Pakistan's President General Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency on November 3rd after the Pakistani Supreme Court indicated it would overturn the results of an illegitimate election that would have extended Musharraf's term as president. Musharraf quickly fired the Supreme Court justices who planned to rule against him. And his declaration of emergency attacked the entire population of Pakistan by suspending fundamental constitutional rights to life and liberty, freedom of speech, assembly and association, and equal protection of the law.
As a result of Musharraf's action, Pakistani Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry is being held under house arrest, and over 2500 lawyers in different parts of Pakistan have been detained. The detainees include the President of the Supreme Court Bar Association and officials of the Democratic Lawyers Association of Pakistan. The government also ordered that journalists who brought "ridicule or disrepute" to Musharraf could face three years in prison.
The real motivation for Musharraf's declared emergency is not to defend the country against "Islamic extremists," as he claims, but to maintain Musharraf in power. He acted to prevent public protests that lawyers and political parties were organizing. And his scheme is working. Musharraf's new brand-new, hand-picked Supreme Court ruled on Monday that Musharraf can remain in power for five more years.
Meanwhile, the Bush Administration is scurrying around in damage control mode. Musharraf's actions would be very embarrassing for Bush -- if Bush were the type of guy to get embarrassed. After all, Bush has been claiming for the past several years that he wants to spread democracy throughout the Islamic world. Somehow, Musharraf's declared state of emergency, followed by mass arrests of his political opponents, doesn't seem very democratic.
Bush dispatched Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte to Pakistan to talk sense to Musharraf. Negroponte urged Musharraf to end the state of emergency. But Bush's man didn't complain about Musharraf shutting down the Supreme Court and replacing it with his loyalists. Negroponte also failed to tell Musharraf to release the judges and lawyers from prison. So much for democracy and an independent judiciary.
The recipient of nearly $11 billion of U.S. aid since 9/11, Musharraf will cover for his benefactor Bush to keep him from losing face in light of the Pakistani strongman's blatant and tyrannical power grab. Musharraf has agreed that parliamentary elections scheduled for January will proceed and that he will take off his military uniform after the sham elections are held. Of course, Musharraf's jailed political opponents will likely find it difficult to campaign effectively for seats in parliament while incarcerated under a state of martial law.
American citizens whose tax dollars are being used to prop up this ruthless and corrupt regime should demand an accounting of how their money is being spent.
Bush claims that Musharraf is an indispensable ally in his "war against terror," and that money sent to Pakistan supports that goal. It appears from my vantage point, though, that Musharraf is playing Bush for a fool. Musharraf tells Bush he will help destroy the Taliban. However, Pakistani Professor Pervez Hoodbhoy wrote in the November 18 Los Angeles Times that some people in Pakistan believe Musharraf is "secretly supporting the Taliban as a means for countering Indian influence." Moreover, if Musharraf wants to regain and maintain support of the Pakistani people, he will continue to support the Taliban. Hoodbhoy also wrote, "Most Pakistanis see the [Taliban] as America's enemy, not their own. The Taliban is perceived as the only group standing up against the unwelcome American presence in the region." According to Hoodbhoy, "For more than 25 years, the army has nurtured Islamist radicals as proxy warriors for covert operations on Pakistan's borders in Kashmir and Afghanistan."
Hoodbhoy's remarks are corroborated by Adrien Levy, co-author of Deception: Pakistan, the United States and the Global Nuclear Weapons Conspiracy. Levy told Amy Goodman on Democracy Now!, "The [Musharraf] agenda is to destabilize Afghanistan, to create a government there which is favorable to Islamabad. These are goals which are actually contrary to the goals - very largely contrary to the goals of the West. Yet," Levy, said, "this slowly moving car crash of the U.S. pumping billions of untraceable cash into the Pakistan military has continued since 2001 and we're left with the position where Pakistan is devoid of democracy, democracy is weakened and feeble, and we have just increased instability, quite honestly."
If Congress stands by and does nothing to cut off the funds to Musharraf while he maintains martial law in Pakistan, it will confirm our worst fears that Democrats and Republicans alike are making a sham of our democracy.
Marjorie Cohn is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and the President of the National Lawyers Guild. She is the author of Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law. Her columns are archived at www.marjoriecohn.com.
Pakistan does not want Afghanistan to be a strong independent nation. The Taliban is much more popular there than George W. Bush. We fail to understand the political, social or economic dynamics or the languages of the region.
Pakistan continues to have serious problems with India over Kashmir. The rising influence of China in Pakistan is virtually ignored by the State Department in its obsession with the GWOT. The military attack on the Red Mosque was inspired by the kidnapping of Chinese nationals in Pakistan by militants.
Terrorism caused the government to clamp down on the middle class and the lawyers in Pakistan while a deal was made with the terrorists. The recruiting of jihadists flourishes in this milieu, undermining the goals of our policy.
Our foreign policy should encourage the development of a strong middle class in Pakistan. The "concert of democracy" is only possible when we avoid local conflicts and forget about military spending as the answer to everything. Social, economic and ecological interests should be supported. These diplomatic tools will trump our merely supporting the development of military weapons by sending billions of dollars to the Pakistani military.
Pakistan is just another in the list with Egypt, Afghanistan, Iraq, Georgia, Ukraine, and many others where American values are violated without recourse despite the influence our aid and backing should bring.
It is not our ideals, but rather the reality of America we are exporting.
Wealthy elites and special interests thrive due to control of government and the backing of the militaries while manipulated elections provide a veneer of democracy.
Most Americans refuse to acknowledge our reality, but recognize it when implemented abroad.
The need to keep this reality in America hidden or obscured for fear of a backlash means it is actually more tenuous here than those other countries. Keeping their grip on power here requires a more subtle approach.
Dominating the money for elections, Diebolding, vote suppression and denying coverage of protests are OK, firing judges, jailing lawyers en masse, blatant election rigging and soldiers on the street not OK.
Complaints from the administration amount to "Be like us, just don't be so obvious".
Negropontes visit was designed to give the appearance of dissatisfaction by Bush, without upsetting the cart.
And like the guy in Afghanistan, the oil company guy - we bought him too. He's another pretend friend.
And like the Saudis. Did you hear that after some poor woman was gang-raped by a group of I think 6-7 men, the "authorities" in Saudi Arabia ordered her to be whipped. She said that after the first 3-4 men had finished brutalizing her and raping her, she really couldn't feel all the others who went next. It's like the pain cut off her consciosness. The Saudi authorities ordered that she be whipped. They're our friend too -- those authorities. They are our "pretend" friends.
And Israel.
With friends like those ....
If we had a barbeque and invited all of our "friends" over from the middle east, it would be like a world-setting record for the most criminals, thieves, liars and murderers ever to get together in one place. Our friends.
They're USING the military forces of the United States to accomplish a BUSINESS purpose, and this man knows it. He's standing in the way, holding the cards, and yes, playing the United States for a fool ...
... because the NATIONAL interests of the United States as a country, and the BUSINESS interests of the executives who are at-the-moment running that country, are not the same.
"Blackwater bad?" C'mon... who OWNS it? Etcetera.
"Policies of this bad boy bad?" Yeah, well how different really ARE they from what the Patriot Act or the Commissions Act or any of that other crackpot legislation WE have written lately? They're ot different at all, of course, and ... here's the key point ... NEITHER ARE THE UNDERLYING REASONS AND MOTIVES.
Are these "American politicians" representing our national interests? Duh-h-h... NO. Never did. And THAT's why their present actions seem so "incomprehensible" to Americans.
one that the entire regimes and signatories of written constitutions are all over political scene that is not commanding more than 20some percent but in polls ,the handfull of nervous excitees and bailed out corrupt element is constantly trying to ignore and discredit truth s far as national ideology that doesnt admit secularism since its seperation movement of 1923 and remains comfortably nuetral towards europeanism ..all bound to fall and further from international society ad pakistani publics eyes..
musharaff is somehow not impressed by the new 1973 urdu medium elite which has created bureaus by now that on one hand scorn modrenism and on other hand educated thier children westernism but blocked cafetarias and discos leaving sickened girls and boys..
any nation that discovers its ideology gets the break of its life ,but the lahore nawai waqt and dr javed iqbal son of the knighted poet of east who bucked up the first asian muslim british official acedemia that competed and won way out from mughal british bureaus proposed aparthide and even their next generation of publishers have settlements accorded .this urdu medium elite shows nervousness towards change ..
the nation is praying for accountability since 1977 but the authoraative regimes of zia/carter and the mystery of international crime surrounding them fused all the light in politicians that one by one sold away thier parent movement for press and similar overlording..