Of Carnage and Triumph

Re: # 63

I agree.

BB was always under pressure of the khakhis. These khakhis are the real bastards responsible for the collapse of civilian structures. Corruption has been part and parcel of the bureaucracy since the days of zimmi-dari system- the zimmidar and his munsifs and the rest always pocketed a part of the public goods, taxes and penalties.

Corruption is a problem of bad governance, and can be fixed by removing the archaic colonial policies of suppression of citizens through inspector raj.

Removing BB and replacing with Mushy did not remove the inspector raj and the colonial structures of supression remain within governmental machinery.

If corruption is an issue then let it be fought out in the public through democracy- debate it and expose the corrupt publically but that does not warrant intervention by any military. Military has no locus standi to intervene. In fact these khakhis from ayub to zia to musharaff should be shot dead publically for treason.

If any one had the locus standi to depose BB - it was the public through elections. Only democracy can fix itself - because the machinery of democracy ensures that self correction takes place.
By constant intervention the khakhis collapsed good civilian democracy and replaced it with a monster that has ensured that mullahs become powerful.
Let BB come and I am sure these mullahs would be made to work for a living .
She would ensure that they remain within their limits and do turn into some who dreams of turning the world into a war between kafirs and momeens.
Let these mullahs do some good hard labour - they need to justify their place in this world through that and not through some lectures on dooms day.

Re: # 57 Romair will not be liked by many as he is putting things as there no massaging of facts and straight forward. People have gone tired of this drama/ farce and people will loose interest in heronite of this commedy /tragedy , General hero has already lost his appeal, only America will write how this commedy/tragedy concludes
There only two hopes
1. courts may disqualify general ( hero disqualification)
2. Courts may decide to put white wash corrouption (heroine in trouble)ordinance as not leagal as constiitution does not allow hiding of corrouption.
I do not know law related things but person like YLH needs to give his opinion from lawyer point of view.
If this happens then producers mrs Rice Bush may dismiss both hero and heroine.
Actually only party never ruled is religious party as USA is aftraid of them is wrong. Actually they can control even better look at conservative religious regimes of arab regime. If america becomes too tired of nondeliverance they will go to MMA and they can do better job of controlling borders. This bunch is sure not pretty but they get blamed for things , they never had power to call shots.
The fate of country is in hands of CJ and other judges.

Old leash for an older dog...

Backstage, U.S. Nurtured Pakistan Rivals’ Deal
By HELENE COOPER and MARK MAZZETTI

WASHINGTON, Oct. 19 — To lay the groundwork for Benazir Bhutto’s return to Pakistan, some of the highest ranking officials in the Bush administration lavished attention on her as they worked to broker a power-sharing arrangement between Ms. Bhutto and her longtime rival, President Pervez Musharraf.

But the violence that greeted Ms. Bhutto on her return after eight years in exile and the finger-pointing between her camp and General Musharraf’s after the attack on her motorcade on Thursday has raised questions about whether the tenuous deal that the United States helped midwife can survive.

Bush administration officials on Friday publicly played down the potential for a deepening rift between General Musharraf and Ms. Bhutto, pointing out that the opposition leader herself had praised the rescue efforts of Pakistan’s security forces after Thursday’s attack and that General Musharraf had called Ms. Bhutto to make sure she was safe after the blast.

On Friday, American officials acknowledged that there was no clear basis for confidence that the two leaders could work cooperatively. Now that Ms. Bhutto has returned to the country, they acknowledged that their control over events was limited, as Thursday’s bombing showed.

“There’s really not much left to say or do at this point,” one Bush administration official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to publicly discuss American policy on Pakistan. “But there’s no clear indication that there is a foundation for both sides to work together cooperatively.”

Ms. Bhutto used her time in exile to nurture influential connections within Washington’s power corridors. Still, the Bush administration had long kept her at arm’s length, in large part out of deference to General Musharraf, who cast his lot with the White House after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Two years ago, Ms. Bhutto could not even get the State Department’s top official for South Asia to show up at a dinner party in her honor. (A desk officer in charge of Pakistan was sent instead.)

But in recent months that began to change. The American courtship of Ms. Bhutto included a private dinner and a jet ride with Zalmay Khalilzad, the American ambassador to the United Nations, and, over the last month, several telephone calls to Ms. Bhutto from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

“The Bush administration for a long time decided that the only telephone number in Pakistan they were going to call was Musharraf’s,” said Husain Haqqani, a former adviser to Ms. Bhutto and a professor of international relations at Boston University. “But Bhutto made it clear to them that her phone number was available to call anytime.”

In turning back to Ms. Bhutto, administration officials said they acted with reluctance, after General Musharraf’s own political missteps and the mounting opposition to his military government had weakened his grip on power and threatened to plunge Pakistan deeper into turmoil.

The administration concluded over the summer that a power-sharing deal with Ms. Bhutto might be the only way that General Musharraf could keep from being toppled.

It began quietly nurturing the accord, under which Ms. Bhutto’s party did not boycott General Musharraf’s election last month, and the president issued a decree granting Ms. Bhutto and others amnesty for recent corruption charges, opening the way for her return.

Administration officials say that Ms. Rice stepped up her personal involvement last month, when it seemed possible that General Musharraf’s other political nemesis, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, would make his own bid to return to power, and upset the deal.

In addition to her conversations with Ms. Bhutto, Ms. Rice had several phone conversations with General Musharraf, including one in which she called him at 2 a.m. Pakistan time to urge him not to seize emergency powers.

John D. Negroponte, the deputy secretary of state, and Richard A. Boucher, the top State Department official for Pakistan, each went to Islamabad to press General Musharraf into the deal.

For Ms. Bhutto, years of relentless networking among America’s political, diplomatic and media elite also helped to vault her back into position to lead one of the United States’ most critical allies. “She is a networker par excellence, and she’s been keeping her contacts,” said Karl F. Inderfurth, the former assistant secretary of state for South Asia who dined across the table from her at a dinner party during her last swing through Washington, in September.

Ms. Bhutto was first introduced to America’s political power brokers in 1984, via the dinner party circuit. Peter Galbraith, whose family was friends with the Bhutto family and who at the time was on the staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, escorted the visiting Ms. Bhutto around Washington.

he also maintained her close ties to Washington during the Clinton administration, both while she was prime minister and afterward, when she was living in exile in London, Dubai and New York after being forced from power, accused of corruption. In 1998, Ms. Bhutto asked Mark Siegel, a well-connected Democratic Party operative, to set up a meeting for her at the White House with Hillary Rodham Clinton.

One close Bhutto friend described that meeting as “intimate and warm,” and as one that had touched, at Ms. Bhutto’s prompting, on Mrs. Clinton’s personal struggles in the midst of the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

So BB is the last hope!!! I think she has just used the situation cleverly to create this perception in both USA and also in some Government quarters.

How can she actually confront extremism and take Pakistan out of these troubled waters is difficult to understand. Firstly the argument that she never had real power and now she will have it. I pose a simple question, which kind of power you are talking about. Power to use army? I think President is already using it and in no way is he going to relinquish it. And if the situation could be solved through power than a military guy is a far better option.

Secondly any democratic leader is accountable to people, use of power does carry a risk of political backlash because the perception is that we are doing it for US interests and nothing else. I know that is not 100% true but it is largely true. And wesay bhee perceptions often matters more when it comes to political backlash. Let me tell you one thing here- people who were dancing in the streets were not dancing because they were thinking that with her arrival terrorism and Jihadism is going to vanish. It’s the euphoria of the daughter of Bhutto coming back. I have asked several supporters as to what do they expect from her. The remarkable answer was – nothing!! We just love Bhutto and she is his daughter.

Her support is built upon Bhutto cult not on her explicit desire to control extremism. For that matter her support mostly lies in rural areas of Sindh and Punjab and these areas do not face the problem of extremism. Extremism is largely concentrated in border area of NWFP and it is targeting mostly army and some cities not villages of Pakistan. Yes the blast took place in her procession but that was because the procession was in Karachi whereas people were from all over the country and at that point concentrated there.

The support is thus immaterial in tackling the actual problem. If you want to politically counter the problem, you need to have mass support in areas where the Jihadi culture is flourishing and also the areas which are being targeted. Both these areas are anti BB for different reasons and therefore her political support is insignificant.

Since the topic is extremism, I will not deliberate upon her feudal status and corruption record. I think that fact is being acknowledged by even those who are supporting her arrival.

Re: # 66

ahmedmadani sahib,

..... i have no doubt that corruption was rampant during benazir's government, but it was no more or no less than in any other government ...... i have been hearing people moaning and complaining about corruption even as they slip a ten rupee note to a traffic cop, cheat in the matric exam, send a 'chit' to their friend to give their nephew a job, pay off the labor inspector and the excise inspector and the income tax officer .......... corruption, like kashmir, is in our blood .........

.... i am sure some of the 'cases' against bb are justified, but i am sure many of them are also politically motivated ..... otherwise, even in a country like pakistan, where the justice system has always been the hand maiden of the government in power, they would have been able to convict asif zardari of something in the last 10 years ...... so let's not even talk about that dirty hamam in which we are all naked .....

........ the best thing musharraf can do is legalize corruption and charge a 20% surcharge on black money that goes goes back to the treasury ! ..... then let's get back to the business of returning the country to democracy by letting nawaz sharif, altaph bhai, and all other chore uchakas to come back and contest the elections ......

.... the only people who should not be allowed to stand in the elections are those who pray five times a day (3-4 is okay) and unnecessarily fast during the month of shawal .... that should disqualify the jammat-i-islami but not baitullah mehsud and maulana fazloo - for that we will have to pass a law against bestiality and pederasty ......

Re: # 68

"answer was – nothing!! We just love Bhutto and she is his daughter"

You ask a stupid question and any lay man would brush it off with a casual answer than take you seriously. If any one thinks that what the common man thinks is given by that casual answer to that stupid question then that stupid guy needs to get his head examined.
Only a man with little education would probably think that his assumption about a common man on the street get confirmed by such a casual answer to a stupid question.

Bhutto's politics aside, look at the impact of this tragedy on Pakistan. Every time such setbacks occur, the people and the country's infrastructure suffer. How is a country to advance if its political parties are constantly locked in battles? The people need to be resilient and move on forward not backward. The word “revolution” means “a turn around” --- Pakistanis need a revolution which focuses on advancement - political, technological, educational, financial…

sufi ji, political parties everywhere are contantly locked in battles. As a sufi, you are probably more comfortable with constant revolution.

bjkumar #: "The BeeB is from Sindh....have such widespread appeal?"

...very few....probably only nawaz sharif....the reason is quite simple....there is no system or mechanism for any politician to break through the feudal dominated political structure...even if someone like nawaz sharif comes up, the base of his party remains feudal, as pakistan is still a feudal country......if the "BeeB" steps aside, and someone else takes over PPP, then that individual will have equivalent appeal....which is why she will never step aside....

by the way, she would have been a nobody, had she not been zab's daughter......it is his appeal she is riding on....

"that within feudals, like within any large group, there are a variety of qualities of people."

on this one, i have to totally disagree with you....it's like saying, within rapists there might be a variety of people.....feudalism and its support, inherently, is an evil act......it is based on the exploitation of the poor person.......

why do you think so many pakistani feudals are in politics.....why aren't so many businessmen, lawyers, farmers etc. in politics.....feudals are in politics to ensure pakistan's feudal structure never changes......thus, the whole class is, inherently, evil, when it comes to politics.....

"the decisions must be made by the people or their legitimate representatives - clumsily, hesitatingly, and all that. It is all a part of the process. It can not be imposed on the people."

this is correct.......however, this is not going to happen, if the ruling class is allowed to totally break the law......legislatures and constitutions cannot come into existence on their own......they require judicial oversight......and democracy requires pre-requisites to be in place.......the first of which is end to large scale feudal landholdings.......

"In the past, the BeeB never had REAL power"

she had enough power to hold elections in her own party, at least......and to not carry out massive personal corruption.....it is one thing to make some bucks on the side in some deal.....but to set up so many companies in the virign islands......and buying mansions in europe.......one has to draw the line, somewhere.....

i think you are working under the assumption that bb and her feudal friends and all concerned about the common man and the image of pakistan and what not......these guys are crooks through and through.....they have one concern......to ensure pakistan never progresses from a feudal based country to an urban one......to ensure this, they have to be in political power.......

the net result of this will be a religious revolution.....bb cannot and will not provide good governance.......good governance will mean equal opportunities to all, which will result in an end to feudalism.......the whole purpose of bb and her class is to ensure this never happens.....eventually, people will get tired of the liberal side of pakistan, which is led by feudals and pirs (who, in their own areas are the most illiberal people), and will turn towards the military, as they always do......however, people are fed up of the military also.....who else is left......the religious right....

expecting the feudals to reform pakistan is like asking the fox to gaurd the chickens.....doesn't matter how good or brave or articulate the fox is, its aim is to eat the chickens, not to guard them.....

ppp is good for pakistan......without its feudal and pir leadership....

p.s. if bb comes into power, it may be good for the rich expat and even non-expat pakistanis who live in big cities.....ppp leadership will allow the, "party culture" in lahore, islamabad, karachi etc......something the maulvis would never allow......so the chowk crowd will be ok under bb..... but the country will be back to terrible 90s, on its way to financial defaults, with ppp loyalists filling up all govt. jobs resulting in very inefficient corporations etc.....

Re#70
The point which was being made was about the Bhutto cult and the expectation from her from those who were present there. If you carefully read the post you will understand what is being actually said. I was not giving a complete verdict but merely communicating what was being said. And these statements were also covered in the media and aired. The fact is that her support is not because of her stated desire of getting extremism under control and that is not the expectation from rural people who form the main bulk of her support.
Moreover I have also tried to explain the geographical distribution of her support and try to convey why over expecting from her to deliver the goods is not the right idea.
If you disagree, fine but kindly try to first read carefully before coming up with your verdicts about my education level. I can also come up with crude personal remarks but I will refrain from it. I think the central idea behind this site is to encourage concrete dialogue about this issue and not to flaunt our so called better education/intelligence levels and to pass verdicts about others.
That is all-no hard feelings

Re: # 69
I second you opinion,corrouption is part of life and one looks at as Lubrication to things move is fine only problem is now lubrication is essential. I agree no point in making too much of corrouption as ultimately we will die and can not carry money at day of judgement. To understand all is to fotgive all.

Re: # 72
Yes, true... political parties everywhere are locked in battles, but most battles are civil and/or diplomatic as oxymoronic as that may sound! Re the sufi bit, yeah... I like to twirl like Dancing Dervishes.

Re: # 74

I could see an underlying current of contempt for that man on the street which rather provoked me.
No offense intended but it was just the elitist presumption of some of the Pakistanis who scoff at any mention of democracy or allowing BB to contest the elections with an anti-mullah agenda.
I could see some elites being too uncomfortable with BB leading the nation and setting back the mullah's march towards Pakistan's political power (and the nukes as well).

#73 Bulleya

Yaar, you now have me all depressed. Perhaps like Gandhiji (or was it the Osho), I need to take mauna-vrata which, in addition to benefitting the soul by calming it, also keeps one from getting into more trouble.

I recognize the BeeB is a very polarizing figure! She is clearly beloved by all those people who showed up to receive her but not by everybody. The question is - who is better than her? Not too many, I am afraid. Therefore, let us hope she does better this time around.

Be that as it may, it is not the army's role to be the ruler or even the kingmaker. They would be better off leaving the average Pakistanis to make their own decisions and should stop trying to "help". They are pretty lousey at it.

#76 zensufi

Yaar, do not despair. Just change your nick tp zenmuni or aomething along those lines and before you know it, you will have the ole Kaal eating out of your hand again. Really!

Re #73 bulleya, Pakistan is a feudal country- true, but no feudal can ensure that it remains a feudal country, were it not for the US elite/Pak Army meddling in the affairs of the state, feudalism in Pakistan would have eclipsed long ago. Today's feudals do not independantly control affairs in Pakistan, they have to leech off the mutual fulfilment of motives of the real power brokers the US elite and their occupation force in Pakistan. On the other hand feudalism is much more insecure than industrial capitalism, so defeating the former should be relatively easy were it not for US/Pak Army meddling in the affairs of the state...