Not sure why Indians are going into paroxysms of outrage at Musharraf’s remark. He has made so many outrageous comments over the years. It was under him that Kargil happened which he claims as a victory. It was under him that an Indian Airlines flight got hijacked and the hijackers and their friends walked free to commit more terrorism. It was under him that Al Qaeda was given shelter by the Taliban and plotted 9/11. It was under him that Pakistani Army personnel had to be flown out of Kunduz before the US war began. It is under him that Daniel Pearl got killed and he said "journalists should not be so nosy" or st. It is under him that Bin Laden and Al Zawahiri live in Pakistan. It is under him that Punjabi/Sindhi mass murderers of Laskhar e Taiba have been beheading and mutilating Kashmiri villagers, Muslims and he defends the mass murderers to the Western media as being ’freedom fighters’.

Rape is a crime of power. If the rapist is from your power base, you will likely defend him to protect your power. If you consider yourself and your institution synonymous with your country’s interests and if NGOs undercut your power by publicising rape cases thus committed, you call them anti-national and call the raped women dishonest.

It’s that simple. BJP/VHP and their supporters are doing it to protect the rapists in their power base. Congress, Communists, Mulayam, Laloo have done it to protect the murderers in theirs.

Musharraf is doing it to protect the rapists in his power base which includes the Army and to protect his international ’image’ which he considers to be a source of his power. NGOs raising Pakistani women’s issues abroad are a major threat to his image abroad. Raped women who go abroad and publicise their cases are a major threat to his image abroad.

He went too far while defending his power base and his image(as opposed to doing his self-appointed job of protecting raped women) to a Western journalist because for some reason he forgot that reality outside Pakistan is not controlled by him. Duh. In this same US trip, he also demanded that India hand over multiple districts of J&K to Pakistan.

In disconnectedness and preoccupation with image(both to the point of an appearance of idiocy) Musharraf is a lot like GW Bush dealing with N Orleans and Katrina aftermath.