Pakistan is an unusual country -- a nation capable of looking into the abyss, pausing briefly to consider its options and then jumping headfirst into darkness. The willingness to go splat has been the backbone of Pakistan's national survival strategy for its 60-year history.
Whether rattling nuclear rockets at a much more powerful India or allowing terrorist networks to use Pakistani territory to mount plots against Afghan, American and British targets, the country's leaders have raised political blackmail to a national and international art form. Oppose or ignore us at our -- and your -- peril is the unofficial national motto of Islamabad.
An emotionally taut President Pervez Musharraf has dragged his country and its foreign patrons to the brink again by declaring emergency rule and intensifying a triangular power struggle with the nation's secular political parties and with the religious extremists who expect to rise from the ashes created by their Western-oriented rivals.
Musharraf retains the backing of the Pakistani army -- the only cohesive and enduring political movement in the country's history -- but that can change in the blink of an eye. Musharraf knows better than anyone that there is always another political general in the wings.
The Bush administration has been slow and unsteady in coming to terms with the rough-and-tumble nature of Pakistani statecraft and politics. Only late this summer did U.S. and British officials conclude that Musharraf had lost his once-deft political touch in engaging the country's courts, lawyers and students in angry but erratic and inconclusive confrontations.
Washington and London then engineered a desperate effort to save Musharraf from himself by persuading the Pakistani president to let former prime minister Benazir Bhutto return last month from exile. The idea was that the two would share power: She would serve as Musharraf's political eyes and ears, and he would prepare the way for her to run the country eventually.
That ploy has blown up in the face of those who designed it. On Nov. 3, Musharraf abruptly staged what amounts to his second coup d'etat by declaring emergency rule. Since then, he and the coldly calculating Bhutto have alternately clashed and made overtures to each other on the scheduling of elections in 2008 and over Musharraf's ban on public protests. In Pakistan, brinks come in his and her varieties.
This struggle is now more about local power dynamics than about restoring democracy, which never sank deep roots in Pakistan. The country's founder, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, set the pattern by dismissing its first legislature and ruling by decree. His successors have consistently plunged ahead in the same come-what-may spirit when faced with opposition or crisis.
A retired Pakistani diplomat recently underlined to me the sad results of that approach by noting: "We have had only one election in our history that was considered fair and free. And that was in 1970."
The political divisions and conflicts provoked by that bitterly fought election triggered a genocidal campaign by the Pakistani army against the country's eastern wing, which broke away to become Bangladesh. Infuriated and humiliated by India's open intervention on the side of the rebels in the east, Yahya Khan, then military ruler, launched a doomed strike along India's western frontier. New Delhi chose to treat it as a pinprick rather than stage the devastating retaliation it could have mounted.
Covering that war introduced me to Pakistan and to the political fatalism that makes it such a difficult ally and dangerous enemy. An Islamic state carved out of the imperial British version of India, Pakistan -- like other religious states -- tends to see its national destiny as a matter of divine will rather than personal responsibility.
Successive leaders, military and civilian, have encouraged or tolerated the world's most damaging spread of nuclear technology and international terrorism from Pakistani territory. They have encouraged or tolerated massive corruption at home, some of it funded by foreign aid from the United States and other countries frightened of the consequences of not providing it. They have also preferred to see Afghanistan engulfed in suicide bombings rather than become a stable neighbor.
Musharraf actually did a fair job of controlling and limiting some of these self-destructive practices early in his reign, especially with regard to India. He in fact negotiated a secret draft agreement on Kashmir that is now unlikely ever to see the light of day.
The Bush administration, when it had the opportunity, failed to push him hard enough to curb corruption and to train and use his army in counterinsurgency campaigns along the Pakistani-Afghan border. In extremis, Musharraf, too, threatens to go splat, and Washington is reduced to waiting to see what will happen.
Posted by: john frum ||
11/10/2007 09:41 ||
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#1
peril is the unofficial national motto of Islamabad
They should be reminded how this motto could just as easily become their epitaph.
Islam being the majority religion comes to mind!!!
Posted by: Paul ||
11/10/2007 10:48 Comments ||
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#3
I still say there is more to this than meets the eye. Somebody like Perv does not get to where he is, and certainly doesn't last, with Democrat like naivete. He is more than anything else, a cold calculating machine.
As such, his priorities are #1, to save his own ass. However, and close behind is #2, to unify and control his country, which is essential to ensuring #1.
Now, if we, that is, the administration understands this, and agrees that both of these would be good, we have been hand in glove with him for a long time to try to bring both of these things about.
So yes, we not only knew that he was going to declare martial law, but we were also in favor of it, if not openly. And we were also talking with Bhutto about it, and she felt the same.
#4
Somebody like Perv does not get to where he is, and certainly doesn't last, with Democrat like naivete. He is more than anything else, a cold calculating machine.
Anyone who counts upon being able to ride the terrorist tiger is a fool.
As such, his priorities are #1, to save his own ass. However, and close behind is #2, to unify and control his country, which is essential to ensuring #1.
All of this is negated by how Islam is utterly inimical to stability.
#6
Zenster: For Perv, riding the terrorist tiger is not an option. He has no choice. Not too long ago, half his military, his ISI, and half the parliament were dominated by Islamists.
With our help, he has slowly and steadily purged all three of the worst of the lot, enough so that he is strong enough to directly challenge the enclaves totally ruled by the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
And at any moment, he might have to backpedal furiously to keep from being deposed. So it is to our profound interest to support him as far as we can, to keep his 166M or so people, *and* their nuclear weapons, from crossing over to the dark side.
In such a circumstance, we should have long been strategizing every conceivable possibility like we do for every potential war. Plans within schemes, within plots, and contingencies out the ass.
Nothing should happen in the whole country without our prior knowledge and approval.
#7
With our help, he has slowly and steadily purged all three of the worst of the lot, enough so that he is strong enough to directly challenge the enclaves totally ruled by the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
I'd sure like to think so but, from all accounts, Musharraf still seems to run with the fox and hunt with the hounds.
So it is to our profound interest to support him as far as we can, to keep his 166M or so people, *and* their nuclear weapons, from crossing over to the dark side.
No argument. As I have noted before, America is literally handcuffed to the guy.
Nothing should happen in the whole country without our prior knowledge and approval.
A nice sentiment but far from the actual reality.
PS: 'moose, the more I think of your "Koran Toilet Paper Factory" flytrap, the more I like it. We need to set up a few different "lures" specifically designed to enrage and draw terrorist attention.
#8
Mushy proclaimed martial law in face of islamofascist violence, yet 100% of his targets are lawyers and professionals attached to the Pakistan Peoples Party, which doesn't appeal to the Jamaat-i-Islami holy warriors.
Hoagland is brain dead for suggesting that Mushy produced sound policies on Kashmir. When he took power, Mushy held a peace summit with the Indian leader. Two months later, he infiltrated troops at high altitudes in Kashmir. They were routed by the Indian army. At 9-11, Pakistan faced economic collapse under the US embargo. After Pakistan was brought into the GWOT, a series of suicide bombings shook Kashmir. Over 400,000 Hindus have been coerced into exile from Kashmir, notwithstanding a Hindu presence that exists for thousands of years in that part of the world.
#9
Somebody like Perv does not get to where he is, and certainly doesn't last, with Democrat like naivete. He is more than anything else, a cold calculating machine.
Until there are too many factors to calculate. Then the machine starts smoking, or a spring goes spoing. But first it starts giving false answers... or at least that's how it works in the cartoons.
#1
By a quirk of Iraqi law, ministries are allowed to block prosecution of their officials if they decree -- truthfully or not -- that those officials were "carrying out their official duties." Naturally, mass-murdering Iraqi Sunni is not one of the official duties of the Iraqi Health Ministry; but the Interior Ministry (the most powerful ministry in Iraq) has used this dodge in the past to prevent prosecution of rampaging police officials.
Schaweet! Built in protection from all conflict of interest. Does this set off a whole bunch of warning klaxons for anyone else besides me?
The two accused Shiite officials are both Sadrites, and Muqtada Sadr personally secured them their positions; curiously, the government is only trying to prosecute them now because of a terrible fumble by the Mahdi Militia
We can only hope this is a sign of just how far in decline Sadr's star is.
In tribal countries like Iraq, propinquity is the lodestone of power. If you're not constantly looking down people's necks and breathing over their shoulders, they'll swiftly find some other master to serve.
Ummm ... that would be "breathing down people's necks" and "looking over their shoulders", but don't let any malapropisms get in the way of a really good observation about high context cultures. Proximitybe it temporal or materialis everything to largely illiterate and ignorant people with short attention spans.
The slaughter was carried out in an organized fashion, by order, and often targeting helpless Sunni already sick or wounded and in hospital... along with their loved ones, who were often kidnapped and butchered when they unwisely came to visit the patient. The two charged individuals together are thought to account for hundreds of these ritualistic human sacrifices.
Interesting to see that I'm not the only one who considers Islam to be a reincarnated cult of Baal, complete with human sacrifice. Children and adults alike are hurled into the furnace with cackling glee.
As the article observes, it's time for Iraq to fight or fuck fish or cut bait. Either they administer the rule of law and take down these killers or frankly admit they are nothing but another theocratic shari'a-ruled Islamic cesspit.
#2
Non Muslims wonder why Sunni Wahabis allow Shiites to attend the Haj pilgrimage idiocy. The reason is: there are hadith reports that the phony "prophet" predicted sectarianism, and didn't prescribe war against lesser apostasy (the "War on Apostasy" fought by the first successor - or caliph - was waged when a Yemeni claimed to be a new "prophet").
Islamic Sunna - emulation of Muhammed's perverse life and character - islamizes all state activity. Secularism is impossible under real islam. That is why Pakistan liquidated all but 1% of the 20% of its population that was Muslim at Partition, and why 2,000,000 Christians were coerced out of Muslim occupied lands that were once Roman Palestine.
Sect supremacy has been established in Iraq: the Shiites won and will seek to enforce their laws throughout the entire country.
On constitution (US), freedom of religion, and Islam
So the question is: Does a religion that believes in denying freedom of religion to others deserve the same protection as religions that uphold freedom of religion?
It is an established principle of Constitutional law that none of the rights granted in the Constitution is absolute.
#2
When the Founding Fathers told that about: 3rthe Congreass will make no law" they were envisonning Christainism or other Golden Rule abiding religions. They were not thinking about say, the Aztec religion. They weren't thinking about Islam, specially wahabism and similar.
#4
It is an established principle of Constitutional law that none of the rights granted in the Constitution is absolute.
For instance - you can't brandish an M-14 in a crowded theatre and scream MAYONAISE!
Posted by: Thomas Woof ||
11/10/2007 9:20 Comments ||
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#5
The one thing we screw up in the COnstitution is that the modren courts have forgotten then 9th amendment
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Primary among those is the right to self defense, including rejection and sanctions agains tthose who would deny us our INDIVIDUAL rights and liberty to exercise them. This very clearly limits Islam.
#7
Roe v. Wade came from the supreme court finding unenumerated rights in the penumbras and emanations of the constitution as opposed to the 9th amendment, but the result is the same.
I believe the problem is not so much the government trampling on the rights of citizens improperly but arrogating powers that are outside the limits of the powers delegated to them by the Constitution. The commerce clause has been so tortured that it will allow anything but prevent an automobile that is safe in one state from being sold in another.
#8
I'm only a sometimes fan of Orson Scott Card, and this essay is even more rambling and "all over the map" than usual; it borders on incoherent.
Nevertheless, he has some good points here, and focusing on his statement that "none of the rights granted in the Constitution is absolute" misses them (including the sense in which he made that particular statement).
And chief among those points is that Islam is not deserving of our Constitutional protections of freedom of religion until it utterly and explicitly abandons its long-held belief that Muslims have the right and duty to kill non-Muslims, including apostates; and until it does so, it is not even deserving of being called a "religion" in America: that it is more like an organized crime syndicate, or a cult.
Card believes it is possible to force Islam to abandon this doctrine, at least here in America; he cites the example of the Mormon Church, which was forced to abandon its practice of polygamy.
I wish I could share his optimism, but I can't.
Regardless, this is a good essay, well worth the reading.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
11/10/2007 11:25 Comments ||
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#9
"Congress shall make no laws.."
Which makes this a State's rights issue. So in fact any state could ban islam.
It might come to that, after we get nuked to please allen.
#10
States Rights were effectively repealed by force in 1865. Subsequent Amendments, laws and Supreme Court interpretations further cemented the supremacy of the Federal government on pretty much all issues they wish to claim.
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