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9133. marjoribanks - 8/19/2008 1:18:18 PM Ahmed Rashid on Pakistan.
The resignation of President Pervez Musharraf yesterday after nine years in office is a major victory for Pakistan's long-battered and still fragile democratic forces. But particularly given the meltdown the country has endured in recent weeks, there are still many obstacles to effective civilian governance. Although the United States will expect things to change in a hurry, they are unlikely to do so right away.
Three of Pakistan's past four military rulers have been driven from power by popular movements, but the politicians who followed the military all failed to take advantage of the people's desire for democracy and economic development and were eventually forced out by the military on charges of corruption and incompetence.
The most pressing issues today involve the long-standing tension of Pakistan's politics and the relationship between the civilian government and the military. The government is led by the Pakistan People's Party, now run by Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, but his party governs through a complex coalition of parties.
The PPP's main antagonist is former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, head of the Pakistan Muslim League-N, who never misses an opportunity to try to pull down the PPP, his longtime rival, rather than working with it to consolidate the few democratic gains the country has made.
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Overthrown by Musharraf in a 1999 coup and humiliated by the army, Sharif rejects concessions to the army and offers no support to the war against Taliban extremists. Busy pandering to his right-wing supporters, he has little time for American demands.
Sharif believes that his popularity and the parliamentary seats he controls in the majority province of Punjab will eventually regain him the prime ministership.
In the next few days, internal coalition battles will continue as key questions arise, including where Musharraf should live, whether impeachment should proceed, how the senior judges Musharraf dismissed last November should be restored to their offices and who should become president.
Sharif is taking a hard line, while Zardari wants to move slowly and not confront the army by further humiliating Musharraf, a former army chief.
These power struggles within the coalition are magnified by the enormous mistrust that exists between the army and both parties. The army's mistrust of the PPP has a nearly 40-year history, and the military dislikes Sharif.
Etc. Rashid is far more harsh that I was, above, on Musharraf. No doubt he is right.
9134. marjoribanks - 8/19/2008 1:29:19 PM This brief article by a member of the Bhutto clan gets to the main points with more style:
The one thing that is absolute when dealing with the dregs that run my country is this: nothing is ever as it seems. Nowhere is that more true than in the current scenario involving President Musharraf's likely impeachment by the ruling coalition.
"It has become imperative to move for impeachment," barked Benazir Bhutto's widower, Asif Zardari, at a press conference in Islamabad last week. Sitting beside the new head of the Pakistan People's party was Nawaz Sharif, twice formerly prime minister of Pakistan. Zardari snarled every time Musharraf's name came up, seething with political rage and righteousness, while Sharif did his best to keep up with the pace of things. He nodded sombrely and harrumphed every once in a while. The two men are acting for democracy, you see. And impeaching dictators is a good thing for democracies, you know.
But Nawaz Sharif and Asif Zardari are unelected. They're not just unrepresentative in that they don't hold seats in the parliament - they have absolutely no mandate in Pakistan. They head the two largest, and most corrupt, parties in the state but hold no public office. Pots and kettles. 9135. wonkers2 - 8/19/2008 11:38:43 PM Good government is a scarce commodity. 9136. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 8/20/2008 12:00:16 AM There's the rub: democracy vs. "kleptocracy"
In a a genuine democracy the cream can rise to the top, but in our new world order, the kleptocrats like Bush, Cheney, et al--shit floats! 9137. wonkers2 - 8/20/2008 12:57:43 AM HA! Very true. 9138. jexster - 8/20/2008 3:15:14 AM 9132
The ugly face of Hindu exceptionalism 9139. jexster - 8/20/2008 3:17:25 AM Oh those Bhutto's....money grubbing cricket playing plutocrats 9140. jexster - 8/23/2008 6:43:25 PM Afghanistan: US Airstrikes Kill 50 Children
How many airstrikes before these numbnuts realize that bombing is a hallmark of defeat in counterinsurgency 9141. jexster - 8/24/2008 9:01:12 AM Marji nails it
Nothin but net
Pakistain Ruling Coalition on Verge of Collapse
Guess Musharaff will have to step in and restore order or some other member of the General Staff eh? 9142. robertjayb - 9/9/2008 7:00:35 PM Is Il ill?
WASHINGTON — (AP) - Intelligence officials are watching signs that North Korea's unpredictable dictator Kim Jong Il may be gravely ill.
Incapacity of the man North Koreans call the "Dear Leader" would have serious implications for the international effort to get North Korea to abandon nuclear weapons.
There was no sign of Kim at a parade and celebration today marking the 60th anniversary of North Korea's founding, and the country's state media was silent about his absence. His last reported public appearance was in mid-August.
9143. concerned - 9/9/2008 11:06:14 PM Looks like another Bush foreign policy success in the offing with NK. 9144. concerned - 9/9/2008 11:08:46 PM Green activists 'are keeping Africa poor'
Hey, they’re just ‘respecting African traditions’, aren’t they? Can’t have dirty capitalists actually making money by exploiting Africa's farmlands, now.
9145. concerned - 9/10/2008 6:04:17 AM Well, in a multipolar world, international institutions are useful to everybody. The Bush (rather, Rumsfeld) doctrine of deliberately breaking them, on the grounds that US interests are better served by direct bilateral relations, and build-em-up and knock-em-down ad-hoc coalitions, is a historical aberration.
You have it backwards. It was Bush who insisted on multilateral negotiations with NK, and Bush also who was careful to follow UN mandates regarding Iraq, as unpopular as admitting that is on the Left.
Clowntoon was much more unilateral than Bush, most particularly in his actions regarding Kosovo where he completely shut the UN out of the decision making process.
So much for your bigotry and ignorance. 9146. alistairconnor - 9/10/2008 5:13:11 PM Looks like another Bush foreign policy success in the offing with NK.
You mean, you think he was poisoned by the CIA?
Sounds like a foreign policy plan to me. 9147. anomie - 9/10/2008 5:59:18 PM I'm quite sure Kosovo was a NATO effort, and I'm not sure the UN was completely shut out either. Your comments are a good example of Republican revision of history, not to mention speaking out of both sides of your mouth - ridiculing the UN while holding hands with it. 9148. jexster - 9/11/2008 3:45:51 PM Pakistan premier backs army chief's rebuke to US
Pakistan's prime minister on Thursday backed a harsh rebuke of the U.S. by the Muslim nation's military chief, a sign of a strain in relations seven years after the Sept. 11 attacks forged the two countries' anti-terror alliance.
Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the powerful but media-shy army leader, said nearly a week after a deadly American-led ground assault in Pakistani territory that Pakistan would defend its sovereignty and that there was no deal to allow foreign forces to operate inside its borders.
He said unilateral actions risked undermining joint efforts to battle Islamic extremism.
"Reckless actions" which kill civilians "only help the militants and further fuel the militancy in the area," he said.
"The sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country will be defended at all cost and no external force is allowed to conduct operations inside Pakistan," he said in the Wednesday statement.
Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, in comments reported Thursday by state media and confirmed by his office, said Kayani's words reflected government opinion and policy.
The ground assault last week, and a barrage of suspected U.S. missile strikes in Pakistan in recent days, suggest growing American impatience with Pakistan's progress in eradicating militant safe havens in its semiautonomous tribal regions bordering Afghanistan. 9149. jexster - 9/21/2008 3:40:13 PM German Left Stands up to anti-Muslim Fascists;
Clashes in Cologne
3,000 progressives in Cologne clashed Saturday with far rightwing protesters trying to stop the building of a mosque. There are about 3.3 million Muslims in Germany, about 4 percent of the population. The Jewish population of the US is 2%, so this would be as though American rightwingers tried to stop a synagogue from being built. The far right said they were upholding the 'Western values and Christian traditions' as the heritage of Europe....I am proud of my German cousins for making a stand against this ugly recrudescence of religious bigotry and racism (the mayor of Cologne rightly used the latter word).
blahblahblah
Isn't that where we came in....Cole
Yes Juan but that is before we had socialism in one country. Before all we had was virulent nationalism. Now that we have the means to effect the motive, we can lead our German friends back to greatness Meine Freunde 9150. jexster - 9/22/2008 6:24:36 PM Guess who's coming for cocktails!!!
Russian Naval Squadron Sails for Exercise with Venezuelan Navy
Russian nuclear-powered missile cruiser Pyotr Velikiy (Peter the Great) 9151. jexster - 9/28/2008 3:16:48 AM Sarko Feasts on Uncle Sam's Corpse
MORE FRENCH TREACHERY!
PARIS - In France, President Nicolas Sarkozy says the death knell has rung for freewheeling, U.S.-style capitalism. German's finance minister calls it downright "dangerous." Even the leader of more Wall Street-friendly Britain says financiers need closer watching, maybe on a global scale.
What Europeans call, often with a hint of derision, the "Anglo-Saxon" model of capitalism — with less rules, less government and, for years, more growth — is now being called fatally flawed as the financial crisis strengthens advocates of tighter regulation of banks and financial markets in Europe.
It's a political shift that could recalibrate the economic direction of Europe as it braces and tries to survive the financial aftershocks from the earthquake that has rocked and destroyed financial institutions across the Atlantic.
France's President Nicolas Sarkozy, left, welcomes Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez at the Elysee palace in Paris, Friday, Sept. 26, 2008 9152. Marc-Albert - 9/28/2008 2:34:05 PM "Acts of piracy are on the increase off the shores of Venezuela" warns the Quai D'Orsay. "Therefore, we now advise against yatching inside Venezuelan waters"
Venezuela – Frenchman killed in attack of sailboat
"According to diplomatic sources, this is the 4th attack of this kind against French boaters inside Venezuelan waters since the beginning of the year."
The three most unsafe waters of the World:
Off Somalia
The Strait of Malacca and surrounding waters
Off Venezuela
In Hugo Chavez domnain, crime offshore is only a reflection of what goes on inshore. Caracas - capital of the Bolivarian Republic - is now one the the most dangerous cities in the world.
As would say Jexter: Keep on the good work, Hugo!
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