With low approval ratings, questions circulating around his attorney general nomination, the torture issue, and the deadliest year in Iraq for American soldiers, Bush was already having a tough month. Now his Pakistani ally in the War on Terror, President Pervez Musharraf, has declared martial law, suspended the constitution, put a Supreme Court justice under house arrest, and rounded up political opponents and activists.
According to his own people, Musharraf is a tyrant and his rule unconstitutional. Time quoted one disgrunted Pakistani lawyer as saying:
“This is the kind of tolerance he has shown for the rule of law in this country,” says Ahsan. “Everything he does is illegal. President Musharraf is illegal.”
While I wouldn’t go so far as to call a person illegal, I think this sums up the feelings of the educated class in Pakistan, as well as thousands of other protestors who have been arrested by the police of late. In fact, there is even talk of a coup on the horizon–something that would deeply unsettle the country who happens to be in possession of dozens of nucear bombs.
The truth is, it’s not about terrorism anymore, however Bush wants to paint it. Musharraf isn’t going to find Bin Laden. We give him $150 million a month to fight the terrorism in his country, and so far he hasn’t produced results. We are not supporting him so that he’ll fight terrorism anymore–he is becoming a terrorist himself. We’re giving him money in an attempt to ward off chaos.
The US is faced with supporting a tyrant or risking a further destabilized Middle East.
Isn’t it a shame that we find ourselves supporting someone who is actively destroying democracy? In an attempt to bring democracy to the Middle East, we are forced to donate to the tyrants.
“Entangling alliance” is taking on a whole new meaning.
Filed under: Politics
A few years ago I read somewhere about some similarities between the end of the Otoman Empire and current Pakistan. At that point in time Mustafa Kemal Ataturk founded a “Republic” from the ashes of an Ottoman Empire which was collapsing after loosing the war and lots of their territory. atarturk decided to modernize the country and keep religion out of the picture. In the long run that worked out more or less ok.
But with Pakistan Musharraf may have come 20 years to late to try an modernize the country. Sadly countries like Pakistan need to be ruled hard otherwise they go into caos.
Ok. NO country needs to be ruled ruthlessly. You can’t make a case for any nation that it is better off in a police state.
Musharraf is not trying to make a democracy. This is not a question of timing; it is a question of power corrupting those who have it. In this case, Musharraf has given in to the temptation to seize power. Let’s not forget he originally came to power in a coup.
Oh and chaos is spelled with a ‘h’.
Well, jslef, you hit it when you said that “Musharraf has given in to the temptation to seize power.” He is indeed a power-mad Faustian. He’s so Faustian he’s Feistian. Mushaboom! It’ll be hell to get him out of power, but the Salafis are going to get stomped one way or the other, and the democrats are resurgent once again and seem now to have history on their side. Pakistan has been a powderkeg since its founding, a bloody result of Mohandas Gandhi’s cunning orchestrations of British violence. Its increasingly affluent and sophisticated people are sick of autocracy, though, and will not put up for long with fascism of any flavor, be it Marcos Nut, Taliban Swirl or Fidel Moca Fudge. Your punchy last line means nothing as far as I can tell. Pakistan is not, and does not regard itself as, part of the Middle East. In the days of Billy Carter’s challenged brother Jimmy, the U.S. was spending like sums in Pakistan to arm and provision CIA-led Afghan freedom fighters, including OBL. We cozied up to some unsavory people then too. The policy was continued in Dutch’s presidency. Exterminating Communism was a smelly business, but we got the job done and emerged with your Constitution intact. I bet you and Dr. Pangloss would rather we hadn’t made such entangling alliances, but you’d both be fatuous. Like all major nations we have a long history of cynical pacts. The mundanity and cynicism of it does not justify it; its effectiveness does. Sometimes it recoils upon us in unanticipated ways. More often it doesn’t. What do you think of Churchill’s answering criticism of his entanglement with Stalin by explaining that he would shake the hand of the Devil himself if it would help Britain defeat Hitler? Should the UK and US have refrained from sending avuncular Old Joe all that war materiel and all those foodstuffs?
Hugo
P.S. You begin by saying that Bush has had a bad month vis-a-vis Iraq. Civilian and allied military casualties were lower in October than they have been in a very long time. Anyone who wants the Iraquis to come into their own, and our people to come home safe, whole, successful and soon has no business wishes the Commander-in-Chief ill, as you obviously flout facts gymnastically to do.
Ha! I love it. I just wrote an article with a very similar theme. But I think we do much more than give them money. We give them military aid, and we actively meddle.
http://www.fixourpolicies.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=37&Itemid=41
So what happened 2 years into the future after this article was written? Let’s sum it up…
1. March 23rd 2008, President Musharraf said an “era of democracy” has begun in Pakistan. He said he has put the country “on track of development and progress through Democratically held elections.”
2. With the help of Ally governments he was capable of executing those elections through out the country, even with EU oversight boards.
3. March 22nd 2008, the Pakistan Peoples Party named former parliament speaker Syed Yousaf Raza Gillani as its candidate for the country’s next prime minister, to lead a coalition government united against Musharraf.
4. August 7th 2008, the Pakistan Peoples Party and the Pakistan Muslim League agreed to force Musharraf to step down and begin his impeachment.
5. August 18th 2008, in a speech defending his record, Musharraf announced that he had resigned (thus making impeachment unnecessary). Impeachment has yet to be charged.
6. After the peaceful transition of power in the United States, President Obama has made it clear that he will continue the war in neighboring Afghanistan.
7. Obama has also continued the legacy of Bush by continued rocket attacks across Pakistan’s border using unmanned drones.
Perspective through history really isn’t as tantalizing as pointing your figure and calling the guy a blood thirsty tyrant, is it?