The White House on Tuesday expressed broad support for “freedom of expression” and assembly in Pakistan but stopped well short of encouraging demonstrations against President Pervez Musharraf. “I have not heard anyone in the administration actively encouraging anyone to do anything but return to civilian rule,” spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters. To a question on whether the US backed the anti-Musharraf demonstrators, Perino said “Let me put it this way: We certainly support the right to free speech, and freedom of expression and freedom to assemble.”
But we're still timidly supporting only the freedoms the Paks had prior to Perv decided to try and be an actual dictator. The Pak press, as we've seen, is head and shoulders above that in any other Muslim country and quite a few non-Muslim countries. There's simply no equivalent of Daily Times, Jang, or Dawn in Egypt or Jordan, much less Soddy Arabia. The closest we get is al-Jizz, which is a political tool rather than a pure journalism.
The Paks also maintain a "democracy," in which they have elections and maintain a parliament, but it's pretty obvious it's a mechanism for keeping oligarchs in office, rather than a reflection of a free society.
We won't even discuss other pretty basic freedoms the Paks don't have and probably couldn't handle, starting with freedom of religion, through freedom from being arbitrarily beaten up by their police, looted by their public servants, and having their behavior controlled by wild-eyed holy men and roving bands of fascisti. Only when no one is above, beneath, or outside the law do societies work. |
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