Dakota

Pakistan

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Every time I hear Pakistani President Musharraf justify his declaration of martial law, I cannot help but wonder when we will hear similar words from our own President. In fact Bush was just kidding around about it last week with Putin. In the meantime, Musharraf has been busy arresting the opposition and the judiciary who were about to declare his presidency illegal.

Last month Afghanistan scholar Barnett Rubin warned in an interview for Talking Points Memo (you'll have to scroll down to find the video):

Let's put this in perspective according to US national security interests. Osama bin Laden and the major leaders of Al Quaeda...has its secure headquarters in Pakistan.... Furthermore Pakistan is a government that has nuclear weapons. Now according to the administration the biggest threat to the United States is the potential of nuclear weapons getting into the hands of terrorists There is nowhere in the world where that is more likely to happen than in Pakistan. So you might ask why it is that we have concentrated all of our efforts in Iraq which had nothing to do with 9/11, while we allied with the military government in Pakistan, and we even took our ambassador out of Pakistan, transferred him to Iraq and didn't even replace him for many months. This is just unbelievable -- it is such a dereliction of duty on the part of the Bush administration to the national security of the United States that it boggles the mind. But it seems that everyone is so bewitched by this idea that somehow Iraq is the center of the war on terrorism and Musharraf is our ally, that they are neglecting this gross negligence which is putting our country in danger.

This is not just some side issue in some minor country that doesn't get enough attention,
this is a major failure of the first rank to address the biggest threat to the United States. And this is not my opinion, that is the opinion of all the major intelligence agencies of the United States, and the national intelligence estimate. I cannot speak more strongly about that.

In order to try to address that issue, the administration paid very little attention to the issue of political legitimacy in Pakistan. They basically sided, as American governments have tended to do, especially Republican lead American governments, with the military in Pakistan and thought that they could handle the whole situation, and of course the military in Pakistan told them they would do that . So the military arrested some of the Arab leadership of Al Quaeda from time to time, they allowed a safe haven for the Taliban, and even gave them some indirect support by allowing Pakistani political parties to support them, not because they they support terrorism against the United States, but because they have alot of political problems with Afghanistan that we also have not addressed.

We never did anything to try support a democratic transition or the legitimization of the government in Pakistan even when the entire legal profession of Pakistan was on the streets protesting against their military dictatorship, this administration which claims to have a freedom agenda sent its high ranking officials to say they still suppported General Musharraf. The result is today the government has lost alot of its legitimacy on legal grounds because it defied the courts, although finally it was defeated by them. It is losing legitimacy that is attempting to build on democratic grounds because it has not reached an agreement with the democratic parties. It has lost legitimacy the military tried to build up on the basis of Islamic politics because they have been fighting against these Islamist groups in a rather desultory way. .......

But there's also the danger....that the military will lose the support of its own troops and the government will be come less effective.. Can you imagine if we start to see the collapse of a government that has nuclear weapons in a country where Al Queda is headquartered and the US has its troops, its money, it's intellligence and its attention bogged down in Iraq?

Nonetheless, the administration continues to support Musharraf because he's the devil they know - you probably remember his appearance with Jon Stewart.

Barnett Rubin happened to be in Islamabad when martial law was declared. He is currently live blogging from Pakistan, as are other voices for democracy and freedom

The situation is serious, but never fear, the ever popular Dr. Condi will be on the case soon , when she's finished making friends in Turkey

Photo note: Visiting China in the Year of the Pig provided many excellent photographic subjects for political commentary -- who's that peaking over the right flank anyway? Alternatively, bet we'll see democracy in Pakistan when pigs fly

Posted by Dakota at November 4, 2007 07:58 AM