What kind of men would defy the Kings?...

What was your agenda Mr. Musharraf?

After hearing Musharraf’s speech last night, I was pondering over his words that he has made Pakistan a better place than it was in 1999. I couldn’t agree to this statement. Infact, Musharraf has created more mess than it was back in 1999 when he took charge. In 1999, it was one party in the government by mandate and Pakistan was moving forward towards democracy in a better way than it is now.

Today, we see three major parties, none sure of what and how the elections are going to be conducted. The caretaker governments are handpicked by Musharraf and his cronies and it is obvious, just like hand picked judges of the Supreme Court validated Musharraf’s presidential election, the caretakers would also care less about free and fair elections instead follow the instructions they are handed over by Musharraf. The suicide bombing issue was unheard of at that time but now it looms over all the processions and political gatherings.

Musharraf imposed emergency simply to validate his election as a president and it is very clear that no other threat was the reason of emergency. If Musharraf still insists it was because the Supreme Court was letting loose the terrorists than why are those judges still serving as judges of Supreme Court who actually gave judgments to free those alleged terrorists. It is very sad to see that the army has been used for nine years to rule and in the end it was tyrannically used to ensure Musharraf a safe exit. The army has been played into Musharraf's hands time and again and Musharraf has used it in every damn way to extend his rein. Emergency slammed on Pakistan’s face just to have a verdict which Musharraf wanted.

Heroes of the country were never treated as they were treated in Musharraf’s time specifically Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan.

Musharraf's speech clearly hinted that the derailing of the process of his election was the main idea of the emergency not caring at all what the county is going to face due to such act. In 1999, there was no situation like Baluchistan, FATA and now Swat. Musharraf should read the Hamood Rehman commission report and see what and who was the reason of East and West Pakistan split. Actions of our armed forces in Balochistan, FATA and Swat are not very different. No sanctions of such operations from our so called Parliament yet our armed forces are being used to oppress their own nation. The consequences are not going to be different than 1971 split.

Where law enforcement agencies beat up people who raise their voices for Justice....Aisa Des Hai Mera

What kind of men would defy the Kings?...

Imran's sisters roughed up and thrown in the van while protesting Imran's arrest.

'Our' dictator gets away with it

By Pepe Escobar (Asia Times)

"[Musharraf] truly is somebody who believes in democracy."
- President George W Bush

Future historians will review the Pakistan of November 2007 as a classic of soap opera geopolitics. The main plot screams "revenge". Rattled by a know-all exiled elitist (Benazir Bhutto) imposed on him by a scheming Washington, the hapless "Mush" - as President [soon to be ex-]General Pervez Musharraf is informally referred to by middle-class Pakistanis - decided not only to sing his own version of My Way but to follow his own timing.

In a little over three weeks, Musharraf proclaimed his own "surge" (aka emergency rule); sacked the Supreme Court; rounded up the usual suspects (journalists, lawyers, students, human-rights activists); kept at least 2,000 of them in custody (according to the Interior Ministry); got a puppet court to legitimize his way towards "re-election"; amended the constitution through executive order; hung up his uniform; and will become the next (civilian) president of Pakistan, with General Ashfaq Kiani replacing him as head of the army. Full Story

What kind of men would defy the King?...

Where is Pakistan?...

What kind of men would defy the King?...

Live by the sword, die by the sword. [Book of Matthew]

The general has no uniform

By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI - Since seizing power in a bloodless coup in 1999, Pakistan's President General Pervez Musharraf has promised more than once that he would shed his uniform. Now he is set to finally keep his word, likely as early as next week.

Attorney General Malik Abdul Qayyum said on Tuesday that Musharraf will resign as chief of army staff once the Supreme Court validates his victory in the presidential election of October 6. He will then be formally sworn in as a civilian president and prepare for national elections scheduled for January 8.

The October presidential election had been challenged in court, leading to hundreds of members of the judiciary being removed and the imposition of emergency rule. The new members of the Supreme Court - appointed by Musharraf - have now dismissed all petitions against the result.

The government has freed more than 3,000 people jailed since the November 3 emergency declaration and plans to release 2,000 others soon, an Interior Ministry spokesman said on Tuesday. Full Story

What kind of men would defy the King?...

Israel, the hope of the Muslim world

By Spengler

The state of Israel embodies the last, best chance for the Islamic world to come to terms with the modern world. Received wisdom in the foreign ministries of the West holds that relations with Muslims would be ever so much easier without the annoying presence of the Jewish state, which humiliates the Muslim world. Just the opposite is true. The Israeli presence in the territory of the ancient Jewish commonwealth, on land that once belonged to the Dar al’Islam, offers the single, slender hope for the future of the Muslim world, precisely because it constitutes a humiliation.

The premise of Western policy is to tread lightly upon Muslim sensibilities. That is an error of first magnitude, for Muslim sensibilities are what prevents the Islamic world from creating modern states. Islam cannot produce the preconditions for democracy in the Western sense out of its own resources.

Free elections in Muslim lands tend to hand power to fanatical despots. Why should that be true? The first premise of Western democracy, that the rights of the weakest and most despised citizens are sacred, stems from the Judeo-Christian notion of divine humility. The creator of the universe suffers along with his creatures, and bears a special love for the weak and helpless, a belief that appears absurd in Islam. Islam has no inherent concept of humility; it can only be imported to Muslim countries from the outside. Full Story @

Pakistan put in its real place

By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI - Despite President General Pervez Musharraf's international support falling fast after his imposition of virtual martial law by suspending the constitution and imposing a state of emergency, and despite visiting US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte's pleas for a return to political normalcy, the stark reality is that the only issue that matters for Washington is Pakistan's ability to fight the "war on terror" - and that under Musharraf.

The political baggage of pro-American politicians like former premier Benazir Bhutto could compromise the "war on terror", while and White House still does not see the very pro-Western Vice Chief of Army Staff, General Ashfaq Parvez Kiani, as being able to independently deliver on this front. Therefore, Negroponte's two meetings with Kiani and a 30-minute telephone conversation with Bhutto at the weekend only emphasize the concerted efforts to bring all liberal and democratic forces into line for the fight against terror. Full Story @

Pakistan Army Masses for Assault

By STEPHEN GRAHAM, The Associated Press, Saturday, November 17, 2007; 10:20 AM

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Some 15,000 Pakistani troops have massed for a major assault on Islamic militants in a scenic northern valley, whose fall has raised concern about Pakistan's ability to withstand rising extremism, the army said Saturday.

Security forces have been fighting in the Swat Valley, a former tourist destination just 100 miles from the capital, since July, when a bloody army raid on a radical mosque in Islamabad sparked a wave of militant violence.

Foreign fighters have allegedly joined the armed followers of Maulana Fazlullah, a pro-Taliban cleric in the valley, amplifying Western fears that swaths of Pakistan near the Afghan border offer an increasingly safe haven for al-Qaida.

Washington is expressing concern about rising violence in Pakistan, where well over 1,000 security forces, civilians and militants have died in the past five months. Full Story @ Washington Post

What kind of men would defy the King?...

One man can make a difference.

President Musharraf is now considered a liability by many Pakistanis including those who were of the view that Musharraf has done some good to his Country. So many incidents happened but it was not possible for the opposition to strike a blow to Musharraf’s reign probably because their ulterior motive was also to grab power and plunder as they have done time and again. Political parties and their workers along with pressure groups have done their best to break loose Musharraf’s command but no one succeeded. Then came 9^th of March when the President sent the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court home by using his invincible powers. Obviously, the President knew that there is nobody who can confront him and stand. As it is a common belief, that one man cannot make any difference but here we saw that the whole equation, Musharraf has enjoyed for years with his unsurpassing powers was blown out and this all happened because of one man. This one man thought that he can assert his rights regardless of his adversaries. This man has given us the Pakistan that probably Mr. Jinnah had left behind. We thank this man and all those who stood by him and those who lost their lives in this cause. This man has shown us that albeit in such crucial times you may have to walk alone but so long as you are on the right path you do not have to be afraid of anything. This man has proved that our courts are not here to perpetuate military regimes. We are thankful to you for giving us the strength and vision that we have been lacking. I am not worried now by the deals this establishment is making with other political parties to stay in power or extend the terms of their offices because I know that my courts are free and they will drag everything down that does not have the right to stand. As Khalif Mohammed aka Malcolm X has once said “a man who stands for nothing will fall for anything”.

What kind of men would defy the King?...

Pity The Nation

"Pity the nation that is full of beliefs and empty of religion.

Pity the nation that wears a cloth it does not weave,
eats a bread it does not harvest,
and drinks a wine that flows not from its own winepress.

Pity the nation that acclaims the bully as hero,
and that deems the glittering conqueror bountiful.

Pity the nation that despises a passion in its dream,
yet submits in its awakening.

Pity the nation that raises not its voice
save when it walks in a funeral,

boasts not except among its ruins,

and will rebel not save when its neck is laid
between the sword and the block.

Pity the nation whose statesman is a fox,
whose philosopher is a juggler,
and whose art is the art of patching and mimicking.

Pity the nation that welcomes its new ruler with trumpetings
and farewells him with hootings,
only to welcome another with trumpetings once again.

Pity the nation whose sages are dumb with years

and whose strong men are yet in the cradle.

Pity the nation divided into fragments,
each fragment deeming itself a nation."

-- Gibran Khalil Gibran
(The Garden Of The Prophet, 1934)


Photos:

1,2,3: Ultra-Orthodox Jewish men write on artillery shells and dance with Israeli soldiers as a mobile artillery unit fires into Lebanon, July 24, 2006. (REUTERS/Gil Cohen Magen)

4: Settlers from the New Tapuach Settlement steal the olive harvest of the Palestinian village of Yasuf, 3 October 2002.
5: Hebron settlers destroy the Palestinian wheat harvest at Yatta, 20 May, 2002.

6, 7, 8: Trophy photos; Israeli soldiers with Palestinian corpses.

9: Graffiti in Jerusalem ("Arabs to the Crematoria") by Shabtai Gold for Haaretz.
10: Graffiti in Hebron, 28 Dec 2002; by Christian Peacemaker Teams.
11: Gaza settlers attempt to lynch Palestinian teenager, Ziad Al-Majaydeh.

12: A mourner reacts at the funeral of IDF soldier Noam Goldman, Aug. 10, 2006. (AP Photo/Jacob Silberberg)

13: IDF soldiers stand guard as a Palestinian man and his daughters watch an Israeli bulldozer demolish their house (An-nahar, 20 Jan 2004).

14: Child holds a sign during a demonstration Jerusalem; April 14, 2004. (Enrique Marti/Associated Press)
15: Woman protests the evacuations of Jewish settlers from Gaza; Egypt Today Magazine ©2004.

16: Shimon Peres
17: Aharon Barak

18: Ehud Olmert
19: Benjamin Netanyahu

20: Yitzhak Rabin
21: Seeds of Peace

22, 23: Masked settlers burn an Israeli flag before burning it on the rooftop of a Palestinian-owned home where three Jewish settler families were squatting in the West Bank city of Hebron Friday May 5, 2006. (AP photo/Nasser Shiyoukhi)

http://lawrenceofcyberia.blogs.com/news/2006/08/pity_the_nation.html

What kind of men would defy the King?...

Shaukat, shouldn't Pakistan come first?...

When Aziz was ‘stared down’ by Rice - By Qudssia Akhlaque

ISLAMABAD, May 20: Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has been mentioned in rather uncharitable terms in US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s biography according to which when he tried to charm Dr Rice on her first trip to Pakistan in 2005, she “stared him down”.

The book titled: `Twice as Good: Condoleezza Rice and Her Path to Power’ by Newsweek Chief of Correspondents and Senior Editor Marcus Mabry has been recently launched in the United States.

Although the biography has been written by an independent journalist, the adjectives used for an incumbent prime minister appear to be unprecedented in their harshness.

Referring to Ms Rice’s first trip to South Asia in March 2005 during which she also visited Pakistan, the author writes: “Yet, when Rice sat down with Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, who fancied himself a ladies’ man, Aziz puffed himself up and held forth in what he obviously thought was his seductive baritone. (He bragged – to Western diplomats, no less – that he could conquer any woman in two minutes.)

“(He tried) this Savile Row-suited gigolo kind of charm: `Pakistan is a country of rich traditions,’ staring in (Rice’s) eyes,” a participant at the meeting recalled.

“There was this test of wills where he was trying to use all his charms on her as a woman, and she just basically stared him down. By the end of the meeting, he was babbling.”

“The Pakistanis were shifting uncomfortably. And his voice visibly changed.” Some of the foreign men, the American official said, “They don’t get it …She has a really strong will, and I think people sometimes ‘misunderestimate’ her.”

There are also references to President Gen Pervez Musharraf in the book and how Ms Rice on her first trip to the region had serious items on her agenda, including “Pakistan’s weak efforts to root out the Taliban and Al Qaeda”.

“Then there were perpetual Pakistan-India tensions with Pakistan being a nuclear power that faced its own radical Islamists, as well as having its own ‘freedom deficit’, General Pervez Musharraf having come to power in a coup before being elected in widely boycotted elections.”

The author also mentions that Ms Rice had telephoned President Musharraf to explain that Washington was signing a new nuclear pact with India.

“The deal with Delhi, like Washington’s limited moves to stop the killing in Darfur, was a profoundly realist accommodation to the world as it was (the reality of a nuclear India) rather than as it should be (the ideal of non-proliferation.),” notes the author.

What kind of men would defy the King?...

US eyes Pakistan's nuclear arsenal

KARACHI - Benazir Bhutto, just weeks after returning from years of exile to take part in the United States-sponsored master plan for her to share power with President General Pervez Musharraf, has launched a scathing attack on the general, demanding that he step down unconditionally.

"It is time for him to go. He must quit as president," the former premier was quoted as saying on Tuesday from behind the barbed wire that is keeping her under house arrest at her residence in Lahore.

The remarkable falling out between Bhutto and Musharraf since he declared a state of emergency nearly two weeks ago on the surface dashes all US hopes for a stable democratic government in Pakistan amenable to Washington's dictates in the "war on terror". Syed Saleem Shahzad

From behind a blockade

Pakistan's Benazir Bhutto tells Pervez Musharraf to quit. -From Economist.com

INVITING unhappy comparisons with Mahatma Gandhi and Mao Zedong, Benazir Bhutto, who leads the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), was foiled in her plan to lead a “long march” from Lahore to Islamabad on Tuesday November 13th. The march—in fact, a 270km journey by a motorcade—had been planned to protest against the imposition of martial law by President Pervez Musharraf on November 3rd. But a few hours before its scheduled start, Miss Bhutto was placed under house arrest for a week.

Defying an official ban, and a serious risk of terrorist attack, a convoy of several dozen PPP vehicles left Lahore for the country’s capital. But most observers remained fixed on the townhouse in Lahore—newly designated a “sub-jail” and blockaded by police—where Miss Bhutto had been detained.

In a series of surprisingly aggressive statements, she announced the end of year-long negotiations between herself and General Musharraf to share power after a general election due by January 15th. She also called for General Musharraf to quit as president. “It’s time for him to leave,” she said. “There are no circumstances in which I could see myself serving with President Musharraf.”

On the face of it, this represented a dramatic hardening of Miss Bhutto’s opposition to General Musharraf—the strength of which has been open to doubt. Miss Bhutto returned from an eight-year self-imposed exile last month after the general granted her amnesty from corruption charges relating to her two terms in power. In return, Miss Bhutto ordered her party not to quit Parliament, as every other opposition party did, when General Musharraf got himself re-elected as president last month.

Even after General Musharraf suspended the constitution on November 3rd, it has been hard to know which side Miss Bhutto was on. While thousands of other opposition party members were arrested, the PPP’s supporters were initially left at large. That changed somewhat on November 9th, when police foiled Miss Bhutto’s attempt to hold another protest rally, in Rawalpindi. Thousands of PPP supporters were arrested and Miss Bhutto was put under house arrest for the first time—but only for a day.

Still doubting her oppositionist zeal, other political enemies of the general, including the Pakistan Muslim League (N) party, led by Nawaz Sharif, an exiled former prime minister, refused to join her long drive to Islamabad. Most of them have said they will boycott the election which General Musharraf has promised will still be held in January. On Monday Miss Bhutto said the PPP might take the same step.

Insiders say that trusted advisers of Miss Bhutto and the general will meet on November 13th to try to salvage at least a possibility of future co-operation between the pair. Yet Miss Bhutto seems close—at least—to concluding that this is no longer in her interests. It is not hard to see why.

According to the broad terms of the hypothetical power-sharing deal, General Musharraf would quit his role as army chief and guarantee Miss Bhutto a free and fair election. If the PPP proceeded to win this—as Miss Bhutto believes it would—the party would support General Musharraf as a strong, civilian president. And Miss Bhutto would hope to serve a third term as prime minister.

But since his recent power-grab General Musharraf has appeared minded to honour neither the terms of this putative agreement nor his basic constitutional obligations. He launched his coup—as he has all but admitted—in order to forestall a possibility that the country’s Supreme Court judges might declare his presidential re-election to have been illegal, because he was a serving soldier at the time. He has since sacked most of the Supreme Court's judges, including the chief justice, Iftikhar Chaudhry, who is also under arrest. “Nobody is above the law, ladies and gentleman,” he told journalists on Sunday, in reference to Pakistan’s most senior judge.

General Musharraf said that the general election may be held on January 9th. But he has not suggested when he might restore the constitution and withdraw the draconian provisions of the current emergency: including bans on private television news channels and on political gatherings. This has raised a fear, in the PPP and everywhere, that the election campaign—or the vote itself—might be held under these conditions. Such an election would be a farce—as, to varying degrees, were the four previous ones held under General Musharraf.

His bridges burned, Musharraf has nowhere to turn

Pakistan's Musharraf era could be in its death throes with the general facing a united domestic opposition and increasing scepticism from the US, writes Mark Tran - Guardian UK

With pressure mounting on him at home and from abroad, the chances that General Pervez Musharraf will survive politically are looking increasingly bleak.

The prospects of a power-sharing deal with the opposition leader Benazir Bhutto that would have enabled Musharraf to cling on to power as president are diminishing rapidly. The more pressure Musharraf is applying on Bhutto, the more she is pushing back.

Today, as she was put under house arrest for the second time in five days, the opposition leader moved closer to a clean break with Musharraf.

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For the first time, Bhutto called on him to resign as president altogether, adding for good measure that she could never serve in a government under him. Anyone associated with the general, she said, "gets contaminated".

For a government rather sensitive to criticism, as the Daily Telegraph found to its cost, such words will hardly be appreciated. More ominously for Musharraf, Bhutto now says she will work with the rest of the opposition, including the exiled former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, to restore democracy.

Should Bhutto decide to throw her lot in with the opposition, Musharraf will be in real trouble. Until now he could count on a divided opposition of those who were willing to accept him as president, and those who wanted him to quit the scene altogether.

Many in the opposition were critical of Bhutto's willingness to strike a Faustian pact with Musharraf whereby he would give up his post as head of the army to remain president and she would breeze into the job of prime minister. Even members of Bhutto's Pakistan's People's party (PPP) disapproved of her negotiations with Musharraf.

Musharraf's decision to declare emergency rule looks like an increasingly costly miscalculation. Few accept the rationale that it was aimed at extremists, and most believe that the real target was a supreme court increasingly willing to stand up to the government. Moreover, the result has been to unite the opposition against the president.

Meanwhile, the Commonwealth has given Musharraf an ultimatum to restore the constitution or face expulsion from the organisation. This threat from a largely powerless organisation is hardly likely to make Musharraf quake in his boots, but the move serves to underline his isolation.

The two constituencies that really count for Musharraf are the army and the US. He may brush aside huffing and puffing from the Commonwealth and Westminster, not so statements from Washington.

The Bush administration has been hedging its bets. While calling for a restoration of democracy, the White House has praised Musharraf as a valuable ally against Islamist militancy in his own country and across the border in Afghanistan.

Of course there have been complaints. The US criticised Musharraf's decision to call a truce with militants in the border region, which allowed them to regroup, and there has been griping that Pakistan was not doing enough to block Taliban forces from infiltrating Afghanistan from Pakistani territory.

Despite such caveats, the US regards Musharraf, who decided after 9/11 that Pakistan must side with the Bush administration, as the better devil. But as his stock plummets, the US will at some point see him as a liability rather than an asset.

There are already whispers in the US that it would be better off with General Ashfaq Kiani, who was picked last month by Musharraf as deputy chief of staff of the army. Kiani is widely viewed as Musharraf's likely successor as head of the armed forces.

In an interesting twist, the Los Angeles Times reported last month that Kiani had been a key intermediary in talks with Bhutto as the former opposition leader and Musharraf tried to work out their power-sharing deal. Previously in charge of investigating assassination attempts against the president, Kiani is considered a moderate and is well-regarded by US officials.

Kiani is said to favour a more "professional" armed forces that remain in barracks and keeps out of politics - although this would go against Pakistan's history of military meddling in politics. Even if Kiani is flavour of the month in Washington, the difficulty for the US and Pakistan will be to manage the transition to a post-Musharraf era.

What kind of men would defy the King?...

Musharraf, shouldn't Pakistan come first?...

Derailing a deal

October 7 2007 - By Noam Chomsky

NUCLEAR-armed states are criminal states. They have a legal obligation, confirmed by the World Court, to live up to Article 6 of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which calls on them to carry out good-faith negotiations to eliminate nuclear weapons entirely. None of the nuclear states has lived up to it.

The United States is a leading violator, especially the Bush administration, which even has stated that it isn't subject to Article 6.

On July 27, Washington entered into an agreement with India that guts the central part of the NPT, though there remains substantial opposition in both countries. India, like Israel and Pakistan (but unlike Iran), is not an NPT signatory, and has developed nuclear weapons outside the treaty. With this new agreement, the Bush administration effectively endorses and facilitates this outlaw behaviour. The agreement violates US law, and bypasses the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the 45 nations that have established strict rules to lessen the danger of proliferation of nuclear weapons.

Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, observes that the agreement doesn't bar further Indian nuclear testing and, "incredibly, ... commits Washington to help New Delhi secure fuel supplies from other countries even if India resumes testing." It also permits India to "free up its limited domestic supplies for bomb production." All these steps are in direct violation of international nonproliferation agreements.

The Indo-US agreement is likely to prompt others to break the rules as well. Pakistan is reported to be building a plutonium production reactor for nuclear weapons, apparently beginning a more advanced phase of weapons design. Israel, the regional nuclear superpower, has been lobbying Congress for privileges similar to India's, and has approached the Nuclear Suppliers Group with requests for exemption from its rules. Now France, Russia and Australia have moved to pursue nuclear deals with India, as China has with Pakistan — hardly a surprise, once the global superpower has opened the door.

The Indo-US deal mixes military and commercial motives. Nuclear weapons specialist Gary Milhollin noted Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's testimony to Congress that the agreement was "crafted with the private sector firmly in mind," particularly aircraft and reactors and, Milhollin stresses, military aircraft. By undermining the barriers against nuclear war, he adds, the agreement not only increases regional tensions but also "may hasten the day when a nuclear explosion destroys an American city." Washington's message is that "export controls are less important to the United States than money" — that is, profits for US corporations — whatever the potential threat. Kimball points out that the United States is granting India "terms of nuclear trade more favourable than those for states that have assumed all the obligations and responsibilities" of the NPT. In most of the world, few can fail to see the cynicism. Washington rewards allies and clients that ignore the NPT rules entirely, while threatening war against Iran, which is not known to have violated the NPT, despite extreme provocation: The United States has occupied two of Iran's neighbours and openly sought to overthrow the Iranian regime since it broke free of US control in 1979.

Over the past few years, India and Pakistan have made strides towards easing the tensions between the two countries. People-to-people contacts have increased and the governments are in discussion over the many outstanding issues that divide the two states. Those promising developments may well be reversed by the Indo-US nuclear deal. One of the means to build confidence throughout the region was the creation of a natural gas pipeline from Iran through Pakistan into India. The "peace pipeline" would have tied the region together and opened the possibilities for further peaceful integration.

The pipeline, and the hope it offers, might become a casualty of the Indo-US agreement, which Washington sees as a measure to isolate its Iranian enemy by offering India nuclear power in exchange for Iranian gas — though in fact India would gain only a fraction of what Iran could provide.

The Indo-US deal continues the pattern of Washington's taking every measure to isolate Iran. In 2006, the US Congress passed the Hyde Act, which specifically demanded that the US government "secure India's full and active participation in United States efforts to dissuade, isolate, and if necessary, sanction and contain Iran for its efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction."

It is noteworthy that the great majority of Americans — and Iranians — favour converting the entire region to a nuclear-weapons free zone, including Iran and Israel. One may also recall that UN Security Council Resolution 687 of April 3, 1991, to which Washington regularly appealed when seeking justification for its invasion of Iraq, calls for "establishing in the Middle East a zone free from weapons of mass destruction and all missiles for their delivery."

Clearly, ways to mitigate current crises aren't lacking.

This Indo-US agreement richly deserves to be derailed. The threat of nuclear war is extremely serious, and growing, and part of the reason is that the nuclear states — led by the United States — simply refuse to live up to their obligations or are significantly violating them, this latest effort being another step toward disaster.

The US Congress gets a chance to weigh in on this deal after the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Nuclear Suppliers Group vet it. Perhaps Congress, reflecting a citizenry fed up with nuclear gamesmanship, can reject the agreement. A better way to go forward is to pursue the need for global nuclear disarmament, recognising that the very survival of the species is at stake.

Noam Chomsky is a professor of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the author, most recently, of Hegemony or Survival Americas Quest for Global Dominance.

Article published in Khaleej Times.

The King sweats profusely...cold sweat perhaps

The General Must Go

Pervez Musharraf has become an obstacle to U.S. interests in Pakistan - and to Pakistan's interests as well.

Washington Post Editorial November 11, 2007

UNDER PRESSURE from President Bush, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf announced Thursday that he would hold elections for Parliament by Feb. 15. His government has said it will end a state of emergency within a month. But the general's security forces continue to detain thousands of activists from the country's secular political parties, judiciary and human rights groups, while violently breaking up protests and keeping independent television stations off the air. Despite his promises to Washington and back-channel negotiations with opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, Mr. Musharraf has not altered the course he embarked on last weekend when he suspended the constitution. He still intends to dictate his own continuance in power and to curtail the influence of the country's moderate political elite -- the judges, journalists, human rights activists and secular politicians who ought to be his army's allies in a war against Islamic extremists.

Mr. Bush has hesitated to withdraw U.S. support for Mr. Musharraf; his administration is understandably concerned about the destabilization of a nuclear-armed Muslim country. The Pentagon places a high priority on helping the Pakistani army combat a growing insurgency by the Taliban, al-Qaeda and their allies. Yet Mr. Musharraf's insistence on fighting rather than working with the country's civilian political center dooms the battle against extremism. After his first coup, in 1999, the general also promised elections: The result was a blatantly rigged ballot that excluded Ms. Bhutto and other centrist leaders and boosted militant Islamic parties. It is likely that the election he now promises would be similarly manipulated. Though his government pledges to lift emergency rule, it clearly does not intend to restore the rule of law, which would mean reinstating the Supreme Court judges whom Mr. Musharraf has illegally placed under arrest. Full Story

What kind of men would defy the King?...

Jemima Khan sets her tigers on the tyrant

Jemima Khan talks exclusively to The Sunday Times, UK about why emergency rule in Pakistan has forced her ex-husband to go on the run and how their sons are joining his cause

Early last week a strange number flashed up on Jemima Khan’s mobile phone. Puzzled, she picked up the call to hear a familiar voice on the other end saying urgently: “Jem, it’s me.”

It was her exhusband Imran Khan, the Pakistani cricket captain turned politician, who has been on the run since security forces tried to put him under house arrest last weekend. The brief call – terminated abruptly so as not to be traceable – was to reassure her and their two sons that he was safe. “It was like hearing a ghost,” she says, laughing with relief. “He’s fine. Obviously he’s outraged but he’s safe, thank God.”

Imran was at his father’s home in Lahore – where he and Jemima lived for the first five years of their marriage – when President Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency, ostensibly because “terrorists” were threatening his presidency.

Musharraf’s critics believe it was an attempt to preempt a Supreme Court judgment that would have declared his recent reelection as president invalid. For months the president has been at daggers drawn with the judiciary, which prides itself on being a neutral and secular upholder of Pakistan’s constitution. Full Story By Margarette Driscoll

Bankrupt relationship

Despite George W Bush's rhetoric about freedom, the struggle against terrorism is provoking a reaction familiar from the Cold War and nowhere is that clearer than over Pakistan.

In the old parlance, General Pervez Musharraf is "our sonofabitch". He has failed to stamp out extremist groups and close the madrassas that inspire them. He has allowed the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan to fall into the hands of assorted jihadis. And he has sacked independent-minded judges for fear that the Supreme Court declare illegal his re-election as president last month.

Yet, despite this combination of incompetence and brutality, America and Britain continue to back him as head of what has a strong claim to be the most dangerous country in the world.

In order to broaden the government's political base, their plan is for the general to doff his army uniform later this month and enter into a power-sharing arrangement with Benazir Bhutto, leader of the Pakistan People's Party, after general elections in February.

If that ever comes to pass, it will bring together a soldier whose popularity has plummeted and a politician whose standing has been undermined by her willingness to cut a deal with him. And the prospects for its lasting are slim: Miss Bhutto and the military are like oil and water. In short, the relationship between Gen Musharraf and the West is bankrupt. Valued as an ally after 9/11, he is now part of the problem. Under his dictatorship, Pakistan has become an increasingly ungovernable country in which moderate, secular forces have been sidelined to the advantage of the Islamists.

An alternative – an alliance between General Ashfaq Pervez Kiyani, the army chief designate, and Miss Bhutto's secular rival, Nawaz Sharif – seems neither imminent nor especially enticing. But that should not blind Britain and America to the fact that their "sonofabitch" in Pakistan is a spent force.

Article by three expelled journalists of the Telegraph. Link

Comment: Musharraf has a lot of respect for himself but why doesn’t he react to instances when Pakistan is seen as most corrupt, most dangerous, failed state and a country without a constitution etc…shouldn’t Pakistan come first?

Mr Musharraf, graveyards are full of indispensable people

Law enforcement agencies are perceived to be the most corrupt institutions in Pakistan, survey conducted by Transparency International. Earth Quake Relief Fund given to Army with condition that there wouldn't be any accountability of the Army with respect to allocation of the Fund.

Deaths due to Basant celebrations year after year after year. Internet Café scandal of Rawalpindi which lead to suicides committed by some of the girls involved. Sugar Cartel’s heavy gains affecting the poor the most. Cement Cartel leading to unfair gains and affecting the whole construction business. Stock Exchange debacle where cronies enjoyed huge profits at the expense of small traders.

Mukhtaran Mai and Dr. Shazia’s despoil and no recourse available to them at all and Executive’s statement to a foreign press that nowadays in order to seek asylum to western countries one claims that she’s been raped.

Countrymen’s desperation over government’s indifference to publication of cartoons of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). Pakistan Steel Mill’s privatisation scam exposed by the Supreme Court.

Uprising in Balochistan and Bugti’s death, Waziristan insurrection and killing of the locals by the Army without sanctions from the Parliament.

Eagerness of the government to amend the Hudood Ordinance. Three eids celebrated every Ramadan in our Country.

Reference against the Chief Justice of Supreme Court and manhandling of the Press. Wasi Zafar’s eccentricity, zeal to teach English to others and abusive language against a journalist on the media.

May 12^th bloodbath in Karachi thanks to MQM and Sindh government for the sake of pleasing the Top Man.

Nawaz Sharif sent back to Jeddah without giving consideration to Supreme Court’s decision (another contempt of court). No formal inquest on the bombings at Benazir’s rally.

Army operation in Swat and scores of our soldiers either missing in Northwestern Frontier or surrendered to fight USA's proxy war against their fellow men.

The imposition of the Emergency to preempt Supreme Court's judgement against your election of Octber 6, curb on the media and amendment of the Army Act of 1952 that can try civilians on charges such as giving statements conducive to public mischief.

Your attempts to get an approved verdict on your election by hand-picked judges.

How much more are you willing to destroy to have things your way?

Go Back to Sleep

Go back to sleep.
Yes, you are allowed.
You have no Love in your heart,
go back to sleep.
His Love and his sorrow
are exclusive to us,
you go back to sleep.

I have been burnt
by the fire of the sorrow of Love.
You have no such yearning in your heart,
go back to sleep.

The path of Love,
has seventy-two folds and countless facets.
Your love and religion
is all about deceit and hypocrisy,
go back to sleep.

We put ourselves in Love's hands,
and will wait for her bidding,
since you are in your own hands,
you can go back to sleep.

I consume nothing but pain and blood,
and you, the finest delicacies;
and of course after each feast,
you may want to take a nap.
So just go back to sleep.

I have torn to pieces my robe of speech,
and have let go of the desire to converse.
You who are not naked yet,
go back to sleep.

~Rumi

Voice from House Arrest: Don't Let Pakistan Follow Burma

Asma Jehangir's interview to Afsin Yurdakul

‘’I can’t speak for too long on the phone,’’ Asma Jahangir said in a calm, determined tone, ‘‘the military might cut it off.’’ Nonetheless, Pakistan’s leading human rights lawyer and activist accepted my offer of a phone interview this morning. She spoke from her home, where she was being held under house arrest, via the one phone line that the Pakistani police had somehow forgotten to cut off.

She spoke quickly, not because she was nervous, but because she wanted to tell the world as much as she could about what is really going on behind the scenes of Pakistan’s current political turmoil. She said the electronic media is completely shut down, and satellite dishes have been removed from the supermarket shelves, ostensibly by the military, to prevent people from getting or spreading any information about the state of emergency.

Jahangir urged the world not to turn a blind eye to violations of democracy and free speech in Pakistan, and called for maximum international pressure on General Pervez Musharraf.

However, as she was telling me that these are defining moments for her country’s future, the police interjected, and we lost the connection. I called back immediately. A male voice answered (she had been home alone only moments before) and told me that ‘she was not allowed to talk anymore,’ because ‘she was with the police.’ At the moment I have no information regarding her status.

I originally conducted this interview for Turkey’s NTV-MSNBC news portal, where it was published this morning in Turkish. I worry that the interview itself, intended as a chance for her to speak freely, is in fact a chilling example of the ban on free speech in Pakistan today.

Afsin Yurdakul: What is daily life like for you under house arrest?

Asma Jahangir: For me it has been very busy. I have been writing a lot, I have been receiving news, I have been watching with great anguish how my lawyer colleagues have been beaten up. And, so, for me it is far better than what has been difficult for most of the people in this country. Hundreds and thousands of lawyers have been dragged to jail and a lot of violence has been perpetrated on them. Judges and seniors of the upper courts have been put under house arrest. There is a kind of uncertainty in the air. People are uncomfortable, people are worried. The activists are all out. There is no electronic media, only state-controlled media. So information is slow. People are running to the shops to buy satellite dishes, some of which have sold out. Police are taking the rest away from the shops. So, the government is really coming down hard on trying to ensure that people don’t get any kind of information. And yet, the opposition and the protests are not stopping, though they certainly came down because the leaders are in jail. But the intensity of these protests are there.

A.Y: Is it OK to give a phone interview under house arrest ?

A.J: Normally it would not be ok, but they somehow left one of my land lines open. Sometimes they cut it off and sometimes it is working. Whenever the phone rings, I take the opportunity to speak. I was just told that I can’t leave the house, no one can come and see me. Nobody is allowed inside the house and I am by myself.

A.Y: I would like you to give us some background information about the political turmoil at the moment…

A.J: I can’t speak for too long on the phone, because the military cuts off the phone after three minutes. Well, we have been under dictatorship. We know what it is to be under dictatorship. And the transition from the military to the political forces has not yet been completed in our country. General Musharraf kept promising that he is going to leave the post of Army Chief. He now promised, not only in court but also publicly, that he will leave one post or the other - which he has no intention to do. And as the time goes by, he tries other strict measures to put the country under martial law. People are not going to accept this because there is more awareness.

A.Y: How has the state of emergency changed the dynamics in the country?

A.J: Well, for one, there are no courts. All the judges are under house arrest. They have put in new judges but the lawyers have refused to appear before them.

And secondly, there is no electronic media. So people don’t know, not even BBC, CNN, so people don’t know what is happening in Pakistan, and the rest of the world. It is heavily censored.

The stock market has crashed. So people are very fearful and very [worried.] There are protests, there are traffic jams, a lot of police, which [are using] batons, tear gas...

A.Y: Any message you would like to give to the world, given there is very little media access right now?

A.J: Yes, I think that it is now time for the world to start accepting that dictatorship cannot be excused under any pretext or the other. And it is best not to let it go down to a level where we all become Myanmar, and come to the stage of Burma. That prevention should be taken now. They should have zero tolerance for this.

A.Y: What do you think General Musharraf's motive for declaring the emergency was? Is he taking refuge in this?

A.J: Well, I think General Musharraf could take any decision to keep himself in power. He has no care for the people, he does not care about the country. The only person he cares for is himself and the power that he has.

A.Y: And, how do you see the political future of your country?

A.J: Well this is a very defining moment and it is....

The line cuts off, and I call again. A male voice answers.

A.Y: Hello, can I speak with Ms. Jahangir?

Male Voice: Not allowed to!

A.Y: Is she there?

Voice: No.

A.Y: Is she with the police?

Voice: Yes, police, yes.

A.Y: Is the police there?

Voice: Yes, the police has her.

Afsin Yurdakul is a reporter and editor for Turkish news portal NTV-MSNBC's World News Desk.

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Pakistan to America: Keep Out

By Bashir Goth from Post Global

I agree with David Ignatius’ conclusion in his latest column that “…changing Pakistan is a job for Pakistanis, and history suggests that the more we meddle, the more likely we are to get things wrong.” In the Muslim world, it is history that shapes people’s perceptions of political situations. Unlike people in the West, who view emerging political scenarios through prisms of economics and of self-interest, Muslims and Arabs turn to history for explanations of western conspiracy in every situation they face.

The West thinks many of these events lie in the dust of history: the crusades, the loss of Andalusia, European colonial rule, the destruction of the Ottoman Caliphate, the debacle of Palestine, and the willy-nilly interference and changing of Muslim leaders. But these wounds are very much open and hurting in the Muslim world.

This is why when America goes east, Muslims go west. Recent U.S. military ventures into Afghanistan, Iraq, and indirectly into Somalia, and the larger war against terror, are all seen by the majority of the Muslim populace as the continuation of a war to dominate and subjugate the Muslim world.

It is therefore not incidental that President Musharraf of Pakistan, Hamid Karazi of Afghanistan, Al Maliki of Iraq and Abdillahi Yusuf of Somalia all remind their people of the disasters of Western-supported regimes of the past: Iraqi King Faisal and Nuri Said, American-groomed Baathist regimes, and the Shah of Iran.

The best scenario Washington can adopt in Pakistan is to let things sort themselves out. The less the U.S. interferes, the more comfortable Pakistanis will feel about their future.

Most Pakistanis’ hostility towards Musharraf is rooted in his support for Bush’s efforts to topple the Taliban. Any U.S. interference in Pakistani affairs at this critical juncture of their history will be unwelcome.

Supporting Benazir Bhutto and the masses protesting against Musharraf’s totalitarian rule won’t help things, either. American support for future leaders of Pakistan should be in line with the Pakistani people’s choice, even if Islamists win the upcoming elections. As developments in Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia have proven, America has lost many hearts and minds in its war against terror. If the U.S. wants any future Pakistani leader to earn a measure of legitimacy, it must adopt a hands-off policy there. That’s also the only way to return some credibility to the tarnished American values of democracy and freedom.

Even Pakistan’s die-hard anti-Islamist politicians, who once saw America as a savior, would understand the Bush Administration’s desertion of Musharraf. They might think the General has dug his own grave by putting too much faith in America, against the strong anti-American sentiments of his people.

If America handles Pakistan wisely, its actions may also have lasting repercussions on other hot spots in the Muslim world - particularly Somalia, where an Ethiopian-supported occupation is nearing collapse. That collapse could herald a period of chaos and instability for the entire Horn of Africa.

Post Global encourages users to analyze, comment on and even challenge washingtonpost.com's articles, blogs, reviews and multimedia features. For comments.