Please back off, Benazir!

jayp/arjun: thank you for your presence on chowk. you are a continuing reminder of why, for all its problems, pakistan will always be a better place to live in than india.

hamidm: i assume you are cutting political deals in smoke-filled rooms and so have reduced your idle time on chowk.

anil/bj: thanks for reducing my ignorance a bit on the matter of indira gandhi's incarceration. perhaps in pakistan we will one day follow that great precedent and incarcerate every damn president, prime minister who has ever broken the law while in office (or, in case of dictators, while grabbing power).

yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawn!

........ let's make sheikh rashid the prime minister and be done with it ........ the man's picture is hanging from every street light in pindi and his face is plastered on every wall .......

... chalo chalo, lal haveli chalo .......

sheikh rashid zindabad !

#136 Posted by bjkumar on August 30, 2007 5:02:01 am

benazir or mushy or nawaz..it makes no difference..

different leash on the same dog...

From today's Washington Post:

An agreement between Musharraf and Bhutto would be welcomed in Washington, where Bush administration officials have been pushing for an alliance of moderates in Pakistan to battle rising forces of extremism.

Although the United States had not been actively involved in the negotiations, it had been prodding the two sides to come together and had helped to facilitate the talks, according to people familiar with the U.S. role.

Daniel Markey, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who until recently was a South Asia expert at the State Department, said a deal between Bhutto and Musharraf was the best among a set of imperfect options.

"It's a good transitional situation," Markey said. "But it's not a stable, workable setup in the long run. There's not a lot of love lost between the two of them."

Indeed, Bhutto seems to revel in casting herself as everything Musharraf is not, and vice versa. Bhutto, who served twice as prime minister in the 1980s and 1990s, has spent much of the past eight years decrying Musharraf as "a military dictator." Musharraf, who came to power in a 1999 military-led coup, has accused Bhutto of rampant corruption and has dismissed her tenure as "sham democracy."

Still, for the moment at least, the two need each other.

If the deal goes through, it would involve a dizzying array of concessions on both sides that would require numerous changes to Pakistani law, including constitutional amendments.

For Musharraf, the deal means he would get to serve another five years as president if elected for a new term by the parliament and provincial assemblies. Bhutto said it remained unclear Wednesday whether that endorsement would come from the current legislatures, which expire this fall, or from new ones that are expected to be elected this winter.

Either way, officials indicated, Bhutto will instruct her party not to try to block Musharraf's plans, provided he runs as a civilian. The election could take place as early as mid-September, meaning Musharraf would be stepping down from his army role in the next few weeks.

Musharraf needs Bhutto's popularity to give his election credibility, said Ahmed, the federal minister.

For Bhutto, the agreement would allow her to return to Pakistan and stand for election to the parliament. If her party, the center-left Pakistan People's Party, won the most seats, as projected by opinion polls, she would be in line to serve as prime minister.

Bhutto is also expected to win the dismissal of various corruption charges against her and other government officials stemming from the late 1980s and 1990s.

Although the two sides are close together on terms, various wild cards remain.

Among them is the impending return of Sharif, who has vowed not to compromise with Musharraf and has chastised Bhutto for doing so. The Supreme Court this month cleared the way for Sharif to return, despite an agreement he signed in 2000 to spend 10 years in exile in Saudi Arabia rather than serve a life sentence imposed in Pakistan.

Another unknown is how the Supreme Court would react to the deal between Musharraf and Bhutto, and whether it would strike down any of the legal changes called for in the agreement.

If the plan succeeds, Musharraf and Bhutto face the prospect of governing together. Bhutto said she anticipates Musharraf continuing to direct the nation's foreign policy but said she would expect to take control of domestic matters.

In Pakistan, however, those lines are rarely clear-cut. For instance, Bhutto said she would take a different approach in battling militancy in Pakistan, a domestic issue with vast international implications.

Musharraf's government has struck a series of cease-fire agreements with Taliban fighters in the tribal areas, but Bhutto said that approach would not continue under her leadership.

"A line in the sand has to be drawn," she said. "The past six or seven years of trying to placate them have only emboldened them."

Feroz,

Your ilog was inspiring. Your post was brutal.

Are you optimistic? I think optimism has got Pakistanis going again. The people's Pakistan is about to win it seems. Today its Musharraf... tomorrow it will be the Bhuttos and the Sharifs... and there will be "Masoomon mahkoomon" ki hukmarani.

We must push forth... till we achieve the potential that this country holds.

Pakistani fantasies have no limits, will it be mushy and nawaz with benazir or will it be only one of them in the democrazy.

Chamge in govt need to be assessed on the basis of potential changes in policies

will there be constraints on madrassas
will the number of schools go up
will the jihadic killings reduce
will the law and order situation improve
will kashmir banega pakistan
will any one answer pakistan ka matlab kya
will the military men quitt their posts in wapda and others


Nothing will chnag because what is happening in pakistan is not the result of any govt poilcies, there is none at present. It is the abduls and aishas of pakistan running the country, through a system unrelated to the laws and constitution of pakistan. Every one has found their own ways of making a living, follows their own laws. The state has withered away in pakistan, each to his own desires, each to his own means.

Rulers in a failed state are irrelevant

Re: # 132 -
'Masada Complex's writings vary depending on what he has smoked, drunk, eaten on that day'

and the champ (masada aka mustanda) dislodges all that on chowk.

Masadi ' did MAJ won a case against your g'pa or something ?'

Re: # 127
lol!

Rozaiba, I think MASADA Complex is a combination of you and Mantolives. Masada Complex's writings vary depending on what he has smoked, drunk, eaten on that day.

Looks like Mushy is pissing in his pants at the prospect of NS's return to Pakistan, therefore the almost desperate tone.

http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/aug/30sharif.htm

Sharif asked not to return to Pakistan: Musharraf
August 30, 2007 13:47 IST

Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf [Images] has said that former prime minister Nawaz Sharif had been asked by an 'eminent personality' to honour his commitment of not returning to the country before the end of his ten-year exile.

''Therefore, I also urge him to abide by the agreement,'' Musharraf told a gathering in the town of Pind Dadan Khan, south of Islamabad.

In a major setback to Musharraf last week, Pakistan's Supreme Court had allowed Sharif to return to the country.

Without naming Sharif, the Pakistan president said: ''He had entered into a written agreement with a very eminent personality, a great friend and well-wisher of Pakistan, and the said person has given him a message not to violate the agreement. He should also show character and not violate the agreement.''

According to Musharraf, Sharif had pleaded the 'eminent personality' to save him after a Sindh court awarded him a life sentence. Musharraf maintains that Sharif had gone on a ten-year exile willingly to avoid serving time in prison.

There was a need to improve the law and order situation in Pakistan before the general elections, said Musharraf. He added that it was vital for the nation to understand the threats facing it and develop political and national reconciliation.

Re: # 121 I agree with you, Shareef-Badmash has the skills to learn about democracy. He has thebasic set already (as a business man as you have pointed out)
"has the ability to listen to people and advisers around him. Second, he knows when to rely on others to deliver."

what is missing is the readyness to accpet that other s can have a valid and opposing PoV and sometimes they might not coat it with sugar.

Bibi coming from a feudal background - has all of these missing!

Re: # 126

A well written post. However having failed Senior Cambridge once, ZAB actually didn't get into Harvard or any of the UCs.

Bhutto was admitted to the University of Southern California, where he attended school with the now departed Omar Kureishi. In Junior year ZAB transferred to University of California at Berkley ...

#127 by rozaiba

i still think you are another nick of arjun_m or harish_hyd.

Kya baat hai mian? Did I set fire to your chaddis at any time? You seem pretty mad at me.

masadi writes:

"I am not useless, you are the useless one. When you are able to achieve even a tenth of the work I have done, intellectual and otherwise, then we can talk."

wow. intellectual is hardly the word that comes to mind when reading your posts. perhaps you are in a state of inebriation when writing on chowk - particularly with your baseless allegations against Mahomed Ali Jinnah. i still think you are another nick of arjun_m or harish_hyd.

Please read Dr. Mubarak Ali's 'History on Trial'. Your conspiracy friendly mind will be happy to note that it is the Islamists with their love of hijaz that became the mainstay of British propaganda in their attempt to divide the Muslims of India. Not Mahomed Ali Jinnah.

re: masadi

Z. A. Bhutto, was educated from an American university. I know that he was in United States at the same time as Ellahi Bux Soomro, who was studying engineering at that time. I am not sure though, whether Soomro went to Stanford or UCLA or Bhutto went to UCLA and not Stanford.

Bhutto had a western style edcuation from a nation that you call the worst elitist nation in the world.

So, what does that make Bhutto?

Bhutto was groomed by General Ayub Khan and it was Bhutto, who was responsible for the ill-fated Operation Grand Slam; the infilteration of Indian-held Kashmir by Pakistan, when he was in charge of the Kashmir cell of the Pakistani foreign policy. Bhutto was the foreign minister of Pakistan under Ayub Khan.

So, once more; what does that make Bhutto?

An elitist imperialistic educated stooge of the elitist western exploitive powers?

After the elections of 1970, Bhutto refused to accept the mandate of the elections, that went in favor or Mujib-ur-Rehman and the wishes of East Pakistan. After presiding over the creation of the 1973 Consitution, he watered down many of its civic rights; he involved Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence in politics by telling them to spy on his political opponents. He created a non-accountable para-military force called the Federal Security Force (FSF) and used it, like the Brown Shirts of Adolf Hitler to persecute his political opponents.

How did Bhutto "infuse" the spirit of democracy in Pakistan by setting aside the civil consitutional rights of the people, creating a non-accountable police force, spying and percecuting his political opponents and not agreeing to accept the election results of 1970?

Please explain (without name calling and hurling insults and making statements tantamount to libel and slander accusations).

Ciao