoid the bloodshed that would claim over a million and a half Afghan people.

Today the sons of those Afghans who fled to Pakistan are those who largely comprise the Taliban. Those young men join the Taliban because they are told it is the purest expression of their faith, and they return to their parent's homeland to fight the Coalition forces.

And they learned that doctrine from the mullahs in Pakistan.

Story continues below

When I was in Afghanistan earlier this year, I spent two days in the Afghanistan/Pakistan border region where combat is a daily occurrence. This is one of the exact regions that daily skirmishes are occurring in as Pakistan's problems diversify: Camp Joyce: Remote Fire Base Near Afghanistan-Pakistan Border (VIDEO) The region is packed with people intent on killing American and Afghan troops, and much of the region's combat activity fails to be reported.

As our soldiers die in this part of the world, it seems almost ludicrous that the United States government has not taken adequate measures to force Pakistan to seal the border.

Musharraf's only plan to control the border involved the planting of more new land mines, which already plague Afghanistan more than any other country in the world. The mine strategy hasn't worked.

Aziz is in the Afghan National Army He fights with Americans along the Afghan border with Pakistan

This is another report I filed from the Pakistan border region earlier this year. In this case, soldiers from a remote base are seen helping local families with humanitarian aid and how it is to live in a place where a home is a cave constructed of old railroad ties: They Call It The Lumberyard, A Forward Operating Base in Remote Afghanistan (VIDEO)

The video report below titled "Rough Road to Pesh Valley in Afghanistan (VIDEO)" is another example of the tension that exists for Americans along the border Pakistan shares with Afghanistan.

------------------------------------------------------------
Tim King is a former U.S. Marine with almost twenty years of experience on the west coast as a television news producer, photojournalist and reporter. Today, in addition to his role as a war correspondent in Afghanistan where he spent the winter of 2006/07, this Los Angeles native serves as Salem-News.com's Executive News Editor. Salem-News.com is the nation's only truly independent high traffic news Website, affiliated only with Google News. You can send Tim an email at this address: newsroom@salem-news.com