Musharraf declares emergency in Pakistan

[ChumpDumper]

Musharraf declares emergency in Pakistan

By MATTHEW PENNINGTON, Associated Press Writer 23 minutes ago

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Gen. Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency in Pakistan on Saturday, suspending the constitution, replacing the chief justice before a crucial Supreme Court ruling on his future as president, and cutting communications in the capital.

His leadership threatened by an increasingly defiant court and an Islamic movement that has spread to Islamabad, Musharraf's emergency order accused some judges of "working at cross purposes with the executive" and "weakening the government's resolve" to fight terrorism.

Seven of the 17 Supreme Court judges immediately rejected the emergency, which suspended the current constitution. Police blocked entry to the Supreme Court building and later took the deposed chief justice and other judges away in a convoy, witnesses said.

In an address to the nation late Saturday on state-run television, Musharraf said Pakistan was at a "dangerous" juncture, its government threatened by Islamic extremists. He said he hoped democracy would be restored following parliamentary elections.

"But, in my eyes, I say with sorrow that some elements are creating hurdles in the way of democracy," said Musharraf, who was wearing civilian clothes and spoke firmly and calmly. "I think this chaos is being created for personnel interests and to harm Pakistan."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071103/ap_on_re_as/pakistan

[LaMarcus Bryant]

If history is to serve as an example, he will soon be ousted and or executed, and the pakistani government has a large chance to be fractured with leaders that have true popular support gunning for total control.

If this happens what we should strive for is fragmentation of the Pakistani state, if that is possible with the way it goes down....

[Nbadan]

It would become very 'difficult' for the U.S. if Pakistan was led by a more pro-Islamic President...People need to start wising up, we are on the brink of regional war in Pakistan, Iraq, Iran and Turkey....we have junior diplomacy going on by Pelosi and other Congressional members, hell, even Laura Bush, because the current administration believes in putting the stick ahead of the carrot...

[Nbadan]

November 4, 2007
News Analysis
Officials See Few Options for U.S.
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG and HELENE COOPER


WASHINGTON, Nov. 3 — 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. Now the White House is stuck in wait-and-see mode, with limited options and a lack of clarity about the way forward.

General Musharraf’s move to seize emergency powers and abandon the Constitution left Bush administration officials close to their nightmare: an American-backed military dictator who is risking civil instability in a country with nuclear weapons and an increasingly alienated public.

Mr. Bush entered a delicate dance with Pakistan immediately after the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, when General Musharraf pledged his cooperation in the fight against Al Qaeda, whose top leaders, including Osama bin Laden, are believed to be hiding out in the mountainous border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

NY Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/world/asia/04assess.html?_r=2&hp=&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin)

[Nbadan]

Looks like Musharraf is ready to throw Pakistan into a civil war...

Pakistan plans all-out war on militants
By Syed Saleem Shahzad


An all-out battle for control of Pakistan's restive North and South Waziristan is about to commence between the Pakistani military and the Taliban and al-Qaeda adherents who have made these tribal areas their own.

According to a top Pakistani security official who spoke to Asia Times Online on condition of anonymity, the goal this time is to pacify the Waziristans once and for all. All previous military operations - usually spurred by intelligence provided by the Western coalition - have had limited objectives, aimed at specific
bases or sanctuaries or blocking the cross-border movement of guerrillas. Now the military is going for broke to break the back of the Taliban and a-Qaeda in Pakistan and reclaim the entire area.

ATimes (http://atimes01.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/IJ19Df01.html)

[Nbadan]

Noun + Verb + 9/11 + Iran = Democrats’ Defeat?
By FRANK RICH
Published: November 4, 2007


WHEN President Bush started making noises about World War III, he only confirmed what has been a Democratic article of faith all year: Between now and Election Day he and Dick Cheney, cheered on by the mob of neocon dead-enders, are going to bomb Iran.

But what happens if President Bush does not bomb Iran? That is good news for the world, but potentially terrible news for the Democrats. If we do go to war in Iran, the election will indeed be a referendum on the results, which the Republican Party will own no matter whom it nominates for president. But if we don’t, the Democratic standard-bearer will have to take a clear stand on the defining issue of the race. As we saw once again at Tuesday night’s debate, the front-runner, Hillary Clinton, does not have one.

The reason so many Democrats believe war with Iran is inevitable, of course, is that the administration is so flagrantly rerunning the sales campaign that gave us Iraq. The same old scare tactic — a Middle East Hitler plotting a nuclear holocaust — has been recycled with a fresh arsenal of hyped, loosey-goosey intelligence and outright falsehoods that are sometimes regurgitated without corroboration by the press.

Mr. Bush has gone so far as to accuse Iran of shipping arms to its Sunni antagonists in the Taliban, a stretch Newsweek finally slapped down last week. Back in the reality-based community, it is Mr. Bush who has most conspicuously enabled the Taliban’s resurgence by dropping the ball as it regrouped in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Administration policy also opened the door to Iran’s lethal involvement in Iraq. The Iraqi “unity government” that our troops are dying to prop up has more allies in its Shiite counterpart in Tehran than it does in Washington.

Yet 2002 history may not literally repeat itself. Mr. Cheney doesn’t necessarily rule in the post-Rumsfeld second Bush term. There are saner military minds afoot now: the defense secretary Robert Gates, the Joint Chiefs chairman Mike Mullen, the Central Command chief William Fallon. They know that a clean, surgical military strike at Iran could precipitate even more blowback than our “cakewalk” in Iraq. The Economist tallied up the risks of a potential Shock and Awe II this summer: “Iran could fire hundreds of missiles at Israel, attack American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, organize terrorist attacks in the West or choke off tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s oil windpipe.”

Then there’s the really bad news. Much as Iraq distracted America from the war against Al Qaeda, so a strike on Iran could ignite Pakistan, Al Qaeda’s thriving base and the actual central front of the war on terror. As Joe Biden said Tuesday night, if we attack Iran to stop it from obtaining a few kilograms of highly enriched uranium, we risk facilitating the fall of the teetering Musharraf government and the unleashing of Pakistan’s already good-to-go nuclear arsenal on Israel and India.

A full-scale regional war, chaos in the oil market, an overstretched American military pushed past the brink — all to take down a little thug like Ahmadinejad (who isn’t even Iran’s primary leader) and a state, however truculent, whose defense budget is less than 1 percent of America’s? Call me a Pollyanna, but I don’t think even the Bush administration can be this crazy.

Yet there is nonetheless a method to all the mad threats of war coming out of the White House. While the saber- rattling is reckless as foreign policy, it’s a proven winner as election-year Republican campaign strategy. The real point may be less to intimidate Iranians than to frighten Americans. Fear, the only remaining card this administration still knows how to play, may once more give a seemingly spent G.O.P. a crack at the White House in 2008.

Whatever happens in or to Iran, the American public will be carpet-bombed by apocalyptic propaganda for the 12 months to come. Mr. Bush has nothing to lose by once again using the specter of war to pillory the Democrats as soft on national security. The question for the Democrats is whether they’ll walk once more into this trap.

You’d think the same tired tactics wouldn’t work again after Iraq, a debacle now soundly rejected by a lopsided majority of voters. But even a lame-duck president can effectively wield the power of the bully pulpit. From Mr. Bush’s surge speech in January to Gen. David Petraeus’s Congressional testimony in September, the pivot toward Iran has been relentless.

Reinforcements are arriving daily. Dan Senor, the former flack for L. Paul Bremer in Baghdad, fronted a recent Fox News special, “Iran: The Ticking Bomb,” a perfect accompaniment to the Rudy Giuliani campaign that is ubiquitous on that Murdoch channel. The former Bush flack Ari Fleischer is a founder of Freedom’s Watch, a neocon fat-cat fund that has been spending $15 million for ads supporting the surge and is poised to up the ante for Iran war fever.

There are signs that the steady invocation of new mushroom clouds is already having an impact as it did in 2002 and 2003. A Zogby poll last month found that a majority of Americans (52 percent) now supports a pre-emptive strike on Iran to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons.

In 2002 Senators Clinton, Biden, John Kerry, John Edwards and Chris Dodd all looked over their shoulders at such polls. They and the party’s Congressional leaders, Tom Daschle and Dick Gephardt, voted for the Iraq war resolution out of the cynical calculation that it would inoculate them against charges of wussiness. Sure, they had their caveats at the time. They talked about wanting “to give diplomacy the best possible opportunity” (as Mr. Gephardt put it then). In her Oct. 10, 2002, speech of support for the Iraq resolution on the Senate floor, Mrs. Clinton hedged by saying, “A vote for it is not a vote to rush to war.”

We know how smart this strategic positioning turned out to be. Weeks later the Democrats lost the Senate.

This time around, with the exception of Mrs. Clinton, the Democratic candidates seem to be saying what they really believe rather than trying to play both sides against the middle. Only Mrs. Clinton voted for this fall’s nonbinding Kyl-Lieberman Senate resolution, designed by its hawk authors to validate Mr. Bush’s Iran policy. The House isn’t even going to bring up this malevolent bill because, as Nancy Pelosi has said, there has “never been a declaration by a Congress before in our history” that “declared a piece of a country’s army to be a terrorist organization.”

In 2002, the Iraq war resolution passed by 77 to 23. In 2007, Kyl-Lieberman passed by 76 to 22. No sooner did Mrs. Clinton cast her vote than she started taking heat in Iowa. Her response was to blur her stand. She abruptly signed on as the sole co- sponsor of a six-month-old (and languishing) bill introduced by the Virginia Democrat Jim Webb forbidding money for military operations in Iran without Congressional approval.

In Tuesday’s debate Mrs. Clinton tried to play down her vote for Kyl-Lieberman again by incessantly repeating her belief in “vigorous diplomacy” as well as the same sound bite she used after her Iraq vote five years ago. “I am not in favor of this rush for war,” she said, “but I’m also not in favor of doing nothing.”

Much like her now notorious effort to fudge her stand on Eliot Spitzer’s driver’s license program for illegal immigrants, this is a profile in vacillation. And this time Mrs. Clinton’s straddling stood out as it didn’t in 2002. That’s not because she was the only woman on stage but because she is the only Democratic candidate who has not said a firm no to Bush policy.

That leaves her in a no man’s — or woman’s — land. If Mr. Bush actually does make a strike against Iran, Mrs. Clinton will be the only leading Democrat to have played a cameo role in enabling it. If he doesn’t, she can no longer be arguing in the campaign crunch of fall 2008 that she is against rushing to war, because it would no longer be a rush. Her hand would be forced.

Mr. Biden got a well-deserved laugh Tuesday night when he said there are only three things in a Giuliani sentence: “a noun and a verb and 9/11.” But a year from now, after the public has been worn down by so many months more of effective White House propaganda, “America’s mayor” (or any of his similarly bellicose Republican rivals) will be offering voters the clearest possible choice, however perilous, about America’s future in the world.

Potentially facing that Republican may be a Democrat who is not in favor of rushing to war in Iran but, now as in 2002, may well be in favor of walking to war. In any event, she will not have been a leader in making the strenuous case for an alternative policy that defuses rather than escalates tensions with Tehran.

Noun + verb + 9/11 — also Mr. Bush’s strategy in 2004, lest we forget — would once again square off against a Democratic opponent who was for a pre-emptive war before being against it.

NY Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/opinion/04rich.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin)

[LaMarcus Bryant]

Looks like Musharraf is ready to throw Pakistan into a civil war...

Pakistan plans all-out war on militants
By Syed Saleem Shahzad



ATimes (http://atimes01.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/IJ19Df01.html)


I know this is lame optimism but if Musharraf really does lay down the law and can keep his army cohesive somehow long enough to put a blow to the militants in that area, wouldn't that be a good thing for the NATO coalition in Afghanistan?

The article itself mentions it could undermine iraqi and afghani resistance.

[PixelPusher]

Hey now, keep your eye on the ball, people! IRAN IS GOING TO HAVE NUCLEAR WEAPONS AT SOME POINT IN THE FUTURE!!!!!!!!!!!!!



...so what if Pakistan already has nukes, a comfy crib for OG al Qaeda and a secular dictatorship in danger of falling apart?

[Chief]

The real reason he called State of Emergency is because the Supreme Court was going to rule against him because he is trying to run for President while also being in Uniform and being General of Armed forces.

There's no civil war or is there going to be

It's a war against Extremists. They thrive mostly in rural Pakistan. This is all Musharaf's fault. He let the situation get out of control, Didn't do anything about it and now that the extremists are blowing up stuff, now he get's serious about it. what a goddamn joke.

He has arrested Government leaders, civil activists, protestors, politicians, judges, members of Media. There is no private news broadcasting, only PTV a.k.a. Pakistan T.V. which is guess what, run by the government. They're showing nothing but propaganda. He has thrown out all law and constitution.

He wants no one to speak badly about him, or critisize his policies or his armed forces. He's basically a dictator now.

[George Gervin's Afro]

sigh....


I'm glad we stabilized the region when we invaded iraq because this situation could cause problems.

[velik_m]

What do you call Musharaf locking up hundreds of lawyers?

A good start.

---

No matter who wins here it's going to be bad.

[Chief]

^^

lawyers, politicians esp. head of other political parties, protestors, judges, members of media. putting people on house arrest. barricading the supreme court with soldiers n barbed wire.

[clambake]

hello Bhurma

[PixelPusher]

hello Bhurma
Pakimar?

[clambake]

Pakimar?
why not? we could change the name and continue our duplicity.

[LaMarcus Bryant]

If you take the terms loosely, there already has been civil war in Pakistan for some time now; This state of emergency can be used as an umbrella for actions taken that would make the U.S. look even worse if no such state existed. We can spin this situation into a positive....The U.S. already looks bad from the emergency state declaration, but now since we "condemned" it, whatever happens is completely off our hands. The U.S. and Musharraf needs to carpe diem and throw down the gauntlet on those tribal fuckers in the north, even nuke those assholes if he has to. And if he is not ready to then this is the time for extremely coercive diplomacy on the U.S. part to make him take extreme action.

How great would that be: The U.S. would do the usual talk of condemning his actions but in their minds ready to give musharraf a collective blowjob if it quieted the extremists for at least a year or two.

[Yonivore]

The Asian Age (http://www.asianage.com/presentation/leftnavigation/news/international/big-crackdown-in-tribal-border-belt.aspx) reports that Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf has given the go-ahead for a massive crackdown in the restive tribal areas for the purpose of crushing pro-Taliban and Al Qaeda militants. To the extent that Musharaf is serious, this doesn't seem like the time for the U.S. to counteract his attempts to consolidate power.

Via Reliapundit (http://astuteblogger.blogspot.com/2007/11/breaking-musharraf-orders-military-to.html), who also links to this report (http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/subcontinent/2007/November/subcontinent_November284.xml&section=subcontinent&col=) that Musharraf is redeploying his forces from the border with India to the border with Afghanistan, and this report (http://in.reuters.com/article/topNews/idINIndia-30372520071107?rpc=401&) suggesting that the state of emergency will be lifted in two to three weeks.

Hey, could be the right kind of crackdown in Pakistan.

[clambake]

i think bush publicly calling on musharrraf to end this state of emergency is a farce.

what he says to him in private is quite a bit different.

[Nbadan]

http://images.ucomics.com/comics/tmdho/2007/tmdho071106.gif

[Nbadan]

Pakistan reality check...

"You can't be the president and the head of the military at the same time"

- Commander in chief George W Bush


During today’s White House press briefing, spokeswoman Dana Perino condemned Gen. Pervez Musharraf’s declaration of “emergency rule” in Pakistan. She said that the administration is “deeply disappointed” by the measure, which suspends the country’s constitution, and believes it is never “reasonable” to “restrict constitutional freedoms in the name of fighting terrorism”:

Q: Is it ever reasonable to restrict constitutional freedoms in the name of fighting terrorism?

MS. PERINO: In our opinion, no.

Watch it:Think Progress (http://thinkprogress.org/2007/11/05/musharraf-freedom /)


The Bush administration never suspended the U.S. Constitution; instead, it interpreted the document so broadly as to provide all the powers they desired. A look at some of the ways the White House has overstepped its constitutional powers in the name of national security:

First Amendment: In September, a federal judge ruled that the FBI’s use of secret “national security letters” to obtain citizens’ personal data from private companies for counterterrorism investigations “violate[d] the First Amendment and constitutional provisions on the separation of powers.”

First Amendment, Fourth Amendment: In Aug. 2006, a federal district court in Detroit ruled that the Bush administration’ss NSA warrantless wiretapping program was unconstitutional, violating the “separation of powers doctrine, the Administrative Procedures Act, the First and Fourth amendments to the United States Constitution, the FISA and Title III.”

Article I: Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee in June, then Attorney General Alberto Gonzales attempted to justify the administration’s detainee policy by claiming, “There is no express grant of habeas in the Constitution.” (Article I, Section 9, Clause 2 of the Contitution reads: “The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.”)

Article II: In June, House investigators revealed that Vice President Dick Cheney had exempted his office from an executive order order designed to safeguard classified national security information by claiming that he was not an “entity within the executive branch.” (Read the duties of the Vice President, outlined in Article II of the Constitution HERE.)

[Nbadan]

Bush Sees Positive Signs in Pakistan
By DEB RIECHMANN Associated Press Writer


Nov 10th, 2007 | CRAWFORD, Texas -- President Bush said Saturday that Pakistan's president has taken "positive steps" by promising to lift the state of emergency, step down as army chief and hold elections.

Bush continued his administration's approach to the crisis by refusing to pointedly criticize Gen. Pervez Musharraf. Bush dodged a question about whether Musharraf's moves, seen by many as an attempt to cling to power, are distracting from the battle against al-Qaida in Pakistan.

"I vowed to the American people to keep the pressure on them (al-Qaida). I fully understand we need cooperation to do so," Bush said after two days of meetings at his ranch with the German chancellor, Angela Merkel. "One country we need cooperation from is Pakistan."

..........

He said he still trusts Musharraf, saying the Pakistani leader aligned himself with Washington after the Sept. 11 attacks and has not given Bush reason for doubt since. In fact, Bush said, several al-Qaida leaders have been brought to justice "and that wouldn't have happened without President Musharraf honoring his word."

"I take a person for his word until otherwise," Bush said. "He made a clear decision to be with us and he's acted on that advice."

Salon (http://www.salon.com/wires/ap/2007/11/10/D8SQVO580_us_germany/index.html)

So ruthless, oppressive dictators that allied themselves with the U.S. in the war on terra are OK....- Check.

[Nbadan]

Different day...


http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/11/16/world/16pakistan.337.jpg
Pakistani riot policemen used batons against activists during a protest rally against Gen. Pervez Musharraf in Peshawar.

NY Times (http://www.nytimes.com/)

[Nbadan]

He Says Leader 'Believes in Democracy'
By Michael Abramowitz and Robin Wright


President Bush yesterday offered his strongest support of embattled Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, saying the general "hasn't crossed the line" and "truly is somebody who believes in democracy."

...

"What exactly would it take for the president to conclude Musharraf has crossed the line? Suspend the constitution? Impose emergency law? Beat and jail his political opponents and human rights activists?" asked Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a presidential candidate. "He's already done all that. If the president sees Musharraf as a democrat, he must be wearing the same glasses he had on when he looked in Vladimir Putin's soul."

...

Tom Malinowski, Washington director of Human Rights Watch, said that "it's hard to imagine how the administration will be able to achieve anything in Pakistan if the president is so disconnected from reality."

"Almost everyone in Pakistan who believes in George Bush's vision of democracy is in prison today," Malinowski said. "Calling the man who put them in prison a great democrat will only discredit America among moderate Pakistanis and give Musharraf confidence that he can continue to defy the United States because Bush will forgive anything he does.

Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/20/AR2007112002304.html?hpid=topnews)

[exstatic]

Musharraf is just Saddam II, a petty tyrant that serves our interests...for now.