Chickens Come Home to Roost

How's this for ceding the moral high ground?

Ahmed Raza Kasuri, a senior legal advisor to Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and a guy who helped write that country's (now suspended) constitution, defends the suspension of rights in his country by saying - that's right - they learned it from us.

In response to a question from Michelle Norris on All Things Considered Wednesday, Kasuri was kind enough to remind Norris that "you have in your country a long history of a democratic tradition of values." (Remember, Pakistan is a democracy, too.)

So what does the longest-running democracy have to teach the rest of the world?

Well, according to the Pakistanis, that it's OK to suspend the constitution and dismiss the pesky Supreme Court in the name of "stability."

"After 9/11," asked Kasuri, "what have you done? You also have introduced evidence you can pick up anybody (for) detentions. ... These are some of the measures you have to adopt to maintain the stability of the country."

Forget the quagmire we've found ourselves in in Iraq. Everybody makes mistakes and, besides, surely everyone believed it was the right thing to do at the time.

No, the real lesson from our spreading democracy to parts of the world that really don't seem to be asking for it (and for other places where it's holding on tenuously) is to be learned right here at home.

It's that civil liberties are a good idea until there's a boogie man out there with some vague idea of undermining your way of life.

To maintain our purity of essence, we've got to forgo little bedrock principles like getting warrants, we've got to hold people without charge, deny them counsel or habeas corpus.

And so we're being lectured about democracy by a nominal dictator whom we've propped up despite the fact that his country is actually harboring the guy responsible for 9/11.

And the sad thing is he's right.

Our account in the bank of moral leadership is dangerously low on funds, and that's a really hard deficit to make up.

Comments

[Sundialsvc4]

Yeah, the sad thing is, he's right.

At least from the point of view of these present American leaders, whose goals and ambitions are quite unrelated to those of the VAST majority of Americans. (Of that, I am quite confident.)

Although outnumbered probably 30-million to one, these few-thousand at-most people remain in power. At least, for now.

[ednadumpling]

Situational ethics are the cornerstone of gooper belief --that's why gooperRussert asked the torture question looking for a soundbite for rudi's ads.

that's why people like Shrillshilland liar AB Stoddard of the Hill magazine goes around saying --if it's my family then torture away.
The media supports torture and treats it like a joke and questions the person who is not flexible in their values.

[tomsthumb]

We have terror cells in every country; they're called DEA.

[ms.understood]

Sorry Jonathan, but not everyone was blinded by the lies that your leaders told to get us involved in the Iraq situation. Maybe you were just a part of the ill-informed bunch who wanted to see bloodshed, until you realized that most of the blood shed was ours. Yeah, we all make mistakes, but this mistake was too costly to just be chalked up as another "mistake."

[YankeeCanuck]

Yes, those birds are darkening the entire sky as the come to roost.We've been hearing Biden give his analysis of the situation for some time now. What has come to pass is as he predicted. No, he's not psychic. He's highly experienced in foreign relations.
May more Americans recognise that in Biden we have a man who is prodigiously qualified to be the president who guides us out of our present international disaster and our domestic malaise.He's the candidate of substance and ethics. Not expediancy.Biden is running one of the last grass roots campaigns.Let us hope Americans can tell the difference between substance and glitz.

[silverball]

reminds me of dana p's (wh press sec) response about not suspending constitutional rights to fight terrorism...DUH AND WTF???

[LizM]

Well, yes...the chickens have been coming home to roost for a very long time now, in many more ways than one, some more catastrophic than others.

That is why, I assume you would agree, that we are all in such desperate need of eight solid years of a Biden administration. A Biden presidency would obliterate the deficit of moral leadership, at home and abroad.