NEWS: Musharraf Deals With That Pesky Independent Judicairy

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.

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.)

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?

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.

Of course. But since the end of the USSR, what's the use of NATO?

And, more importantly,

To provide what troops, and under what circumstances?

Actually Europe funding it's own defense is not in it's own best interests either. All that money would have to come from higher taxes which would hurt the economy or from the social programs and people would not want to lose those either.

See, with the WGA strike in full swing, Comedy Central is considering airing his Daily Show interview. Musharraf will not be paid for this.

This is just him siding with the writers.

I agree, all they have to do is take one look over at the U.S. to see why its a bad idea. They already pay much higher taxes (on average) then we do in the U.S., but they also generally have a much better quality of life...

On the other hand, there isn't much sense for a NATO country to respond to their responsibilities with the U.S. as long as the U.S. engages in preemptive wars (seen to be illegal by international standards). If these types of interdictions continue, we may see many our NATO partners casting off the Atlantic tow ropes to reform as an independent, European alliance, free of U.S. interest, security and defense obligations. Understandably, they won't want to be the targets of anti-Western sentiment should the U.S. continue to stomp upon international laws and treaties in the name of fighting terrorism (while scooping up control of the worlds remaining fossil fuel reserves).

In other words, they aren't willing to die for our oil.

On top of that, the U.S. doesn't seem to want to honor it's NATO obligations either. According to the U.S. & Europe (including Turkey), the PKK (Kurdish Workers Party) is officially listed as a "terrorist organization". We haven't exactly been eager to assist Turkey in suppressing the PKK despite numerous "terrorist attacks" against targets in Turkey (but Turkey also likes to shell Iraqi villages in return). Perhaps if the U.S. lent a hand, we'd quickly lose support among Kurds in Iraq (many of whom support the PKK's struggle to form an independent Kurdish state). In light of this "treaty" has become rather tenuous term indeed and may be called upon for convenience sake...