There is an interesting yet deadly serious situation developing in Pakistan. Pervez Musharraf, the President of Pakistan, has been and hopefully will be in the future, a valuable ally in the war on terror. Lately however, he has taken certain anti-democratic steps in order to restore order in his country. Among other things, he has suspended the constitution thereby making public political demonstrations illegal. The political opposition leader is a politically charming woman by the name of Benezair Bhutto. Obviously, the fact that she is a woman is likely incompatible with any Taliban-style Islamic fundamentalism. This makes her an appealing figure in the mind of anyone seeking to bring modernity to the greater Islamic world. However interesting Bhutto may be as a political figure, this situation obviously puts the Bush administration the difficult position of having to choose between supporting an ally or supporting democracy. It'll be interesting to see what happens. Let’s just hope that Bhutto survives the Muslim fundamentalist assassins seeking to silence her by committing violence upon women, which by the way, is supposedly incompatible with the teachings of Islam.
5 comments:
"he has taken certain anti-democratic steps in order to restore order in his country."
You clearly have no idea what you are talking about. He took anti-democratic steps when he seized power from the democratic government in a military coup, and unless you have faith in the propoganda of a ruthless dictator the only thing that was being threatend by the pro democracy demonstrations was Musharraf himself. Chosing between an American stooge and a pro-democracy movement is never a difficult choice for Bush and company.
Look to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Uzbeckistan, Ethiopia, Palestine, Qatar, Oman, the U.A.E, Eq. Guinea, and Kazakhstan.
Yes, you got me, I don't reside in Pakistan. But I'm not just making up what I reported here out of thin air either. Musharraf is obviously doing what he can to hold on to power, but the official reason given was to bring stability and order back the street of Pakistan. In this post I didn't get into an evaluation of the veracity of the official explanation of the suspension of the constitution.
The premise of this post was to promote awareness of Bhutto who I find to be an interesting political figure in the larger Muslim world.
Musharraf has not been very successful in killing or capturing OBL who resides in his country therefore it is actually in America's interest that he fade into the background. Ergo the real question is how do we carefully prompt Musharraf to relinquish power without causing further tumult in the country.
Fair enough, still I find it interesting that Bush has only been concerned about promoting democracy in Pakistan after the fact that the U.S has been arming a dictator was splashed all over the headlines, seems like he is only trying to play politics on that front since he has not been concerned about democracy in Pakistan when that nation was not in the news. I too am very concerned about the situation getting out of control, particularly with that nation's nuclear stockpiles in the balance. However, backing a dictator is a policy that should have never been pursued. I know it is very difficult for the U.S to back out of this situation now, but perhaps that is why we should not support dictators in the first place.
Here's an idea: let's just nuke the whole middle east. No more terrorism or wars or anything to worry about and then we won't have to pay them for the right to dig up the oil that god made for us, but that he accidentaly placed in a Muslim country. After all god made the world for Christians so why should we have to pay for the right to use the oil god gave to us. Here in America if you were supposed to pay Mexicans for the right to use your Christmas present true conservatives would be mad about this. All real Americans should be outraged that we have to pay the terrorists for the right to use our own oil
Well you certainly are passionate, I'll give you that.
Believe it or not, I would actually agree with you on some of these matters. But with your presentation, you're certainly not winning over anyone who doesn't already agree with you.
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