Making a Mockery of Democracy: General Musharraf's "State of Emergency"

[babylonsister]

Making a Mockery of Democracy: General Musharraf's "State of Emergency"
by Gary Leupp | Nov 5 2007


I think the New York Times has this one right. "For more than five months the United States has been trying to orchestrate a political transition in Pakistan that would manage to somehow keep Gen. Pervez Musharraf in power without making a mockery of President Bush's promotion of democracy in the Muslim world. On Saturday, those carefully laid plans fell apart spectacularly."

Not since Hamas' dramatic victory in the Palestinian elections has the disconnect between Bush's democratic rhetoric and reality of U.S. policy been so starkly exposed. In the former case, Washington responded to democracy with rejection, and support for the Fatah coup. How will it respond to Musharraf's assault on the fading facade of incipient Pakistani democracy?

Recall that Musharraf toppled the democratically elected president of Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif, in 1999. The year before Pakistan had conducted nuclear weapons tests, and been slapped with U.S. sanctions. Relations with the military dictatorship were cool until 9-11, after which Musharraf became a key U.S. ally in the "war on terror" and recipient of massive U.S. aid.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, through his deputy Richard Armitage, told Musharraf: "Be prepared to be bombed. Be prepared to go back to the Stone Age," if he was unwilling to cooperate in the destruction of Afghanistan's Taliban regime. That regime was largely a creation of Pakistani military intelligence, and Pakistan and Saudi Arabia its main supporters. But Musharraf agreed to break ties, host U.S. forces, and even to suppress any (democratic) anti-U.S. demonstrations in his country.

Using Pakistani military bases as part of its campaign, the U.S. swiftly overthrew the primitive Taliban apparatus, chased al-Qaeda and some of the Talibs across the border into Pakistan, allowed the reemergence of the Northern Alliance warlord regime with a Pashtun fig-leaf figurehead, proclaimed a great victory and then without skipping a beat shifted its attention to the wholly unrelated target of Iraq.

more...

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/10831

[BrklynLib at work]

1. prez shit-for-brains may be watching and taking notes for his own "coup".

THAT is what really scares me....
and all that bullshit talk about how they are not doing the right thing for democracy in Pakistan!! I cannot believe that Condi actually says those words out loud and does not get hit by lightning.

[BridgeTheGap]

2. This is what he meant by his "If I were dictator" statement

I'm sure he wished he could do it here.

[saigon68]

3. "FREEDOM IS ON THE MARCH" shouted the AWOL CHIMPANZEE