Regardless of the business-as-usual air in much of the country, there is no mistaking the strong and steadily growing element of fear in Pakistani society.

Businessmen are wringing their hands in despair as they watch their foreign partners take flight. The hectic activity in corporate law firms engaged in Pakistan’s multi-billion-dollar privatisation programme is grinding to a halt. Banks are reporting increased foreign currency withdrawals while multinationals are evacuating their foreign staffers.
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J&K terrorism on Bush's hit list: Powell

"Is this a war against all terrorism," asked the BBC correspondent.

Powell: Yes. President Bush sees this as a campaign that goes after terrorism as a curse in the face of society.

Question: So that would include Irish terrorism, Kashmiri terrorism and Basque terrorism?

Powell: I think that is correct. Any organization that is interested in terrorist operations to overthrow legitimate governments, democratically elected governments, or governments that represent the will of their people is a threat. We should go after them. This is not new for the United States. We recently designated the real JRA, a terrorist organization. We have done the same thing with three organisations in Colombia, the FARC, the ELN and recently their paramilitary, the AUC.
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So who decides if a government is legitimate? The U.S.? And who overthrew the democratically elected government of Allende in Chile? The U.S.

Remember, one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. The U.S. can now brand any freedom fighters as terrorists if they are trying to remove themselves from the yoke of a government doing Washington's bidding.

Also remember that our founding fathers were terrorists. What do you think the Boston Tea Party was? They were using terror to overthrow a legitimate government.