NEWS: Musharraf Deals With That Pesky Independent Judicairy

President Pervez Musharraf has had enough. He's decided to rid himself of that annoying independent judiciary. Oh, and he's had his fill of free press and stuff like that, too.

As reported in Aljazeera

You may recall that Musharraf wasn't happy when the Supreme Court reinstated Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry back in July. It got folks thinking Pakistan could be a real democracy.

The Christian Science Monitor reported on July 23rd:

It makes one wonder just how well efforts to nourish democracy in that part of the world will go.

Oh look ! Chairman Mao lent him his jacket.

On a more serious note, this is obscene, not to mention embarrassing.
So much for all that spreading Democracy nonsense eh ?

Coming soon to a country near you:
Bush suspends Constitution and '08 elections declares National State of Emergency as a result of HIs invasion of Iran.

First, don't put "NEWS" in the title if it isn't a newswire article. They don't like that.

Second, I can't get past the fact that their armored vehicles look like cows:

Coming soon to a internet forum near you:
Some guy makes wild accusations of this country's future, probably based off of a internet movie. Though I hear it's a great bar.

Things are less than peachy in Afghanistan, too. You know, the place we had good reason to go.

Thanks to the huge commitment of resources in Iraq, we're spread thin there . After six years plus or minus a few weeks, the Afghan military hasn't been rebuilt and doesn't have effective control. Allied forces have lost over 190 soldiers this year, and the locals many more.

People criticise Musharraf for not being democratic enough, but I don't know if complete democracy in Pakistan would be such a brilliant thing. Partly because I don't believe in the right of the majority to suppress the minority, and partly because I like to represent for Politeia.

It might be, but democracy in such a volatile country with a nuclear capacity could come with problems. Personally, I like that Musharraf seems to be making efforts to modernise his country and repeal some of the worst legislation, while forging alliances and declaring opposition to extremism. Also, he's improving women's rights - stating his commitment to ensuring women receive an equal education, stating that there is nothing in the Koran to mandate the wearing of the veil, and improving rape legislation. What would his political rivals bring to the table?
(I'm not telling you, I'm asking you.)

We'll never know, if he's allowed to suppress his opposition so blatantly.

I can't completely disagree with you. We have been making the naive assumption that we can somehow get everyone to "see the light" and embrace democracy.

The point I'm trying to make is that it isn't working. Rather than being an example of how democracy can work in the middle east, it seems to be becoming an example of something else.

Two quotes from the BBC article:

Not exactly a surprise (I've been seeing articles about the state of Pakistan's democracy in (for instance) the London Review of Books for a couple of months now), but not exactly heartening, either.

I await the result of this review with interest. I suspect the aid will remain at its current level.

Ah, I agree.

Absolutely, that's a good point. Although I find it strange when people talk about wanting an example of how democracy can work in the Middle East; it's such a diverse region, even if you find an example of how it can work in one country, that won't neccessarily generalise to the region. What works for Turkey might not work for Yemen.

I really need to go to that bar some day.

Cows in Arizona have wheels and machineguns?

The claim that we're out to establish democracy in our middle-eastern foreign policy is specious. Saudi Arabia is in no danger of becoming a democracy anytime soon, but that doesn't seem to bother us.

The establishment of democracy there was just the after-the-fact justification Bush gave when WMDs weren't found in Iraq.

This long Newsweek article talks about the history of militancy in Pakistan. It also describes how openlly Taliban, AQ, and others operate there.

I doubt anyone believes that Musharraf actually intends to use this tactic to fight them. His people know who and where the Islamic Radicals are, and have done little to arrest them so far. We now have Bhutto vs. militants, Musharraf vs. militants, Bhutto vs. Musharraf, and political opposition vs. all of the above. The more I know about Pakistan, the more confused (and worried) I get.

I like democracy, but look at Palestine, Turkey, and the U.S. You get some real whackjobs (not just Bush, Stevens and Byrd and others).

You've never been?

I wouldn't try tipping that cow.

Exactly.

Unfortunately our huge commitment of resources in Iraq is only part of the problem. NATO hasn't exactly been living up to its commitments. It makes me wonder if the future of the United States was really threatened would NATO actually be able to get enough troops to help us and if the answer is no then that negates the point of NATO.

Remind me exactly what those commitments are, please.

The remaining good reason for the existence of NATO is to rein the US in, IMHO. Doesn't work very well. Frankly, Europe should be funding its own defence. But I don't really think that's in America's interest.

Our cows will kill you.

Hey, let's not forget our success when we brought democracy back to Kuwait. Gulf War I when the unelected totalitarian Saddam Hussein invaded to freedom loving democratic (by that I mean "constitutional monarchy" - just like the UK ) Kuwait.

Also because unelected non-freedom loving oil producing states never sell oil.

Next week I need to decide between the Fox News or Bush White House job offers

Lets not forget why Turkey is fighting the PKK in northern Iraq, they weren't exactly very welcoming to ethnic Kurds within their country, despite the large number that live in eastern Turkey, they have been clearly excluded from the democratic process for years...

The entire political structure in Iran, er, I mean Pakistan (I'm getting ahead of myself here) is a shaky one. As an ally in "The War On Terror", the US has been giving billions in aid to the Musharaff government, helping to prop up the government and keep their economy afloat.

Now that Musharaff has decided to continuing his battle against democracy in his country (remember he got there by way of military Junta in the first place), the US is unlike to continue supporting Pakistan. The suspension of foreign aid and investment could offset the last 5 years of economic recovery that Pakistan has enjoyed and plunge it back into recession. I worry about a destabilized Pakistan like the US should have about Iran after the fall of the Shah of Iran. I worry that Musharaff and his political allies will become pariahs and the people of Pakistan will blame him and his former foreign allies (especially the US who has historically supported him). I worry that the people of Pakistan will replace the government with a populist anti-Western, hard-line Islamic theocracy, just like Iran did after the Shah left Iran. I worry what will happen to the nuclear weapons they already possess once this happens... Remember, certain people within our government simply can't accept ANY Muslim countries possessing WMD's. (Pakistan has been off the hook because, well, they already have them). How do you think Joe neo-con will react if this ever occurs? Iran 2.0, but with nukes?

Maybe I shouldn't worry so much, but I just hope we don't push them into a corner someday just like we are doing with Iran.

SPOILERS! (Click to view)

But what matter once we have our invisible tanks prowling along to keep everyone in line.

MMMMMmmmmm because genocidal facism, oppressive regimes, and millienium long tribal battles are so damn cozy????

You're right about certain parts of that. At the moment, as bad as Musharraf is, there doesn't seem to be any significant opposition that would be significantly better. At this time, his main political foes are either fundamentalist Islamist parties, which would almost certainly be worse for human rights and the stability of the region, or (the largest) the Pakistan People's Party, led by former prime minister Bhutto. The PPP is generally more progressive on issues from social to economic (its emphasis is on women's rights and its fiscal policies are socialist); both reigns of Bhutto and the PPP, however, were marked by widespread corruption. Ultimately, Bhutto's administration never proposed any real legislation to end Hudood law, and it was under her authority that Pakistan propped up Taliban rule in Afghanistan.

Musharraf has made some progress in modernization and improving women's rights, but in other ways it has been more rhetoric than action, and in many lawless tribal regions, women's rights have seriously eroded during his term. To be fair, some of this is due to the perenially delicate balance he finds himself in, with any move towards reform posing the very real potentiality of rise-ups and/or assassination attempts from the fundamentalists.

Still, part of this lack of better alternatives is due to what we're seeing right now: with Musharraf quelching any and all opposition from opposition leaders and human rights groups while imposing military rule at the drop of a hat, he's certainly not fostering any type of climate for a viable, attractive opposition party to comfortably develop - and that's no accident on his part.

NATO nations are supposed to be providing troops.

source.

The reason NATO exists isn't to "rein in the US" but rather to provide a military alliance in the case one or more of the NATO nations are attacked.