BERNARD LEVY ON PBS BILL MOYERS

MOYERS: President Bush came to New York this week to ask the U.N. for money and troops to help out in Iraq.

While here, Mr. Bush met with the president of Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf, supposedly a close ally.

But there are complaints in Washington that Musharraf is not doing enough to round up the terrorists in his own country, with its huge population of radical Muslims.

Bernard-Henri Levy is a diplomat, journalist, and philosopher, the author of 30 books.

His latest is about the ghastly murder of Daniel Pearl, the WALL STREET JOURNAL reporter whose throat was slit by terrorists in Karachi.

BRANCACCIO: You've been following the visit to North America of the Pakistani President Musharraf. Before the UN he had this quotation, "Pakistan will remain in the forefront in the war against terrorism." Any comments when you hear him say that?

LEVY: My comment is that it is big news because until now, Pakistan was the core of terrorism.

LEVY: The core, of course. It gives. Pakistan gave shelter to the biggest terrorists in the world.

I know Pakistan. I spent. I know it since a long time, since 30 years. And I spent one year in this country on the footsteps of Daniel Pearl. I went in Karachi when I visited the seminary on Binori Town where you have some terrorists who are trained and who are spiritually built in order to hate Western world and Muslim democracy.

I went in Peshawar where you have a real big place of terrorism also. We know and I know, I have very strong evidence that Osama bin Laden, for instance, took medical care in Binori Town where I was and in a military hospital in Islamabad. So Pakistan was until this day maybe, until the day before yesterday, Pakistan was the very shelter, the very center, the very core of international terrorism. So maybe this is a big news we have to follow up.

BRANCACCIO: This is why I want to talk to you. Thirty years going back and forth to that region of the world. You're a card-carrying French philosopher yet you're proud to say that you're a journalist. You're a Frenchman who says that America in many ways is correct when it talks about its war on terrorism. And you conclude that Pakistan is where the next tragedies will hatch. What do you mean by that?

LEVY: I mean that the risk of nuclear proliferation exists in Pakistan. I mean, that Pakistan, that's what I show in my book. It is not just ideas.

I made the very accurate, precise, modest investigation of this point. The point, for instance, on which Daniel Pearl also that you have two big scientists in Pakistan who are great scientists linked to al-Qaeda and who have been convicted of being on the point to trade some nuclear knowledge, nuclear know-how to groups linked to al-Qaeda.

BRANCACCIO: In fact, you contrast the full bloom of extremism, the fresh extremism that you found in Pakistan with something very different in Iraq. Something almost from the last century.

LEVY: That is the reason why it I was so strongly opposed to the war in Iraq. Saddam Hussein was a dictator, no doubt about this. But he was a dictator in his autumn. In his old age. But it was an exhausted dictatorship.

What I discovered during this long investigation is that the real, the sole clash of civilization is inside Islam, inside the Islamic world between the moderate Islam and the radical Islam.

I was in some demonstration in the streets where you had 100,000 of people shouting their hate not only of North America, not only of the Western world, not of moderacy in general and shouting also, for instance, that the nuclear bomb of Pakistan should belong not only to Pakistan but to the entire community of believers which means in their mind Osama bin Laden. You have huge demonstrations of people demanding that.

It was less difficult than it would have been for an American journalist. By chance, for my fortune I was French. And I was a writer which meant that I was a little more protected than if I had been an American journalist.

But what is true is that when I spent, for instance, this night in the very hotel where Daniel Pearl first met his executioner and which I happened to discover it was a sort of basis, a sort of informal headquarters of ISI.

LEVY: I was nervous. It was not the best night I spent in my life. When I came inside the Binori Town Seminary where I think no journalists went before, no Western journalists went before, where I knew that Osama bin Laden had been a few weeks before had received medical care and so on, it was a strange moment also. It was like if you were in the very room of the belly of the demon. I don't like these words, of course. But.

BRANCACCIO: But on the key topic, if, indeed, the clash of civilizations is within Islam itself, within the people of Pakistan, how can an American expect to get involved in that debate? The Bush Administration is dealing with Musharraf. It has no choice.

LEVY: I think we have choice. We made the bad choice since 20 years. We chose the radical against the moderate.

We chose. we, you, American, us French, both of us, Bush and Chirac in the same basket. We chose the Taliban against Massoud. We chose Saudi Arabia against the democrats of the Arab world. We chose that because we wanted peace. Because we thought that we had to make alliance with the most powerful. Because we thought that our main enemy was the Soviet Union.

Because we are lazy. Because the Americans and the French diplomats often are intellectually lazy. They continue to work on old schemes. They have to change their minds today.

LEVY: To arrange force to support much more than we do the moderate Muslims all over the world. There are a lot even in Pakistan. I met so many intellectuals, democrats, women who don't understand why we support so much without any tie, without any condition the regime of Musharraf which is on the one side military, on the other side Jihadist. Which is on the one side the regime of repression, dictatorship as Saddam Hussein in a way.

And in another side a fanatic one. You have the local people inside Pakistan who pray us, who urge us, who admonished us to put some conditions on our aid to Musharraf.

LEVY: Not to pull back the alliance. Of course not. You have morale and you have politics. Maybe we have to give money to Musharraf. But please when Musharraf comes in New York and when he says in the New York Times in an interview when he's asked, "Have you. do you. are you sure to have control on your atomic assets?"

And when he says, "Oh, I don't know. I have no evidence. I have no proof that there can be any risk of proliferation." What is this language? I have no evidence? I have no proof? If this the chief of state responsible with whom we can have this serious alliance. Mr. Musharraf is not in control of his country.

BRANCACCIO: Put conditions on it. But if we get this wrong, Musharraf could get toppled, and Pakistan would be run be extremists, possibly.

LEVY: Pakistanis already half run by extremists. We must know and the people who hear us must know that one of the man convicted to have channeled the money to Mohammed Atta was no other than the number one of Pakistani Secret Service, Mr. Mahmoud Ahmad (PH). And he was fired. He was dismissed a few days before the attacks.

BRANCACCIO: Listen, you have to explain this because I was reading this book and this is one of the points that just stops me in my tracks.

You're saying that the head of Pakistani intelligence around the time of 9/11 funneled $100,000 through an intermediary to Mohammed Atta, perhaps the most famous of the 9/11 hijackers?

LEVY: Yes, of course. Of course. This is one of the thing which might surprise myself the most when I made this investigation.

I was in Dubai. In Dubai, I discovered that one of the financial man of the September 11th was the Chief of the secret services of the country allied to America.

LEVY: I'm sorry to get a little angry. But you cannot have spent, as I did, all this time, all this year, making this investigation, walking in the footsteps of such a great man, and support to see this comedy. It is comedy.

The visit of Musharraf in New York was just a comedy. It was a mockery. And even if I am a moderate, and a calm man, it put me out of my temper.

BRANCACCIO: No, having read your book, I understand your passion. But you talk about being a moderate. I want to ask you this. You are a leading French intellectual. I thought you were supposed to, as a Frenchman, despise America.

There is a very long, long history of friendship and of love between France and America. This will not be broken because of childish dispute between our presidents. This is crazy.

LEVY: I was against the Bush administration when was decided the war in Iraq. I thought it was a mistake, and a strong political and historical mistake.

But today, we are in it. We are in Iraq. And I think about just the average Iraqi people, just the raped women, the orphans, children, the poor men ruined in this country. And we have now to finish the work.

LEVY: We should send some people in Iraq. I don't know if it is properly troops. Because each of us has his own knowledge and know-how.

Maybe you are good cops. Maybe we are good nurses. Maybe we should put together cops and nurses in Iraq.

BRANCACCIO: The book is called WHO KILLED DANIEL PEARL? Bernard Henri-Levy, thank you very much.

DON'T MEAN TO BUG YOU.....
BUT CAN YOU HELP? PLEASE SUPPORT FREE REPUBLIC Donate Here By Secure Server
Or mail checks to

FreeRepublic
LLC PO BOX 9771 FRESNO
CA 93794
Or you can use
PayPal at Jimrob@psnw.com
STOP BY A BUMP THE FUNDRAISER THREAD
It's on the Breaking News Sidebar

What I discovered during this long investigation is that the real, the sole clash of civilization is inside Islam, inside the Islamic world between the moderate Islam and the radical Islam.

Those who refuse to hear and understand do so at their own peril.

Prairie

There's considerable truth in what he says. Pakistan is one of the problem areas. But Bush is aware of that, and is doing what he can in the circumstances. Moyers, on the other hand, is the enemy. No doubt he sponsored this interview because he wants to undermine Bush and the campaign in Iraq.

Just because Pakistan is a problem doesn't mean that Iraq wasn't a problem too. And we needed to secure the oil before dealing with the most fundamental problem of all, the Saudis.

"You're saying that the head of Pakistani intelligence around the time of 9/11 funneled $100,000 through an intermediary to Mohammed Atta, perhaps the most famous of the 9/11 hijackers?"

That's revealing, alright.

No offense but who cares what Bernard Levy said on PBS?

If you care about Daniel Pearl or Muslim NUCLEAR WEAPONS, you should care about what he has to say.

Levy's book is excellent. He is a serious man, and he has a set of balls on him for a Frenchman. The ISI is a terrorist organization, and I wouldn't trust any of them. And all aid to Musharraf should be conditional. Pakistan is ultimately going the way of the Balkans, dissolving into warring provinces. We should be enlisting as much help from India as anyone in this.

On this issue of Pakistani nuclear proliferation, don't forget where is came from: China. And how did China get it?

Campaign cash.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.