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Ahh Freedom Is On The Goosestep Again!

Nov 6, 2007
By .
Politics & Current Events

I'm sure you're all aware of the horrible mess in Pakistan (where our favorite dictator (non Sadaam category) Pervez Musharraf has declared martial law and arrested half of the Supreme Court.) The media coverage of this event has been curious. Because Pakistan is our good friend in the Police Action on Terror (despite not being anything close to democratic, and treating women like 3rd class citizens, oh and taking over $10 billion since 9/11 to do not a whole lot against Al Qaeda) official comments have been somewhat muted, and privately everyone has admitted that there is no way we will cut any funding from this dictatorship.

So once again, the US supports a dictatorship (who admits that they have jailed 2,500 people in the past 4 days, although the opposition says the number could really be double that) hoping to leverage it in a fight against extremists. Has that ever worked? Musharraf should just change his title to Shah now.

The interesting thing to me is the lack of protest from the Pakistani people. They clearly don't care for Musharraf (popular leaders rarely cancel elections, or fire judges) and yet the main protestors are lawyers, and opposition parties. The people of Pakistan are too used to military rule, I guess.

PS – Kudos to Denmark for being the only country willing to call Musharraf's power grab what it is, and suspend all aid to this new age banana republic.

Last 5 posts by Ezra

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  1. Ken  •  Nov 6, 2007 @2:35 pm

    Ah, Ezra, here I worried you would hold back. :)

    Yeah, it's hard to overhype this one. If you want a scary statement of totalitarian excuses, check out the text of the emergency order.

    some members of the judiciary are working at cross purposes with the executive and legislature in the fight against terrorism and extremism, thereby weakening the government and the nation's resolve and diluting the efficacy of its actions to control this menace.

    … there has been increasing interference by some members of the judiciary in government policy, adversely affecting economic growth in particular.

    Now we hear that rhetoric all the time here. It's just there they use it as an excuse to actually impose martial law and imprison judges.

    This raises an interesting question that I was far too chicken to post, because it is too complicated: how do we balance embracing tyrants vs. not embracing them? Clearly some times it is in our short-term tactical interest. But long-term strategic forecasts are grim.