Sigh .. Yet another US-supported dictator shows his true colours. What a shamefultrack record the Western powers have in this regard.

I might depending on my other options, Al. Apparently, the international community is expecting a wave of refugees streaming from Pakistan into Afghanistan due to the latest unrest/political crisis/crackdown. Talk about irony. Refugees going *into* Afghanistan. So I guess, if I'm a lawyer with a snappy retro black suit facing a plunge into unertainty in terms of my relatively cushy lifestyle and ability to practice my profession as previously, do I (a) flee to Afghanistan (b) protest (c) hunker down in my basement and hope it all passes in 6 weeks or so (d) contact relatives in the West to get a plane ticket there? I might try (c) or (d) before (b) especially if I am westernized and scorn/fear my countryman's embrace of Islamic militancy.

Anyway, as I wrote in these pages a while ago, Pakistan is fucked. Its people would do better if it went the way of Yugoslavia.

I don't know, I'm fairly sympathetic to the "stability" and the "let's fight the Islamists" arguments, but once Musharraf's people trotted out the "Pakistan isn't ready for democracy" trope, that's when the bile started to rise. Immediate answer that I had was, "Well, Pakistan was plenty ready (and democratic) before your frickin' military coup, buddy!"

What I saw in Nepal was, well, once the government forces start beating up lawyers, judges and mid-level civil servants, the dictatorship is not long for this world.

My prediction: unless Musharraf backs down soon, he'll be gone within a year.

Unfortunately, Ben, he can do a hell of a lot of damage in a year.

I see pictures like the above, and read the reports online and less and less do I feel that a people's revolt is the answer, and a proper police action by the West is. Note I said proper. And by proper I mean invited and supported by at least a majority of the Pakistanis who aren't going to turn around after the police action and just install their own form of dictatorship. The threat of long distance, long term, violence combined with a supportive populous takes care of a lot of mindless sheep with batons. Question is, culturally, is Pakistan ready to take charge after Musharref is ousted and become what we deem "civilized"? Absolutely not..

Nonsense. Pakistan was (relatively) democratic and had two peaceful changes of government (i.e. to the main opposition party) during its last period of non-military rule. And neither Bhutto nor Sharif were Islamists.

They were corrupt politicians who would've been well at home in Louisiana or New York City in the 19th century, but they did respect democratic norms. My understanding is that Bhutto's party was on its way to winning the next elections, if they'd been held.

***

Now, maybe with a year of "emergency rule", the radicals will be empowered, but that hasn't been the norm in that country -- even if Bin Laden has a 65% approval rating there.

Let me expand. So far as I have seen, so long as a nation is a nation of more than one deeply fundamentalist religious factions, one of whom who currently feels that when no-one is listening to them it is okay to blow people up to get attention, democracy will never, ever, thrive permanently. Unlike a secular or better a LEGALLY secular society, as soon as one side feel downtrodden or not benefitting as much as the other, they will resort to violence...

But the sheer impossibility of the west doing anything useful in Pakistan stands in your way, sean. Far less likely than firebombing Burma's dictators.

The extremists already run two large areas of Pakistan (Waziristan and Swat) and Bin Laden has free reign wherever he happens to be hiding. Musharraf is busy locking up the folks with any power to do anything about it. Gee, I wonder if he's still onboard with the Yanks? Methinks no.

Then maybe, just maybe, we let the lawyers, their families and other who are more democratically bent flee to the west, stand back and let the chips fall where they may, then go in to help mop up when asked.

I'm always for the morality of bashing heads, but the practicality of it may be lacking.

I mean, even in the days when young Haligonians dreamed of winning their spurs on the North-Western Frontier, it was darned hard to keep order in that part of the country. Generally involved punitive raids and burning down towns and whatnot, which we probably can't do nowadays.

"Musharraf is busy locking up the folks with any power to do anything about it."
Uh, no. He's locking up people who are a threat to his power. Last I checked lawyers and political activists had less than bupkiss effect on control of Frontier Provinces and absolutely nothing to do with being able to wrest control from an armed militia(what're they gonna do? Protest? Serve them with warrants? Tell them that they've broken the rules and need to leave?). But that may just be my wierd 'riechwing' interpretation.

I'm seeing far more of a Pinochet thing here. He's a serious fucker who, if based on his own merits, I would like to see a bullet in his head but since he's sitting where he is as a bulwark against a movement we have chosen not to allow to remain he's untouchable. I don't like it. But there's not really much to do about it. What Pakistan was in the past is largely irrelevant, imo. We have to deal with what is instead of what was or what should be. The time to have done something about the military coup was when it happend. We(both US and CAN) didn't do anything. We have to deal with the result of said choice.

It's fucked up, but there's no moral high ground to take on this issue. Same as with the Pinochet/Allenda nonsense(someone who's going down the path to being a non-European Soviet satellite, or a quasi-fascitic bastard? Both would mistreat the people about the same, but which works best in the long run?).

I'm with Hans. Screw the borders drawn by the POMs, let Pakistan disintegrate into regions that make sense and where the ability to actually control said territory actually resides in the hands of the gov't.

As to the contention that secular society somehow precludes people who perform violence to get their way I call bullshit. And loudly. Apparently the balck panthers, sla(symbionese liberation army), Weather Underground, whackadoo environmentalists like the ELF and ALF(not to be confused with the meerly ideological or annoying environmentalists), and a bunch of others I've forgotten at the moment. The two have nothing to do with each other. Period. I invoke the no talking points rule(it's right here in the MAgic the Gatehring rule book, Al).

Oh, and what about the Franco-phone terrs in Montreal? They live in a legally secular nation and nothing stopped them from being jackalopes. No connection what so ever, imo.

When I am unable to play my DVDs because spouse has the remote and Boy #1 has control of my Warcraft account, I play Civilization III. Sometimes, a fellow nation or two are insane to try to be friends with let alone be at war with because of fundamentalism or other assorted issues they have with my nation. The solution is pull back forces, build walls, build up the military, let them fight it out, then move in and either make peace with the victor or smash them in their post war weakened state garrisoning their cities.

Just saying...

<i>... I invoke the no talking points rule(it's right here in the MAgic the Gatehring rule book, Al)...</i><p>Huh?

I suppose you're right, ry: Balkanize the place and be done with it.

It's going to get MUCH worse before it gets better. The US announced yesterday that it's "reviewing" it's aid policy wrt Pakistan, but that MILITARY aid will continue apace.

"lazy hold-out" ahem..

Then again, its on the other side of the world. Regardless of what the neo-cons wish me to believe what happens there doesn't affect me as I can turn off the images with the push of a button and no-oen wants to bomb we Canadians, well, except for the Talibani and we did that to ourselves. I have bigger concerns in my life, such as "where can we find a good couch and loveseat before end of next week with a no-payments for two years" plan..

Is my apathy showing?.. whoops.

I have suggested elsewhere that as the Paks no longer exercise effective sovereignty in the tribal provinces, the Western forces in Afghanistan should feel no compunction at all about chasing assorted bandits across the imaginary border and bombing the hell out of anything which remotely looks like a terrorist organizing point. As well, if we are sure bin Laden is in there we should go in and get him.

Musharraf has been largely useless as an instrument of Western policy. He seems (rightly) afraid of the fundamentalist tribesmen, urban Islamists and his own Intelligence Service is deeply implicated in all manner of Islamist outrage. So he has made a lot of promises, thrown a few ill trained soldiers into very dangerous situations and told the West he's handling things. He's not and it is time for him to go.

Which begs the question of if not Musharraf then who? Ms. Bhutto or Mr. Khan are possible; but whether either could do much about the militants is not at all obvious. The Islamist rot combined with a series of corrupt governments and an apparent inability to emulate India's rush into the modern world seems to doom Pakistan.

At the moment the prospects of internal reform and suggest that the boys in the black ties are going to be replaced with the chaps in the black turbans. Whether or not the more Westernized Pakistanis accept this, the black turban guys have lots of guns and the will of Allah. The only group which can take the Islamists on and win, short term, is the Armed Forces. But replacing one general with another is hardly a solution unless that general was committed to seriously addressing the radical Islamists.

Oh, sorry Al, I'm just throwing certain phrases out there. I do that from time to time.

I'm no expert on Afghanistan, but I'm not sure about the former two PM taking power. AS I see it it's going to wind up in civil war with Mushariff there, and if he's not there. Which is a rather sad state of affairs when you think about it. Pakistan was once about 2-3x the size it is now. It used to be a mother-huge country. Now it's devolved into a bunch of tribes and ministates within a state. Not good. Might be better inthe long run, but right now that sucks mightily.

Gordo, I'm not sure even about the mil-pol aid. If I read the reports right last night that's what's getting cut. Any way you slice it it's just f'd up beyond belief.

Hey, someone over at the Castle has a question for the Pakistan hands here. (http://www.thedonovan.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=8306)
"'...the two previous regimes were re-enactable. We could've supported the gov't Mushariff deposed with his coup...'

Who, Nawaz Sharif? The guy launched a Ponzi scheme to -- ostensibly -- pay off the national debt and the cash disappeared after reaching his address in Islamabad. He did more damage to the Pak Constitution than Musharraf has *and* set A.Q. Khan up in business.

And ask the folks at Al's place if Benazir Bhutto has come up with a reasonable explanation of how she managed to sock $1.5 billion in a Swiss account during her tenure as PM...

Posted by BillT at November 7, 2007 9:37 PM "

Well?

I think it's a good question. How viable were these two after all? If the general populace supported the overthrow because they were screwing people left and right how pro-democracy can they really be considered(and yes, you did say they'd be comfortable in Tammany Hall)? This might be a bit more complicated than we, the collective we, think it is.

So after Watergate there should have been a military coup? Do you allow a military to judge vaiability in your country?

I don't think I understand your question, Al, even if I try to look passed the outright hyperbole elements of it.

If the previous two regimes were unviable because they led the avg joe to support the military junta how viable can you say they are now? If they were so broken in terms of democracy then what is it about them that makes you think they'd actually be good at it now? That's the question(now, would you like to come off the ledge?). Where does Watergate and letting a military judge come to play in that scenario? Really.(huff)

Look, neither I nor Chief Bill are saying the coup was a good thing or that Musharraf is a great guy. But what alternative is there? None. You've got three who screw the country royal, one of whom played from the fundementalist playbook(we need and Islamic A-bomb), and then another that ripped the country off. I'm afraid it's Pinochet all over again. He sucked ass like a champion but what he leaves behind is much better and much more of a true democracy(now that he's left) than it would've been with leaving Allende. That's what we're faced with.