Pakistan's Broken Coalition Faces A Null Transition

The eyes of the world will be on Denver this week as the Democratic party goes even further through the looking glass than anyone could have expected who wasn't paying attention all along.

Obama-Biden/2008: It's a world-class train wreck in agonizingly slow motion, and if that's not enough for you, there's another agonizing new disaster slowly unfolding in Georgia.

These of course are in addition to all the other disasters slowly unfolding in the rest of the world, most of which were already there three weeks ago.

But things are happening very quickly in Pakistan, where the governing coalition is coming apart, even as I write.

On the other hand, the eventual result of this "unpredictable crisis" appears to be well mapped out, and favorable to Americans of the elite policy-making persuasion.

It's funny how things work out in your favor once you start gaming the system.

~~~

The men at the center of the Pakistani drama are Asif Ali Zardari and Nawaz Sharif.

Zardari [on the left in the photo above] is the widower of slain former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto who now leads the PPP, the Pakistan People's Party.

Sharif [on the right in the same photo], a former Prime Minister, leads the PML-N, one branch of the fractured Pakistan Muslim League. The other branch, PML-Q, supported former president Pervez Musharraf, who resigned last week rather than face impeachment charges.

Prior to his resignation, Musharraf made a series of moves designed to strengthen his position. He dismissed the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court after some court rulings displeased him. When that didn't work, he declared a state of emergency, sacked all the judges who displeased him, and kept them under house arrest. He used the Army and the Police to oppress his political opponents. He even changed the Constitution to give himself more power, adding a 17th Amendment which gives the President the power to dissolve the Parliament.

In a true parliamentary government, the power to dissolve the parliament rests with the Prime Minister for a very good reason.

A Prime Minister holds his position at the pleasure of the parliament he leads. If he dissolves it, there will be another election, and the winners of that election will determine who becomes the next Prime Minister.

So no Prime Minister can dissolve the parliament except at the cost of his job -- which he may lose permanently, depending on what happens in the election.

But a President needn't have any such qualms if he can dissolve the parliament, forcing another election, without losing his position. In this case the dissolution of parliament becomes a political weapon of choice, rather than a last resort.

~~~

In the most recent parliamentary elections, all the moderate opposition parties did well, especially the PPP and the PML-N.

These parties formed an anti-Musharraf coalition, nominally led by the most successful opposition party, the PPP. But the opposition parties had very different platforms.

Specifically, the PML-N had pledged to reinstate the judges, whereas the PPP had made no such promise. PPP in fact resisted the reinstatement of the judiciary, on the grounds that this might provoke a backlash from Musharraf.

So the PML-N agreed to help PPP to get rid of Musharraf, and in return the PPP promised that when Musharraf was gone they would support PML-N on reinstatement of the judges.

But Zardari never intended to do that, and he still doesn't, and now that Musharraf is gone, he's been forced into a corner where he has no option other than making his position clear. And his position is an ugly one ... but it's politically strong.

Zardari is supported by the Americans (very quietly, now that his wife has been killed) and by the PPP, which for historical reasons is the strongest of the opposition parties, even though it no longer represents true opposition.

But Zardari himself has no experience in politics, unless you count raking in enormous amounts of cash as a military procurement officer while his late wife, Benazir Bhutto, was Prime Minister.

And he's a free man in Pakistan only because of a "reconciliation" agreement promulgated by Musharraf, granting him immunity from corruption charges so he could participate in Pakistani politics in the wake of the assassination of his late wife, Benazir Bhutto.

Benzair Bhutto had been a free woman in Pakistan only because of a "reconciliation" agreement promulgated by Musharraf, granting her immunity from corruption charges so she could participate in Pakistani politics in the wake of Musharraf's dismemberment.

As for Musharraf, he was was torn apart on the rack of American foreign policy, where rogue allies play dangerous double games.

~~~

I'm still working on this post but in view of the breaking news I have decided to post it early.

I will continue to update it as frequently as possible, subject to work and other constraints.

For more background see my most recent post on this subject:

Pakistan After Musharraf: Same As It Ever Was, Only A Bit More So; Kinda Like What We Have Here, But Different

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Pakistan After Musharraf: Same As It Ever Was, Only A Bit More So; Kinda Like What We Have Here, But Different

Celebrations were widespread and general in the wake of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's resignation -- but they were cut short by a bomb and a bombshell.

The joy which made the Pakistanis dance -- the thrill of finally seeing the back of a former military dictator -- was not confined, as the AP would slyly have us believe, to Islamist militants, or even Islamic fundamentalists.

As you can see in these photos (courtesy of Reuters), opposition to Musharraf ran much deeper and broader than that.

Crucially, the pro-democracy (read: anti-Musharraf) movement in Pakistan has been led by the country's lawyers (the men in black suits in these photos), strongly supported by the Pakistani journalists. (Those looking to "compare and contrast" Pakistan and the USA could find worse places to start.)

Compare And Contrast

Curiously, according to Ray McGovern, much of the big American media managed to report Musharraf's resignation without mentioning that he was under severe threat of impeachment.

McGovern provides excellent and relevant context pertaining to the threat of impeachment leveled against Richard Nixon in 1974, the collapse and rapid resignation which followed, and the surge of support enjoyed by the Democratic party in the wake of that resignation -- all this in an article which fairly begs the Democrats in Congress to get some impeachment proceedings happening here and now.

But he's shouting into a black hole, I fear. Congress has no illusions about what would happen in America if impeachment proceedings were initiated against the most despicable human being ever to defile the Oval Office, and that's exactly why Nancy Pelosi and John Conyers and all the others are sitting on their hands.

They've enabled this long torturous march to bankruptcy and tyranny. Do we now expect them to turn against the success they've labored so long and hard to achieve? We might expect it, but it's not going to happen. So why do we have these expectations?

It's like watching a schoolyard bully beat up one little kid after another, then turning to the guy holding the bully's coat and saying, "Hey, aren't you gonna do something about this?"

No one but a fool would be astonished if the guy holding the coat replied, "I'm doin' it right now, sucka!"

It leaves a bad taste in my mouth when I see that, and I see it a lot.

You can't appeal to their conscience because they have none.

You can't appeal to their better judgment because it's not a mistake; it's a deliberate policy. We've seen it over and over and over; the only difference is that they're getting a little bit more subtle about it.

And you can never hope to deal with the problem until and unless you see it clearly and spell it out in short words, so:

The Democrats aren't just holding the coat; they're planning to wear it next.

The Bomb

Meanwhile, back in Pakistan:

The celebration was short-lived for some; more than 20 people were killed and at least another 30 were injured in an alleged suicide bombing of a hospital.

The bombing was reported in the big American media in the same context-free style that was so prominently displayed in the "coverage" of Musharraf's resignation.

Jane Perlez of the New York Times reported it this way:

In an attack claimed by the Taliban within the tribal region on Tuesday, a suicide bomber ripped into the emergency room of the district hospital in Dera Ismail Khan, a town near Waziristan, killing 25 people and injuring 30, said the inspector general of the police in the North-West Frontier Province, Malik Naveed Khan. He said there was some evidence that the suicide bomber was linked to Waziristan, the base of the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud.

Pay close attention to this report, if you please. Your eyes will want to glance over it quickly, and understandably so. You've seen this report before, many times. It's the standard, boilerplate, terrorist attack report, in which only the names and dates are changed.

The common features are always common: in particular, there's always a suspect; but there's never a motive.

If you care to dig a bit, you can find evidence of a motive behind this particular attack; but you won't find such evidence in the formerly so-called paper of record (because according to the official story told to Americans, terrorists don't have motives).

So you'll have to go to a more reliable source, such as the Pakistani daily, Dawn, which first reported (courtesy of Reuters):

A bomb went off in the compound of a hospital in northwest Pakistan’s Dera Ismail Khan town Tuesday killing 20 people, a senior government official said.

“We don't know whether it was a suicide attack but the bomb went off in the compound. I have initial reports of 20 dead,” said Syed Mohsin Shah, a senior city government official.

Supporters of a Shi'ite Muslim leader were protesting outside the hospital when the bomb went off.

The leader was shot dead earlier Tuesday and his body taken to the hospital.

... and later (courtesy of AFP) added a few more details:

A suicide bomber blew himself up Tuesday at a hospital in the northwestern Dera Ismail Khan town, killing at least 23 people, police said.

The explosion happened as people gathered to protest over the death of a man in a suspected sectarian attack in the town, said provincial police chief Malik Naveed Khan.

“There are 23 confirmed dead and up to 20 wounded. We have found the legs of the suspected suicide bomber,” Khan told a private television channel.

Provincial police spokesman Riaz Ahmed said the dead included civilians from the crowd of protesters and policemen who went to the hospital to provide security.

Is the New York Times unable to find out such details? I didn't have any trouble doing it, and the NYT has a large professional staff. So it can't be any harder for them than it was for me. But they don't want these details, because these details don't fit into the story the NYT is telling. And changing the story would be a lot more difficult than omitting a few details.

But if there's a story they want to tell, no stretch is too big.

So Jane Perlez can tell us that a policeman said

... there was some evidence that the suicide bomber was linked to Waziristan, the base of the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud ...

In this case, as usual, the connection to the preferred suspect is tenuous at best. It's not as if Waziristan were a hotel, and Baitullah Mehsud owned it. Waziristan is a huge area; how "some evidence" could link a crime to such a large region, and therefore to a single man, is puzzling at best.

But not for long. The seemingly gratuitous mention of Baitullah Mehsud is both telling and opportune, since it gives me the chance to remind you that Baitullah Mehsud is almost certainly a CIA asset.

If I also remind you that analysts predict increased American pressure against Pakistan now that their main ally in the region is gone, you might put two and two together and wonder whether the pressure has already been stepped up. KA-BOOM! HaHaHA!

The Bombshell

The post-resignation joy was short-lived in another, very different way: the governing coalition has suddenly run aground on the rocky coast of irreconcilable differences.

The show-stopping rift between the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), led by Asif Ali Zardari, and the PML-N, Nawaz Sharif's faction of the Pakistan Muslim League, concerns the status of the Supreme Court in the wake of Musharraf's November declaration of emergency.

The reason for Musharraf's declaration -- and the reason for all the other unconstitutional and anti-democratic moves which followed it -- was obvious: the country had been gripped by a popular pro-democracy movement, and the Supreme Court, led by the indomitable Chief Justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, was about to rule Musharraf's October "re-election" illegal.

So Musharraf declared a national emergency, clamped down on the media, arrested hundreds of political opposition leaders, and sacked all the federal justices -- including those on the Supreme Court -- who didn't support him in this transparently illicit attempt to retain power.

Musharraf eventually lifted the state of emergency but he didn't reinstate the court. The chief justice remained under house arrest. And elections were scheduled under these conditions.

So the PML-N campaigned -- and did quite well -- on a pledge to reinstate the judges who were sacked by Musharraf.

But the PPP -- which ran on deception and public sympathy and promised nothing, but gained even more seats in the parliament -- won't support them on this point.

It's a no-brainer -- or at least it would be if the PPP wanted to establish anything resembling legitimate democracy. But that's not what the PPP is about -- not anymore!

Down Memory Lane, Quickly

Readers with functional long-term memories may recall that former PPP leader Benazir Bhutto returned to Pakistan last fall after spending nearly a decade in ritzy foreign hotels as a fugitive from justice (which the Western media complicitly called "self-imposed exile").

Her return was made possible by an American-brokered "reconciliation" deal which removed any possibility that she might be held accountable for two terms of epic corruption as Prime Minister. In return for this immunity, she promised to support Musharraf's continued illegal tenure as president.

Shortly after Benzair Bhutto returned to Pakistan, she was assassinated, as most of us remember. But most of us don't know that high-level American officials didn't expect her to live long there, as John F. Burns reported in the New York Times:

[B]efore the Western world passes judgment, many Pakistanis would say, it might well look at its own manipulations, including the role the United States played in placing Ms. Bhutto on the path that led to that last rally in Rawalpindi.

For months, Washington had brokered contacts between General Musharraf and Ms. Bhutto that aimed at having her return, win an election, and lend a democratic facade to a government that would remain, in important ways, under military control. The plan matched American imperatives in the struggle against Al Qaeda, and American officials who pushed for it saw little problem in encouraging General Musharraf to grant an amnesty for Ms. Bhutto against corruption charges stemming from her time as prime minister.

But the Americans knew that she went home at enormous risk. When she spoke in Aspen at a lunch of prominent American political, business and media leaders only weeks before her death, talk at one table turned to the chances of an assassination. “I’d say she’s a dead woman walking,” this reporter, long an acquaintance of Ms. Bhutto, said after talking to her about the hazards of going home. “Yes,” a powerful Washington insider with close links to the administration replied. “We think so, too.”

But that was the plan ... and this was the result: Shortly after her death there was a long and fractious meeting of the PPP leadership. At that meeting, Bhutto's widower, Asif Ali Zardari, produced what's been called a "surprise will" -- a document supposedly written by [or on behalf of] Benazir Bhutto, recommending turning leadership of the party over to a teenager -- Bhutto's and Zardari's son, Bilawal Zardari.

Nobody else had ever seen this "will", and its directions were mystifying in more than one respect. Most importantly, PPP leadership had always been in the Bhutto family.

Indeed, much of the history of Pakistan since partition can be seen as a struggle between democracy and militarism, waged between the Bhutto family and their followers on one side, and the Pakistani Army and its supporters (later joined by the notorious Inter-Service Intelligence Agency, or ISI) on the other.

But through the joint miracles of political assassination and gluttonous corruption, the PPP had been transformed from a pro-democratic, anti-militaristic political force (led by Benazir's predecessors) to a pro-militaristic, anti-democratic parasite (led by Benazir herself).

Thanks to propaganda, poor communications, political tribalism and actual tribalism, the PPP has retained popular support despite the fact that it's been under corrupt "new management" for most of the past 20 years. How slowly we learn!

At 19 years of age, Bilawal Zardari was hardly fit to lead any political party, let alone the PPP. But one after another, the obstacles were lifted: POOF! He got a new name, and now he's Bilawal Bhutto Zardari. Then POOF! His father offered to "lead" the party while Bilawal continued his education. And now Asif Ali Zardari is the American sock-puppet in Islamabad. But nobody knows it, unless they read between the lines.

The lines have been clear for a long time, though. Nawaz Sharif and the PML-N have been pushing for reinstatement of the judiciary, especially Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, while the usurper Zardari and the PPP have been pretending that they might move in that direction at some future time under some future conditions, when there's no danger of a backlash from Musharraf ... but not now ... never now ... always later, always maybe, but never now.

No Excuses Remain For The Criminal Zardari

With Musharraf gone, there's no chance of a backlash, and Zardari has no plausible reason to resist a return of the pre-emergency judiciary ... but he still won't do it.

And Nawaz Sharif has had enough.

Therefore, Jane Perlez reports:

Nawaz Sharif, the leader of [...] the Pakistan Muslim League-N, walked out of a meeting [in Islamabad] and headed back to his home in Lahore, a four-hour drive away.

Party members said Mr. Sharif had delivered an ultimatum to the senior coalition party, the Pakistan Peoples Party, led by Asif Ali Zardari, to consent to the return of the chief justice, Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, within 72 hours, or [...] Mr. Sharif’s party would leave the government. Mr. Chaudhry was among some 60 judges suspended by Mr. Musharraf last year.

Even by the standards of Pakistan’s hard-boiled and volatile political scene, the public discord between the political leaders was surprising, politicians said, a sign that opposition to Mr. Musharraf may have been the strongest thread tying them together.

Notice the spin technique. Far from being the glue that held PPP and PML-N together, Musharraf had been providing an excuse for Zardari. But now the excuse is exposed as hollow, and Sharif isn't waiting around to see any more of that movie.

Why won't Zardari support the restoration of an independent judiciary?

Jane Perlez reports that Musharraf made a second "reconciliation" agreement to let Zardari into the country after his wife was slain:

The basis of Mr. Zardari’s opposition to Mr. Chaudhry rests with a fear that he might undo an amnesty agreement that absolved Mr. Zardari of corruption charges, lawyers said. The amnesty, which applies to bureaucrats and politicians who faced corruption charges, was part of a package arranged by Mr. Musharraf when Mr. Zardari returned to Pakistan after his wife, the former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, was assassinated late last year.

So Zardari is thoroughly compromised -- just like the Democrats!

Same As It Ever Was

Which leaves us where? More or less where we were last week -- or last month -- or last year -- but a bit poorer and a bit dirtier, lacking sleep and food and vision, as always, but a bit more so now than ever. In other words, it could be worse and it probably will be, soon. But not in the way you think.

Musharraf is gone but the vaunted threat of Pakistani nuclear weapons getting into the hands of Pakistani terrorists is still as slim as it ever was ... for at least two reasons.

One of those reasons is public knowledge: Musharraf wasn't in control of the weapons in the first place. According to the AP (via Dawn), Pakistan's nuclear weapons are guarded by a committee, and Musharraf wasn't on the committee.

“Pakistan's nuclear assets are not one man's property,” said Maria Sultan, a defense analyst and director at the London-based South Asian Strategic Stability Institute.

“Any (political) transition in Pakistan will have no effect on Pakistan's nuclear assets because it has a very strong custodial control.”

The committee, known as the National Command and Control Authority [NCCA], is served by a military-dominated organization with thousands of security forces and intelligence agents whose personnel are closely screened.

The nuclear facilities are tightly guarded.
...

“Pakistan's nuclear arsenal is in the hands of the army and the army is not changing hands, so whatever the situation was before is largely what it will continue to be,” said Teresita Schaffer, director of the South Asia Program at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Left out of this report but sometimes mentioned elsewhere is the fact that the NCCA is very pro-western (which means, pro-USA). We don't worry too much about them, in other words, because they're "our guys".

The second reason is not publicly acknowledged, but it's becoming increasingly clear: the terrorists are "our guys", too.

Overdue Conclusion

It's time to draw another long post to an overdue conclusion. So let's review some of the things I would have mentioned, had I thought of them earlier.

The struggle in Pakistan has typically been falsely portrayed as a battle of moderates against extremists. In this scenario, the moderates are Musharraf and Bush and their friends in the so-called "Global War On Terror". And the extremists are al Qaeda, the Taliban, and Islamic fundamentalism in general, plus anyone who wanted to get rid of Musharraf.

In fact the struggle is between moderates and extremists, but the extremists are Musharraf and Bush and their allegedly "former" friends in al Qaeda and the Taliban, plus a very tiny (and shrinking) minority which supports radical Islamic extremism.

Meanwhile, the moderates include those who support the PML-N, plus those who support the PPP for historical reasons, plus many other Pakistanis who support other moderate parties, plus a great many other Pakistanis who don't support any political party. And that's just Pakistan. There are millions of moderates and a handful of extremists in every country, of course.

The bottom line: the PPP are still in control in Pakistan -- though perhaps not by much. The PPP are pro-American, which means (among other things) that they don't support the rule of law, but they do support the military. This was Musharraf's position, this was Benazir Bhutto's position, and it comes as no surprise that it's also Asif Ali Zardari's position.

As for American policy towards Pakistan, it's quite simple, and it's very similar to American policy towards Iraq.

All the Bush administration wants to see in Pakistan is a legitimate, democratically elected government that's fully supportive of American interests.

It's impossible, of course. There's no way any government fully supportive of "American interests" could be legitimately elected in Pakistan, or anywhere else in Asia, or anywhere else in Europe ... or anywhere at all, actually.

So let's consider the alternatives, from a policy-maker's point of view. The options are stark! And the choice is a no-brainer.

The American policy elite has always preferred governments "supportive of American interests" rather than "legitimate, democratically elected" governments ... but at the same time we're talking about two deliberate lies here.

First, the considerations collectively referred to as "American interests" are, for the most part, arrangements established and maintained by stealth or coercion or overt mass murder; arrangements which grant multi-national corporations virtually unimpeded "rights" to exploit the natural and human resources of the "host" countries ... as many "host" countries as possible. It has nothing whatsoever to do with "American interests", but if they call it what it really is, will we go to war on their behalf?

Second, the American policy elite has no interest in fostering "legitimate, democratically elected" governments anywhere in the world; they just say that because they know we like to hear it -- and some of us like to hear it so much that we go marching off to war whenever they say it. But it's only a slogan.

In fact, there's nothing the American policy elite fears more than "legitimate, democratically elected" governments.

That's why all their "attempts" to "export democracy" to other parts of the world have "failed".

That's why democratically elected governments all over the world find themselves looking down the barrel of an American gun as soon as they take office.

And that's why we don't have a democracy here, either.

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Panic And Jubilation In The Wake Of Musharraf's Resignation

Now that Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf has resigned, we can expect a tidal wave of propaganda -- some of it deliberately false, some well-meaning but still false -- about how nervous we should be for our future.

After all, Pakistan has terrorists and nuclear weapons. And only Pervez Musharraf could keep them apart. Or so the story goes.

We've been hearing variations on this story for years; but it's still only a story. We get it from the right and from the left:

Let's attack Pakistan; We were attacked on 9/11 by terrorists from Pakistan; Pakistan is going ballistic and we don't even have anyone left in our government who knows anything about Pakistan, let alone somebody in a position to do something...

I don't always agree with Larisa Alexandrovna but I always pay attention. Just yesterday she wrote:

[A] civil war is bad, but a civil war in the same country housing both Al Qaeda and nukes, is really bad....

[A] civil war or any serious power structure threat in another country - especially Pakistan - is a threat of epic proportions.

Forget the Russian-Georgian conflict for a moment. Forget Iraq for a moment. Forget everything for one moment and understand, that if Pakistan explodes into a power struggle, that struggle/conflict will be the match that lights a world war [...] that we are not equipped to deal with anymore....

Were we ever equipped to deal with something like that? Not within my memory. But the "if" in Larisa's analysis is a big one, in my opinion.

So while our entire nation is drunk on election scandal after scandal, and while our entire nation is being bled dry of finances and human treasure, no one - NO ONE - is watching this crisis as it unfolds. They are all too busy playing at politics to care [...]

Not true. I've been up all night watching it unfold. I've been watching it unfold for the best part of the past two years. I've written dozens of posts about it. And I've just about given up on American politics ...

But Larisa's not talking about me. At least I hope she's not talking about me. (I don't mind being called a nobody, but does it have to be in capital letters?)

No, I think Larisa is talking about the federal government. And I think this because she continues:

They are all too busy playing at politics to care and they have already long ago removed any qualified intelligence expert on Pakistan from their post. We know very well that this administration replaced qualified people with political sock-puppets who are now in positions to fuck things up even more, but certainly not to understand the brewing world crisis.

I [loathe] Musharraf and want him removed from office. But right now, any change, big or small in the region is going to be a catastrophe. A change of ISI-backed Musharraf is going to be an epic catastrophe.

I hate to pass up a chance to be an alarmist, but I don't buy the story.

My understanding of Musharraf and his role in the events of the world runs much closer to the analysis published a few weeks ago by Samad Khurram, called: "Musharraf more dangerous than Osama in the War on Terror". It starts with a shocking revelation:

The former head of the Pakistani Inter-Service Intelligence’s (ISI) political cell recently confessed that he was responsible for political manipulation in Pakistan’s 2002 elections that led to Islamists coming to power in two provinces and gaining 59 seats in the National Assembly. This fraud was the work of the America’s supposedly unfaltering ally in the War on Terror, General (ret.) Pervez Musharraf and his desire to paint an image of Pakistan as an extremely dangerous, unstable country ready to fall into the hands of extremists the moment he leaves.

Musharraf pretends that he is the only hope for the US in Pakistan. Closer analysis, however, suggests that his claims are far from true. In the 2008 elections—which were much freer and fairer than those of 2002—only 6 seats went to the Islamists. In addition, a secular party won the majority of seats from the North-West Frontier Province where the War on Terror is actually taking place. These results prove that the people of Pakistan are against religious fundamentalism, something the US has largely ignored. In 1999, Pakistan was a stable country with a moderate political party in power. There were no suicide bombings, no abductions by extremists, and people were free to move about without security personnel. By 2007, Pakistan was among the world’s most dangerous places. This transformation is the result of Musharraf’s long, incompetent rule.

Of primary importance, in Musharraf's long, incompetent rule, and another detail missing from almost all Western news reports: His alliance with George Bush in the clearly bogus war against clearly bogus terror has been an utter disaster -- seen as treason by many Pakistanis and rightly so, in my opinion.

Samad Khurram won't go into the dark places where I tend to dig: he's not about to remind his readers how phony 9/11 looked at the time, or how much phonier it appears in hindsight.

He's headed in the right direction:

There are many other pieces of evidence to support that Musharraf is not committed to fighting terrorism now, or if he ever was. Musharraf’s own speeches and words, such as, “[I am] not going around trying to locate Osama bin Laden and Zawahri, frankly” are the biggest confirmation of his indifference. In addition, Washington has been shocked by news reports that the majority of the funds given to Pakistan are not used for the War on Terror. This news is corroborated by widely available pictures of troops in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas moving around in traditional ‘chappals’ (open foot shoes) and poor equipment. If even a small portion of the U.S. aid were spent on weapons upgrades, bullet proof jackets, reconnaissance devices and training, the results would have been much better. The Pakistan Army would have performed better: more terrorists caught, fewer casualties and more leads to Osama bin Laden.

Over the past eight years, Pakistan has received $11 billion from the U.S. in direct aid for fighting terrorism, billions from other countries for curbing extremism and development projects, and access to secret intelligence. In response to this, Musharraf has been repeatedly diverting funds in efforts to retain his support within the army, upgrade weapons to be used against India, or pay his supporters and crackdown on political opponents. His long, highly extravagant foreign tours to publicize his book or beg for more aid are hardly helpful in fighting terrorism. [...]

Last November, on the pretext of fighting terrorism a “state of emergency” was declared in Pakistan, and resulted in a country-wide crackdown on the judiciary, media, human rights activists, and anyone who could possibly oppose Musharraf. This was followed by the release of 25 high profile terrorists including former Taliban Defence Minister Mullah Obaidullah, who has close ties to Osama bin Laden and is the highest-ranking Taliban official ever captured.

But, even having laid out all this detail, Samad Khurram doesn't realize (or won't say) just as Larisa Alexandrovna doesn't realize (or won't say) that the Global War on Terror is completely bogus: the terror is bogus and the war is bogus too.

And Musharraf's role in the bogus war on bogus terror is to be a bogus ally. In other words, he's a liability on purpose, because this is exactly what the United States needs.

Without such powerful liabilities, the bogus war on bogus terror would be over by now, and the multi-billion dollar per year "homeland security" trough would be closed as well.

Instead, Samad Khurram spins the same line we usually see:

Musharraf is a major liability in the War on Terror, yet the Bush Administration fails to see this and continues to provide him unfaltering support.

In any case, as I was saying, the bulk of the panic is confined to people far away from Pakistan.

People on the ground there don't seem too concerned.

Bloomberg says Pakistani investors like the news:

Pakistan's Karachi Stock Exchange 100 Index jumped 4.5 percent after President Pervez Musharraf resigned...

The BBC reported people dancing in the streets of Rawalpindi, and lawyers giving thanks in the streets of Islamabad. [Dawn has published ample confirmation.]

And Bilawal Bhutto Zardari says Musharraf's resignation avenges the assassination of his mother!!

But let's not get too carried away.

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Musharraf Resigns!

BREAKING News from Pakistan: Pervez Musharraf has resigned the presidency!

I watched him speak live via BBC-TV; unfortunately I don't have any direct quotes or a link -- not yet, anyway.

[UPDATE: a few news articles are coming online now. Here's a short item from Dawn, and a longer report from Jane Perlez via the International Herald Tribune. And as more articles come along, I may link to a few of them from the text below. But back to our story!]

Musharraf began by claiming that all the allegations against him were false, and he said he could prove as much if he chose to defend himself against the impeachment charges the opposition coalition was preparing to deliver.

But that would have caused too much harm to the country, Musharraf said; it would have damaged both the presidency and the parliament.

Musharraf repeated several times that everything he had done had been for "Pakistan first", and he claimed that he had always conducted himself with honesty and integrity.

He admitted that he might have made some mistakes, but he said he hoped the Pakistani people would put those mistakes behind them. Musharraf said his resignation would reach the speaker of the parliament today.

BBC's prepared coverage was predictably awful. Shortly after Musharraf finished speaking, they cut to an in-studio analyst who spun a few very sad lies about how Musharraf's fate would have been a close call. Hah! Musharraf had almost no support in the parliament, and the parliamentarians are the ones who would have voted. And then BBC showed a canned tribute to Bush's number one ally in the global war to foment terror. They didn't call it that, of course. They still pretend that Bush and Musharraf have been fighting against terrorism, rather than using terror as a political weapon.

But before that happened, and thanks to the spontaniety of live television, they gave their viewers a wee glimpse of forbidden truth.

The BBC's man on the scene in Islamabad, speaking immediately after Musharraf's speech (with no script and no filter) reported that Pakistani TV had placed so much importance on Musharraf's address that they cut away from it -- while he was speaking -- to show people dancing in the streets of Rawalpindi, and lawyers praying -- giving thanks -- in the streets of Islamabad.

This goes against the Western media spin, of course, which holds that Musharraf is a moderate and his opponents are extremists. As usual with the spinning Western media, the reverse is true.

It's the lawyers, not the militants, who have done the most to defeat Musharraf -- and they have done it by supporting a restless pro-democracy movement! Some of them have been beaten bloody for their efforts; some have been arrested. But now they have a chance at actual democratic parliamentary government. Imagine that!

Where are our lawyers???

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Spokesman Says Embattled Musharraf Will Soldier On; AP Twirls

[Updated below]

Pakistan's President, former General Pervez Musharraf, will address the nation very soon in the face of impeachment proceedings. Musharraf has reportedly been asked to step down, but through a spokesman he has declared his intention to soldier on.

Just a few minutes ago, China's news agency Xinhua reported:

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf will not resign while addressing the nation on Monday afternoon, said presidential spokesman Rashid Qureshi.

The reports on Musharraf's resignation "are nonsense," Qureshi told Xinhua via telephone.

"President Musharraf will address the nation, only two hours from now," Qureshi said. But Qureshi did not say what Musharraf would say at the address.

The Press Trust of India has a few more details:

Musharraf, who held consultations with his legal and political advisors this morning, will address the nation at 1 pm, presidential spokesman Maj Gen (retired) Rashid Qureshi said. Other sources said Musharraf is expected to make "some important announcements" during his speech.

Important announcements, indeed.

As AFP notes:

Musharraf, a key ally in the US-led "war on terror", has other options available apart from resignation, including his powers as president to dissolve parliament and even to declare a state of emergency.

AFP notes that such moves would require the support of the Army; it is not certain whether the Army would continue to support Musharraf if he were to declare martial law, dissolve the parliament and incarcerate all his political opposition, as I've suggested that he might.

Depending on where you stand, the situation is poised to get ugly in any number of ways.

As AFP mentions:

Western allies want Pakistan to resolve the crisis over Musharraf so it can deal with the fight against Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, where nearly 500 people have died in the past week.

It's not clear what moves might be taken to "resolve the crisis". The "options" range from a declaration of peace to full frontal bombardment. But guess who supports which option? And guess who's calling the shots?

The Associated Press has a report online at the moment which is illustrated by the three lower photos you see here; these photos all appear with the same caption, which reads:

Supporters of Pakistan's religious party, Jamat-i-Islami, or Party of Islam, shout slogans against Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf as they take part in a demonstration in Karachi, Pakistan, on Sunday, Aug. 17, 2008. President Pervez Musharraf will not resign, his spokesman said Sunday, even after Pakistan's coalition agreed a host of charges with which to impeach the former general. (AP Photo/Fareed Khan)

The twirl is subliminal; as if the only opposition to Musharraf's continued tenure in office were coming from Islamists.

How soon we ('re supposed to) forget: In the most recent elections, Pakistani voters overwhelmingly supported the moderate secular parties, especially PPP (the Pakistan Peoples Party, led by Asif Ali Zardari, husband of the assassinated former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto) and the PML-N (Pakistani Muslim League - Nawaz), former prime minister Nawaz Sharif's faction of the former PML.

The other PML faction, PML-Q, still supports Musharraf, and was obliterated at the polls; similarly the radical Islamist party found little or no support in most areas.

But the AP doesn't want you to know that, and the Bush administration doesn't want you to know that, either. I've been reading a few bloggers who suddenly want to talk about Pakistan, and they're not talking in these terms either -- they probably don't know it, themselves.

Fear sells so much better ...

... speaking of which, read Chris Floyd's newest: "Fear, Procurement, Profit: Permanent War and the American Way". Here's a taste:

"The threat always drives procurement. It doesn't matter what party is in office."

UPDATE: He resigned!

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Musharraf On The Ropes: Pakistan Prepares For Impeachment

President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan -- the former Army Chief of Staff who took power in a coup in 1999 -- is suddenly facing impeachment!

According to Pakistan's Daily Times:

The four-party ruling coalition said on Thursday it would move to impeach President Pervez Musharraf for plunging the country into political and economic crises and warned him against any attempt to dismiss the government.

The coalition also announced it would reinstate the judges sacked for not taking oath under a Provisional Constitution Order after Musharraf promulgated a state of emergency on November 3, 2007.

“The coalition leaders believe that it has become imperative to move for impeachment,” Zardari, flanked by major coalition partner Nawaz Sharif and representatives of the ANP, the JUI-F and parliamentarians from FATA, told a news conference while reading a communiqué after three days of negotiations.

The Daily Times lists the charges against Musharraf:

• The president has worked to undermine the transition to democracy through collusion with the ‘King’s party’
• His policies have weakened the federation
• His economic policies during the last eight years have brought Pakistan to the brink of economic impasse
• His policies have thrown the country into the worst power shortage in its history
• He did not get a vote of confidence from the new assemblies despite a commitment made with the [Supreme Court]
• He failed to address new parliament
• He did not resign after his allies were defeated in the February 18 elections
  

It would not be difficult to add to this list -- in fact I have been doing so (sporadically) for the past couple of years. For a few examples (among many), see any or all of the following:

Blatant contempt for the electoral process:
Pakistan Is The Central Front In The Global War On The Rule Of Law
Pakistani Presidential Election Marching Straight Through The Looking Glass

Using the power of the state to oppress journalism and political opposition:
Thousands Of Pakistanis Protest Media Restrictions
A Fine Orwellian Balance In Pakistan: Musharraf Rescinds New Media Regulations, But New Media-Control Policy Remains In Force!
Working For The (Pakistani) Clampdown: More Than 300 Activists Arrested, New Media Rules In Effect
Musharraf Prepares To Retain Power In Pakistan's Impregnable Fortress Of Democracy
National Hero Imran Khan Arrested In Pakistani Clampdown, To Be Charged With Terrorism

Attempting to dismantle the Rule of Law:
Emergency In Pakistan: Destroying Democracy In Order To Save It
Building 'An Impregnable Fortress Of Democracy', American-Style
Pakistan: Supreme Court Reaffirms Rule Of Law In The Face Of Daily Terror; USA: Um, Well...
Crowds Of Lawyers Danced And Threw Flower Petals

Supporting domestic and international terrorism:
Is Pakistan's "Public Enemy Number One" A CIA Asset? Of Course He Is! Otherwise He'd Have Been Dead A Long Time Ago
Why Pervez Musharraf Can't Tolerate Questions About Rashid Rauf
Tony Blair Makes a Donation -- to a Government including an International Terrorist

There's a lot more, but who are we kidding? You won't click any of these links, will you?

People Power In Pakistan; Sheep Asleep In _____

So I'll cut to the chase:

Musharraf's next logical moves would be declaration of martial law, dissolution of the national parliament and the provincial assemblies, and incarceration of all opposition political leaders. I would not be surprised if he did all these things -- or at least tried to.

Pakistan's assault on the rule of law and the rights of its citizens has been a step or two ahead of the Bush administration, and I would also not be surprised to see Bush do any or all of these things -- or at least try to -- even absent the threat of impeachment.

Desperate despicable people tend to do desperate despicable things, especially when their illegitimate hold on power is threatened.

Is Pakistan's "Public Enemy Number One" A CIA Asset? Of Course He Is! Otherwise He'd Have Been Dead A Long Time Ago

Pakistan's most feared terrorist communicates with encryption so strong the Pakistani intelligence services cannot crack it. He gets information on Pakistani troop movements from an unidentified foreign government. He's said to be responsible for the vast majority of terrorist attacks in Pakistan (including the assassination of Benazir Bhutto), but the Americans -- who don't mind bombing "Islamic militants" in Pakistan every now and then -- have refused to attack him despite having solid information as to his whereabouts. And on, and on, and on...

All this and more is highlighted in a excellent piece from "State of Pakistan", which I have reproduced in full below, with just a bit of editing and a few comments.

Baithullah Mehsud could be a CIA ‘intelligence asset’ in this double game

A report published by the News on August 5, 2008 includes the following (apparently based on information given by the ISI officials):

”The top US military commander and the CIA official were also asked why the CIA-run predator[s] and the US military did not swing into action when they were provided the exact location of Baitullah Mehsud [photo], Pakistan’s enemy number one and the mastermind of almost every suicide operation against the Pakistan Army and the ISI since June 2006. One such precise piece of information was made available to the CIA on May 24 when Baitullah Mehsud drove to a remote South Waziristan mountain post in his Toyota Land Cruiser to address the press and returned back to his safe abode. The United States military has the capacity to direct a missile to a precise location at very short notice as it has done close to 20 times in the last few years to hit al-Qaeda targets inside Pakistan. Pakistani official[s] have long been intrigued by the presence of highly encrypted communications gear with Baitullah Mehsud. This communication gear enables him to collect real-time information on Pakistani troop movement from an unidentified foreign source without being intercepted by Pakistani intelligence.”

Both the CIA and the ISI have been playing a double game. Fighting and nurturing terrorists and warlords at the same time! Why?

If this is a serious question then perhaps I can answer it.

Now please carefully read the following published and circulated by the State of Pakistan on January 31, 2008.

Nicholas Schmidle, who was expelled from Pakistan in January 2008 for writing a detailed report in the NY Times on the tribal areas and the NWFP, later wrote in the Washington Post,

“foreign journalists are barred from almost half the country; in most cases, their visas are restricted to three cities — Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi. In Baluchistan province, which covers 44 percent of Pakistan and where ethnic nationalists are fighting a low-level insurgency, the government requires prior notification and approval if you want to travel anywhere outside the capital of Quetta. Such permission is rarely given. And the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), where the pro-Taliban militants are strong, are completely off-limits. Musharraf’s government says that journalists are kept out for their own security. But meanwhile, two conflicts go unreported in one of the world’s most vital — and misunderstood — countries.”

What does the government want to hide?

I could probably answer that, too.

Most governments make every effort to expose terrorists. Authorities pursue them relentlessly including placing advertisements about purported crimes, requesting people to come forward and give information. When arrested they prosecute the alleged terrorists vigorously and publicize convictions. But no such pattern in Pakistan. The website of Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency lists only two, yes only TWO terrorists from the federally administered tribal areas (FATA) as wanted. The star of ‘Jaish-e-Muhammed’ Masood Azhar was allowed to escape. The other star, Omar Saeed Sheikh, is still alive (ostensibly because his case is under appeal) although he was sentenced to death in July 2002. The alleged ‘master mind’ of the plan to blow up trans-atlantic flights, Rashid Rauf, has mysteriously escaped and the government does not even want to hear about it. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the master mind of 9/11, has been kept in Guantanamo since 2004 and has not been tried. Abdullah Mehsud (Baitullah’s relative) was released by the U.S. from Guantanamo and allowed to return? Why? So that they can issue threats to blow up the White House (interview to Al-Jazeera on Jan. 29, 2008) and provide justification for the so-called ‘War on Terror’ which has not seen a single terrorist attack on the U.S. soil since 9/11?

YES! Exactly!

Let’s now talk about Baitullah Mehsud who became a big militant leader soon after Abdullah’s release by the U.S. government from Guantanamo Bay in March 2004. Until the end of 2004, Baitullah Mehsud (former FATA secretary Brig. Mahmood Shah says he is in 40s) lived in the shadow of his daring and charismatic fellow tribesman, Abdullah Mehsud, who, with his long black hair, was considered a terrorist rock star. Abdullah fought with the Taliban in Afghanistan against the Northern Alliance and in 1996 lost a leg when he stepped on a land mine. He was taken captive by warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum who turned him over to American forces. Abdullah Mehsud was sent to Camp Delta at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba and held for two years, insisting the whole time that he was just an innocent tribesman. He was released in March 2004 for reasons which remain unclear and returned to Waziristan. Soon after his return, he orchestrated the kidnapping of two Chinese engineers working on a dam in his region, proclaiming that Beijing was guilty of killing Muslims. He also ordered an attack on Pakistan’s Interior Minister in which 31 people perished. The government came under tremendous pressure from the Chinese to hunt Abdullah after the killings of their engineers.

The Afghan Taliban, who were in the process of organizing themselves to fight in Afghanistan and were desperately trying to avoid a head-on confrontation with Pakistani forces in the tribal regions, were not pleased with the killing of the Chinese engineers. Abdullah was made a deputy of Baitullah Mehsud and a shura or tribal council was set up which further undermined his authority. It was said at the time that the Taliban preferred a cool-headed Baitullah over the temperamental Abdullah. Dejected, Abdullah left for Afghanistan to fight in Musa Qilla in the southern Afghan province of Helmand and was killed by security agencies in the Zhob area of the south-western province of Baluchistan while returning home to Pakistan.

Mehsud’s first battlefield experience was in Afghanistan in the late 1980s against Soviet invaders. His mentor at the time was Jalaluddin Haqqani, a powerful commander in eastern Afghanistan backed by the United States against the Soviets. Now Haqqani is wanted as a terrorist by the U.S. and NATO but the CIA has also been trying to get his support according to the Wall Street Journal. The ISI once considered him a ‘moderate’ Taliban.

For almost three years now, Baitullah Mehsud has been the leading face of militant resistance whose influence, security officials acknowledge, transcends the borders of South Waziristan, according to the sources in the governments of Pakistan and the United States. But there is little independent reporting on the tribal areas. Most of the so-called experts writing for the think tanks have never visited these areas. Mostly they cite each other in their papers or quote US or Pakistani officials.

[The] government [...] acknowledged Baitullah Mehsud as the new chief of militants in the Mehsud part of South Waziristan [...] in February, 2005, when it entered into an agreement with him in Sara Rogha following violent clashes and ambushes. He was reportedly paid [20 million rupees] as part of this deal though it remains unclear who picked [up] the tab, Pakistani or the U.S. government? But read the following report of Jan. 30, 2005 published by the Daily Times, Karachi:

“Baitullah Mehsud gets ready to surrender, Sets aside demand for amnesty to Abdullah Mehsud

By Iqbal Khattak

PESHAWAR: A key local Taliban militant expressed his willingness to surrender to the government after holding talks with tribal elders and clerics at an undisclosed location in South Waziristan Agency, said one of the negotiators on Saturday.

Baitullah Mehsud, a key tribal Taliban commander in the troubled South Waziristan tribal region bordering Afghanistan, expressed readiness to surrender, Brig (r) Qayyum Sher, a member of the peace committee that met the militant, told Daily Times from Tank.

“He (Baitullah) is ready to settle the matter with the government,” said the tribal negotiator. “We met him today and he said he is ready to resolve the matter.” The tribal negotiator said Baitullah did not press his old demand that his comrade Abdullah Mehsud should also be pardoned if he surrenders. “He (Baitullah) will surrender alone,” said Brig Qayyum.

However, the peace committee will discuss modalities for Baitullah’s surrender with the government. “The modalities will now be sorted out with the government. How, when and where he will surrender will be discussed with the military and the political administration,” said Brig Qayyum.

A military source told Daily Times that Baitullah’s surrender would prove a serious setback to Abdullah Mehsud. “That is what we want. But we have to wait for the moment when he (Baitullah) surrenders,” the source said on condition of anonymity. Lt Gen Safdar Hussain exempted Abdullah Mehsud from amnesty after his alleged involvement in two Chinese engineers’ kidnapping in October last year.

Brig Qayyum said Baitullah, who unlike Abdullah Mehsud and Nek Muhammad was not in the media limelight, set no conditions for his surrender and the Peshawar corps commander had already declared amnesty for him if he laid down arms.

Gen Safdar set a January 26 deadline for the two militants to surrender or “face military onslaught” and hoped sanity would prevail upon Baituallah to live peacefully. However, Gen Safdar had refused to pardon Abdullah Mehsud.

He pledged to cease attacks on security forces and government installations in return for a commitment by the government to withdraw forces from the Mehsud territory and not to take any punitive action against him and his associates. This followed a brief lull in fighting, prompting the then Pakistani army corps commander, Peshawar, Lt-Gen Safdar, to declare Baitullah Mehsud a “soldier of peace” after a meeting with him at Jandola in August, 2005.

The meeting followed accusations by Baitullah Mehsud that the government was not honouring its commitments, was refusing to withdraw its forces and was continuing to attack his mujahideen. Violence erupted again in the restive tribal region and a time came when the government’s writ was restricted to the compounds of the political administration.”

Why was not Baitullah captured when he was ready to surrender? Instead, he was given money and allowed to grow his militia from a few hundred to nearly 20,000? Why? Who made the decision?

Who else?

Baitullah Mehsud addressed his tribe after the Sararogha pact and clearly swore allegiance to Mullah Umar of the Taliban. His power over the two agencies is owed to his wealth and his ability to wage war. He goes around in a bullet-proof car and is followed around by 30 armed guards. Like Nek Muhammad, he too has two wives and has three castle-like houses in North and South Waziristan. Although he is not a tribal leader by lineage or by election, he is more respected as a warlord by the people of the two agencies than any other person. Although he denies that he received [20 million rupees] from the secret funds of the government without signing a receipt, corps commander Peshawar General Safdar Hussain is on record as saying that the money was indeed set aside for him.

Government officials now claim that Baitullah has been running a number of training camps for militants and suicide bombers. And in January 2007, helicopter gunships targeted what the government claimed was a militant compound, killing 20 people. Baitullah responded angrily and threatened revenge which he said “would be such that it would pain their heart”. It was followed by a string of suicide attacks in Peshawar, Dera Ismail Khan and Islamabad. By this time, government officials had begun pointing the accusing finger at Baitullah Mehsud. A UN report released in September 2007 blamed Baitullah for almost eighty percent of suicide bombings in Afghanistan. Now since when has the UN become so well informed as to be able to account for the exact percentage of the perpetrators of suicide bombings as to their source? Who is feeding this information (or disinformation).

In an address to the nation on January 2, 2008, Mr. Pervez Musharraf said that he believed Maulana Fazlullah and Baitullah Mehsud were prime suspects in the assassination of Bhutto.In its January 18, 2008 edition, The Washington Post reported that the CIA has concluded that Mehsud was behind the Bhutto assassination. “Offering the most definitive public assessment by a U.S. intelligence official, [Michael V.] Hayden said Bhutto was killed by fighters allied with Mehsud, a tribal leader in northwestern Pakistan, with support from al-Qaeda’s terrorist network.”

The CIA is really well informed! It could not trace Mullah Omar (who reportedly lived in Quetta) or Osama (who escaped helped by the cease fire ordered by Dick Cheney at Musharraf’s request in 2001) in more than six years but it can “conclude’ within three weeks of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto that Mehsud was behind it. Meanwhile Talibans in Afghanistan want to distance themselves from him?

According to a DAWN report (Jan. 28, 2008), the Taliban in Afghanistan have distanced themselves from Pakistani militants led by Baitullah Mehsud, saying they don’t support any militant activity in Pakistan. “We do not support any militant activity and operation in Pakistan,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told Dawn on telephone from an undisclosed location on Monday. The spokesman denied media reports that the Taliban had expelled Baitullah Mehsud, the head of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan. “Baitullah is a Pakistani and we as the Afghan Taliban have nothing to do with his appointment or his expulsion. We did not appoint him and we have not expelled him,” he said.

Now a $10 billion question: What is the end-game of the U.S. if Baitullah Mehsud is indeed an ‘intelligence asset’ of the CIA?

That's simple: Either they continue to protect him and hide the truth (about him, about themselves, about 9/11, and about the entire bogus "War On Terror"), or they all go straight to the guillotines.

Is the aim is to create a theatre of the ‘War on Terror’ in Pakistan to create the justification for the landing of the U.S. troops so that the republican administration can continue to tell American people that it is fighting terrorism while spending billions to enrich the military-industrial complex, win the next elections in Nov. 2008 and tighten its control over Pakistan to pursue its anti-China and anti-Iran foreign policy goals?

For those Pakistanis who may think this is far-fetched, here is a quote from “Devil’s Game” by Robert Dreyfuss (pp. 336-337, published 2005). Citing the infamous policy memo written by leading neocons in 1995, entitled, “A Clean Break” to then Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel to ‘contain, destablize, and roll back’ various states in the region, Dreyfuss concludes:

“Neoconservatives want to control the Middle East, not reform it, even it means tearing countries apart and replacing them with rump mini-states along ethnic and sectrian lines. The Islamic right, in this context, is just one more tool for dismantling existing regimes, if that is what it takes.”

It's not far-fetched at all; it's happening in many countries simultaneously.

And "dismantling existing regimes" is indeed "what it takes".

Furthermore, it will continue until and unless a few "existing regimes" -- in Washington, Islamabad and a few other places -- are "dismantled". That is to say: indefinitely.

Mass Resignations: Pakistani Cabinet Split Over Rule Of Law

In Pakistan, the opposition party PML-N, led by former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif [photo], has resigned its seats in the cabinet. This dramatic move shows enormous strain in the "coalition" government elected in February of this year.

The "coalition" is led by the PPP, which was led by Benazir Bhutto until her assassination last December, and which is now effectively in the hands of her widow, Asif Ali Zardari, although it is nominally led by their teenaged son, Bilawal "Bhutto" Zardari, who is currently in England seeking an undergrad degree.

At issue is the status of the Pakistani judiciary; Sharif and the PML-N have consistently stated that their top priority is the reinstatement of all the judges sacked by President Pervez Musharraf when he declared a state of emergency in November.

Asif Zardari and the PPP have talked about re-establishing an independent judiciary but they have thrown one roadblock after another in the way of their proclaimed goal, and in this respect their actions have spoken much louder than their words. In my view, it was only a matter of time before Nawaz Sharif -- who has seemed to see through this charade ever since it began -- obtained enough political support to make this break with the so-called "coalition".

The PML-N have not resigned their seats in parliament, so the government remains in power, although with nine of 24 cabinet positions vacant (including Finance), it doesn't seem as though the government will be able to function much, or at all. In short, the situation is very unstable at the moment.

The problem, from Zardari's point of view, is that a reinstatement of the sacked judges would put the Supreme Court back the way it was prior to the declaration of emergency: in particular, Iftikhar Muhammed Chaudhry would once again be Chief Justice. And Chaudhry, as Jane Perlez of the New York Times puts it, is a "maverick".

Perlez describes Chaudhry as a "country judge from Baluchistan" whose independence threatens the policies of George W. Bush and terror war "ally", Pervez Musharraf. The problem -- although Perlez does not and never will say so -- is that Bush and Musharraf are committed to the destruction of the rule of law, and Chaudhry, the maverick country lawyer from Baluchistan, is committed to upholding it.

Thus, any reinstatement of the Pakistani judiciary would put at risk not only the continuing tenure in office of President Musharraf, but also Pakistan's status as an ally of the United States in the so-called "Global War on Terror".

As long-time readers of this space may recall, President Musharraf was "re-elected" last October in a comic farce that clearly violated at least two (and maybe three) different laws.

Musharraf should not even have been eligible, since he was a General -- and Army Chief of Staff -- at the time. According to Pakistani law, one may only hold one office at a time; you cannot be both a soldier and an elected official at the same time, let alone Chief of Staff and President. For that matter, Musharraf's tenure in office has been illegal ever since he siezed power in a military coup in 1999. And the fact that he resigned his commission after his October "re-election" does nothing to satisfy the law he broke by running for office.

Furthermore, in Pakistan the President is elected by the members of the national Parliament and the provincial Legislative Assemblies. This is supposed to happen just after each new Parliament is elected; they then elect the President who will serve with them during their term in office. But for this cycle, Musharraf revised the timetable, scheduling the Presidential election for October 2007 and the Parliamentary election for January 2008, so that he could be "re-elected" by the same Parliament which had "elected" him in the first place. (The Parliamentary election scheduled for January was postponed to February following the assassination of PPP leader Benazir Bhutto.)

There's also a question of term limits. In Pakistan, as in the US, no President may serve more than two consecutive terms. Musharraf and his supporters claimed that his first term -- from when he siezed power in 1999 to when he arranged to be "elected" in 2003 -- was not a term at all, since he wasn't elected then. But those who oppose Musharraf have a different view.

The previous Parliamentary election was widely seen as rigged. And the notion that the same group of falsely elected Parliamentarians should be able to "re-elect" a military dictator to his third term as President seems exceptionally offensive to those who favor the rule of law. As I've been saying, the former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is one of those people. Just before he was sacked, the Supreme Court announced that it was preparing to rule on petitions challenging Musharraf's "re-election". And the ruling was not likely to be favorable to the President -- this is why he declared the state of emergency and sacked the judges. So it seems quite likely that if Chaudhry were reinstated, Musharraf's presidency -- and the changes he made when declaring the emergency -- would soon be declared illegitimate.

This is not the first time Iftikhar Chaudhry has been a thorn in the sides of Bush, Musharraf and the GWOT. He was dismissed from his position amid a flurry of unsubstantiated allegations in March of 2007, after he supported the families of hundreds of people who have been "disappeared" by the Pakistani law-enforcement and intelligence agencies.

He was later reinstated after a large public show of support, but he didn't stay in office very long. "He's a threat to the GWOT," they said. And he still is.

Meanwhile, the PPP continue to play the role of faux-opposition, with Zardari apparently taking instuctions from the Americans who come to visit him every time he comes too close to supporting the rule of law or the much-ballyhooed "transition to democracy" which was supposedly represented by Musharraf's "doffing the uniform" and by Benazir Bhutto's return to the country to lead the "opposition".

In fact Buhtto's return was predicated on the proclamation of a "reconciliation order", which granted her amnsety from the corruption charges which had kept her out of Pakistan for most of the previous decade. Not wishing to show undue favoritism, the presidential order granted unconditional amnesty to many present and former government officials, effectively ending any hope of any Pakistani government official ever being held accountable for anything. Iftikhar Chaudhry might have a maverick opinion about this, as well. But we don't know much about what he thinks, because he's been under house arrest and incommunicado most of the time since November.

Meanwhile, in return for the amnesty -- and for the chance for another turn in power -- Bhutto agreed to keep the PPP in their seats last October for Musharraf's farcical "re-election". So the PPP abstained rather than resigning in protest, like the other opposition parties did.

If everyone had resigned except Musharraf's party, the PML-Q, the "re-election" would have been much more difficult to portray as "democratic". But with the most powerful opposition party on board, it was easy for the media to portray the dissenters as crackpots who just don't appreciate the wisdom of sacrificing the entire legal basis of our civilization so that a few corrupt criminal politicians can wage a bogus war without borders, killing millions of people, destroying one country after another, and making a fortune for themselves and their backers.

Crushing Defeat For Musharraf: "The Myth Is Broken"; "Q Is Finished"; "They Couldn’t Have Rigged It Even If They Tried"

UPDATE: PML-Q concedes defeat

ISLAMABAD, Feb 19 (AFP) Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) conceded defeat Tuesday after elections. “We accept the verdict of the nation,” Tariq Azeem, PML-Q spokesman, told AFP. (Posted @ 14:20 PST)

Original post follows:

~~~

Early and unofficial results from the Pakistani parliamentary elections show a landslide for the opposition parties and a crushing defeat for pro-American terrorist general Pervez Musharraf and his party, the PML-Q. The Islamic extremists also appear to have lost ground.

Supporters of the party of Pakistan's former prime minister Nawaz Sharif celebrate the unofficial results of Pakistan's general elections in the street of Rawalpindi, Pakistan.

Carlotta Gall and Jane Perlez in The New York Times:

Pakistanis Deal Severe Defeat to Musharraf in Election

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan : Pakistanis dealt a crushing defeat to President Pervez Musharraf in parliamentary elections Monday, in what government and opposition politicians said was a firm rejection of his policies since 2001 and those of his close ally, the United States.

Almost all the leading figures in the Pakistan Muslim League-Q, the party that has governed for the last five years under Mr. Musharraf, lost their seats, including the leader of the party, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussein, the former speaker of parliament, Chaudhry Amir Hussein, and six ministers.

Though official results would not be announced until Tuesday, early returns indicated that the vote would usher in a prime minister from one of the opposition parties, and opened the prospect of a parliament that would move to undo many of Mr. Musharraf’s policies and that may even try to remove him.

Sharif supporters celebrate in Taxilas. In early, unofficial results, Pakistanis dealt a crushing defeat to President Pervez Musharraf, in what government and opposition politicians said was a firm rejection of his policies since 2001 and those of his close ally, the United States.

The early edge went to the opposition Pakistan Peoples Party, which seemed to benefit from a strong wave of sympathy in reaction to the assassination of its leader, Benazir Bhutto, eight weeks ago, and may be in a position to form the next government.

The results were interpreted here as a repudiation of Mr. Musharraf as well as the Bush administration, which has staunchly backed Mr. Musharraf for eight years as its best bet in the campaign against the Islamic militants in Pakistan. American officials will have little choice now but to seek alternative allies from among the new political forces emerging from the vote.

Politicians and party workers from Mr. Musharraf’s party said the vote was a protest against government policies and the rise in terrorism here, in particular against Mr. Musharraf’s heavy handed way of dealing with militancy and his use of the army against tribesmen in the border areas and against militants in a siege at the Red Mosque here in the capital last summer that left more than 100 dead.

Others said Mr. Musharraf’s dismissal last year of the Supreme Court chief justice, Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, who remains under house arrest, was deeply unpopular with the voters.
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By association, his party suffered badly. The two main opposition parties — the Pakistan Peoples Party and the Pakistan Muslim League-N of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif — surged into the gap.

Supporters of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif in Lahore. In Lahore, the political capital of Punjab province, lines were thin, and many voters complained they could not find their names on the voting lists.

By early Monday night, crowds of Sharif supporters had already begun celebrating as they paraded through the streets of Rawalpindi, the garrison town just outside the capital, Islamabad. Riding on motorbikes and clinging onto the back of minivans, they played music and waved green flags of Mr. Sharif’s party decorated with the party symbol, a tiger.

“The tiger has come!” shouted one man on a motorbike making a victory sign. “Long live Nawaz!”

From unofficial results the private news channel, Aaj Television, forecast that the Pakistan Peoples Party would win 110 seats in the 272-seat national assembly, with Mr. Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-N taking 100 seats.

Mr. Musharraf’s party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Q, was crushed, holding on to just 20 to 30 seats. Early results released by the state news agency, the Associated Press of Pakistan, also showed the Pakistan Peoples Party to be leading in the number of seats in the national assembly.

The Election Commission of Pakistan declared the elections free and fair and said the polling passed relatively peacefully, despite some irregularities and scattered violence. Ten people were killed and 70 injured in violence around the country, including one candidate who was shot in Lahore on the night before the vote, Pakistani news channels reported.

A voter is marked with ink after casting a ballot in Lahore. Fears of election fraud were stoked by the complaints, mostly from opposition parties, of bribery and the use of state resources for campaigns. Reports also included the production of thousands of counterfeit identity cards and of millions of names missing from voter rolls.

Fearful of violence and deterred by confusion at polling stations, voters did not turn out in large numbers. Yet fears from opposition parties that the government would attempt to rig the elections did not materialize, as the early losses showed.

Official results were not expected until Tuesday morning, but all the parties were already coming to terms with the anti-Musharraf trend in the voting.

Nosheen Saeed, information secretary of the women’s wing of Mr. Musharraf’s party, conceded the early losses. “Some big guns are going to lose,” she said.

At the headquarters of Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, the minister of railways and a close friend of the president, his supporters sat gloomily in chairs under an awning, listening to the cheers of their opponents. “Q is finished,” said Tahir Khan, 21, one of the party workers, referring to the pro-Musharraf party.

The party workers said Mr. Ahmed, who was among the ministers who lost their seats, was popular but had suffered from the overwhelming protest vote against Mr. Musharraf and his governing faction.
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With Mr. Musharraf as both president and head of the Pakistani military — a post he relinquished last November — the administration poured about $1 billion a year in military assistance into Pakistan after 9/11.

After Mr. Musharraf stepped down from the army, the Bush administration still gave him unequivocal support. Last month, Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, Richard Boucher, told Congress he considered the Pakistani leader as indispensable to American interests.

Such fidelity to Mr. Musharraf often raised the hackles of Pakistanis, and the newspapers here were filled with editorials that expressed despair about Washington’s close relationship with the unpopular leader.

Many educated Pakistanis said they were irritated that the Bush administration chose to ignore Mr. Musharraf’s dismissal in November of the Supreme Court chief justice.

The big swing against the Pakistan Muslim League-Q party that supported Mr. Musharraf appeared to bear out the position of the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee, Sen. Joseph Biden, Jr, who has been a critic of the administration’s Pakistan policy.

On his arrival Sunday to observe the elections, Mr. Biden said: “I don’t buy into the argument that Musharraf is the only one. We have to have more than just a Musharraf policy.”

As a starting point for a new policy, Mr. Biden said that the United States needed to show Pakistanis that Washington was interested in more than the campaign on terror. “We have to give the vast majority of Pakistani people some reason to believe we are allies,” Mr. Biden said. To that end, he would propose that economic development aid be tripled to $1.5 billion annually.

But Washington could take some comfort in the losses of the Islamic religious parties in the North West Frontier Province that abut the tribal areas where the Taliban and Al Qaeda have carved out bases.

This is the standard liberal media lie, one of several places where it rears its head as "context" in this otherwise fine report. (Most of the others have been snipped.)

Washington needs the terrorists. Bush needs strong Islamic and Islamist parties which he can call "IslamoFascists"; the term itself is another Orwellian aspect to this war of spin and terror.

"The IslamoFascists want to create a global caliphate", says the twice unelected president, and all the bobbleheads nod along in unison.

But Islam and Fascism are utterly incompatible, so there cannot be any real IslamoFascists, although there are some seriously corrupt "Islamic" business-government combinations. Two of America's "firmest" Asian allies in the supposed Global War on Terror are Saudi Arabia, where the royal family does most of the business, makes most of the money, and runs one of the most repressive governments on the planet; and Pakistan, where the military is entwined in the "civilian" economy to an extent companies like SAIC, Halliburton and Blackwater can only dream of (at this point). The army produces and sells all manner of everyday "civilian" consumer items, from breakfast cereal on through the day.

These are the IslamoFascists, if such there are on Earth. Pseudo-Islamic fascists, to be accurate, and allies of our government.

On the other hand there's no doubt that pseudo-Christian fascists (so-called "Christo-Fascists") do exist in large numbers and have drafted plans -- published and publicly available for many years now -- according to which they will take over the American government (by stealth) and then the world (in the usual American way.)

In order for these imperialist dreamers to implement their evil schemes, the radical Islamic parties have to gain support, and perhaps the best news from this election -- news which probably won't make much of a dent in the mainstream account -- is confirmation that the radicals in Pakistan have virtually no support from the electorate.

The New York Times won't report certain aspects of the story, for fear of being called treasonous or for fear of lost advertising revenue, or simply because telling the truth about the GWOT is as unpalatable as telling any of the other ugliest truths about America, and the New York Times is not in the business of telling any of those stories.

But you've read it here: the administration is very unhappy with the collapses of both the PML-Q and the lunatic fringe.

The greatest blow [against] Mr. Musharraf came in the strong wave of support in Punjab province, the country’s most populous, for Mr. Sharif, who has been a bitter rival since his government was overthrown by Mr. Musharraf in a military coup in 1999 and he was arrested and sent into exile.

He returned in November last year and although banned from running for parliament himself, has campaigned for his party on an openly anti-Musharraf agenda, calling for the president’s resignation and for the reinstatement of the Chief Justice Chaudhry and other Supreme Court judges.

It's interesting how the NYT portrays Nawaz Sharif's reappearance at the center of Pakistani politics as a simple "return" in November. That was his second "return", actually. The first time, he was arrested and deported before he even got out of the airport! Some democracy!

Underscoring the reversal for Mr. Musharraf was the downfall of the powerful Chaudhry
family of Punjab province who had underwritten his political career by creating the political party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Q, for him.

“They myth is broken, it was a huge wave against Musharraf,” said Athar Minallah, a lawyer involved in the anti-Musharraf lawyers’ movement. “Right across the board his party was defeated, in the urban and rural areas. The margins are so big they couldn’t have rigged it even if they tried.”

A few hours after the size of the defeat became clear, the government eased up on the restrictions against Aitzaz Ahsan, leader of the lawyers’ movement that has opposed the president.

Mr. Ahsan, who has been under house arrest since last November when Mr. Musharraf imposed emergency rule for six weeks, found the phones in [his] house were suddenly reconnected.

“Musharraf should be preparing a C-130 for Turkey,” Mr. Ahsan said, referring to Mr. Musharraf’s statements that he might retire to Turkey where he spent his childhood.

Two politicians close to Mr. Musharraf have said in the last week that the president was well aware of the drift in the country against him and they suggested that he would not remain in office if the new government was in direct opposition to him. “He does not have the fire in the belly for another fight,” said one member of his party. He added that Mr. Musharraf was building a house for himself in Islamabad and would be ready soon to move.

Of course the official results are still to be released, and it could be that by this time tomorrow the PML-Q will have made a massive comeback. Or does that only happen in America?

It'll be pretty sad if "the greatest democracy in the history of the world" is shown up by a military dictatorship.

But it would be even sadder if that didn't happen.

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(All photos for this piece are courtesy of the New York Times; please see this slideshow for more.)