The ‘shoey’ Side of Politics

tahmed,
I never said that Pakistan has pulled back from the brink of democracy. I said that PPPP has pulled back from the brink of a revolution. I hope you dont have your HIGHS?

Romair,
Simplistic arguements wont do. In Musharraf's tenure, military corparatism in Pakistan has taken a turn for the worse and now Intelligence Agencies patrol the society and military itself. A Patrimonial Gaurd exclusive to the President has already taken place and the name of the game is, 'controlled democracy for the BAFOON Politicians'. This appears Zardari's preferred option and not NS....I do not agree on your comments on AWT etc neither do I endorse the views of MilINC. Cicero must not be killed for bad verses.

It is clear now why BB gave a limited support to CJ. She only wanted to go to a point in support of this movement insofar it served to put pressure on Mush to negotiate. Purists were never her endearment.

tahmed writes "The two can coexist as a healthy counterweight to one another in all provinces"

A great recipe to enhance military rule by creating a stalemate that enhance the status quo and plays in the hands of the military. His answer shows that he does not have a clue about any of the issues whatsoever. Musharraf did not abuse his uniform he acted in accordance with the requirements that have shaped the Pakistan military as an institution- if he had not, he would never have reached the heights (of tyranny and dictatorship) he reached. The military is neck deep in politics, no one person can extract it and certainly not one appointed by a dictator to its pinnacle. If it is standing down explicitly you can be damn sure that its pulling the strings implicitly....

HP #503 you make a number of good points.

A. "Zardari, when he bad mouths the Lawyers is actually digging his own grave." Agreed. He seems to be almost jealous of the hard-earned respect the lawyers, and that is not just being small-hearted by foolish as well - even his own rank and file have had to take a stand against him on this core issue.

B. I dont think it is totally correct to say that PPP has its base in Sindh. PPP has a natural base in other provinces too among the poor with its left-of-center economic agenda. PML is more right-of-center. The two can coexist as a healthy counterweight to one another in all provinces.

C. I am not sure if the army is in any mood to play games in politics at least at this time. They realize how low their stock has gone due to musharraf's abuse of the uniform.

later....

hamidm (if you are not at the golf course): looks like the "droopy eyed judge" is about to be restored, along with the scores of other principled judges. and guess what happens when 100 honest men join the parliament in moving democracy forward!!

btw, as for general "hosni mubarak", he is no longer even making the pretense of clinging to power which had already slipped away when he was kicked out of the army - and is now merely begging to be kept on as a hollow figurehead..

Resolution on 23rd
Abrar Saeed
ISLAMABAD - Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani would hand down an executive order for the restoration of the superior courts judges, including the Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, on April 23 or 25, following the tabling and passage of the resolution by the National Assembly in this regard, sources privy to the development disclosed to TheNation.
The sources further disclosed that April 23 is the definite date for the tabling and the passage of the resolution but the executive order may be issued on April 25 (Friday).

http://www.nation.com.pk/daily/Apr-2008/21/index2.php

By the way Ferozk has no clue when he says that it is a different army now. The army is very much the same, it is just the face at the top that is different, and if the face at the top tries to change the structure of the military, or iterferes with the timing and motives of their real masters he will be got rid of by a military conspiracy itself, conning the civilians to change the leadership or making someone go home early as has happened in the past, and those civilian leaders that have been conned by the military to interfere in its leadership on their behalf have always regretted their decision. You forget that the worst dictator in this country's history appointed the current leader of the military because they both thought in similar dictatorial fashion. The election results were as they were because the motive was to coopt the people's emotions and not to add fuel to the fire by a Q victory...

Pakistan was INDEED pulled back from democratic changes when the military coopted the current elections by channeling people's emotions in a benign direction rather than where they were headed, a war between the public and the military... as usual tahmed has no clue about anything, the only "pie" is in his face....seems like I'm on a roll today...read the golfing and hamid comment on the shrink's article interacts!.....

#502 ijazgul: the concept of a "perfect democracy" is as pie-in-the-sky as the concept of a "perfect society". so it is meaningless for you to say that Pakistan has pulled back from the brink of democracy.

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Sattar writes about tahmed "Fools like you got conned into supporting a useless war..."

Tahmed wasn't conned into anything. He supported the war because he supports the decisions of the white elite unconditionally. He considers them god in the flesh. If the white man were to murder his mama he would not say a single word against him, on the other hand he would offer his son and daughter to be sacrificed by them as well. He suffers from a disease that cannot be explained by reason. There was no conning just unconditional support, rationalizations and then when totally stumped, silence and insults against his opponents. You should know this snake better.........

bulleya writes "......if pml-n and ppp simply stay united and do nothing else......the military power will crumble.......they simply need to vote in the same direction on matters related to the military......that's it......there will be, absolutely, nothing the military can do........"

That is a totally ignorant comment, united or not, the military that does not respect the constitution or the lives of people or justice and the rule of law will use its "gun" if need be regardless of the unity of the politicians. Your picture of a helpless military that is invited in or finds a niche within the bickering of politicians is hallmark of a military apologist that want to mask military strength. If the military is so powerless then the civilians can easily reform it why do you need restructuring? The fact is restructuring is needed because the current military has warped into a behemoth that after destroying distorting the institutional structure of the country is fast headed towards destroying this nation state and having its people butchered...

bulleya writes ".....what the military has is unity.....and it is because of this unity that it overpowers every other force that is attempting power in pakistan..."

You forgot the guns, the military has the guns, and unless bigger guns stop them they will not refrain from massacring the entire population if that is what is required to attain their objectives...

--at an abstract level, the following steps need to be taken place to restructure the complete military set up in pakistan......it should be kept in mind that, while, many, if not most of the institutions - civil, govt. and private - have changed since 1947, the military remains totally unchanged.......

--- non-military affairs
1. privatize all 94 business entities owned by the military, through the army welfare trust, fauji foundation, shaheen foundation and bahria foundation

2. allocate all military lands to the provincial govt., so that the military itself does not own any land in pakistan, and only has land allocated to it by the provincial govt......

3. bring the military budget under the ministry of finace, which should debate it in the assembly

4. appoint a very strong civilian oversight committee, from the national assembly and senate, over all military affairs.....all promotions of maj gens and lt. gens. should be approved by this committee for the next ten years.....after which this process should be discontinued and military chiefs should appoint all generals.....

5. bring military law under the civilian judiciary.....all court martials should have a civilian judge.....all military law should be authored by civilians.......and all overlaps which give military authority in civilian areas, should be abolished......

6. physically, the military should be moved out of all major cities, and reloacated in distant cantonments - as it is done in canada and to a great extent in the usa......

military headquarters should be moved from islamabad/pindi to pannu aqil, shorkot port qasim etc......all corps headquarters etc. should be moved out of karachi, lahore and rawalpindi.....all airbases should be moved out of pindi (chaklala), karachi (masroor, shah-rahe-faisal, malir and korangi).....the complete navy sits in karachi, and it should be moved to port qasim etc.....a separate military city can be set up outside karachi, towards the indian coastline to defend karachi......

-- restructuring of the military itself....

will discuss in another reply......it needs to be revamped from pma to the rank of generals......

ijaz_gul #: ...i am always amazed at how powerful everyone imagines the military to be.....

...as i have always argued on this site, the military is not more powerful than the judiciary, the civil society or even the politicians.....

.....what the military has is unity.....and it is because of this unity that it overpowers every other force that is attempting power in pakistan.......

......the moment any other group shows an equal amount of unity, the military will back down......up til now, the military had been able to divide the judiciary, the politicians, the media and civil society, etc......

......however, now, pakistan has matured....the judiciary did not divide totally........the lawyers stuck with the judiciary....and the military is on the verge of losing this battle....in fact, the military has jumped out of the battle, knowing it will lose, and has left musharraf on his own....people should keep in mind that kayani had also accompanied musharraf when they called the chief justice to the army house.......

.......the military has not been able to divide civil society.......the civil society played its cards smartly...instead of coming out into the streets, it waited till the elections and voted out the military, in a comprehensive and historic manner......

......the media did not divide either......

.....this leaves the most important group, and that is the politicians.....in the end it is a battle between the politicians and military for who will run the country......

up til now, the military has played hell with the politicians.......since the death of jinnah.....it has very easily divided the political forces in pakistan; playing one against the other.....all the major poltical leaders of pakistan, have come out interactions with the army......bhutto, nawaz, altaf, maulvis etc......

.....this is the final frontier.....the military has tried like hell to divide the politicians again....it succeeded in dividing pml into two, and ppp, partially, into two.......

.......however, now pml-n and ppp are united; if for no other reason, because they see a common enemy......i am sure the military and bureacracy is trying like anything to divide them.........

......if pml-n and ppp simply stay united and do nothing else......the military power will crumble.......they simply need to vote in the same direction on matters related to the military......that's it......there will be, absolutely, nothing the military can do........

nothing at all.......the military isn't as powerful as people think......it just seems so because it has very strong traditions, which keep it united........

HP,
Yea. Very logical. Thats what I thought.
Cheerios

#502 Posted by ijaz_gul

Sorry, I did not read this post on Beena's board. I haven't even seen many posts on that board. I will check them now.

A. Will BBs policy of Partial appeasement, partial defiance and partial compromise serve the cause of democracy in the long run, or will it provide a germination ground for the proliferators of democracy to become stronger? This view is in contrast to the Purist view of the intellectuals.

There is no way to democracy in Pakistan w/o first working on sharing the powers with the army. So this half cil-Half Mil is the starting point. BB had the right idea. The problem is that the military half is stronger and there is no guarantee that the military would not revoke the agreement. The movements like the Lawyers movement, out of control media and a vigilant middle class can keep the army honest. This requires time and an effort on the part of the civilians to keep the public in the loop. Both AZ and NS, have very little faith in organized opposition such as the Lawyers, and the student bodies. Zardari, when he bad mouths the Lawyers is actually digging his own grave.

B. Will the purist view of Civil Society supported by NS and AWK finally become a victim of the compromises by PPPP.

They don’t support the purest view or know they can’t get to it. The PPP has a situation in hand in Sindh and it is not the MQM. Read Zadari’s statement to BBC where he said that the PPP was told they would be confined to Sindh and they are. The PPP cares about Sindh because that is their base and to keep the power in Sindh, they will compromise with the devil itself. As long as the deal with the NS works, the PPP is with him. I think the forward Block in MLq minus Gujrati clown family offers an option to the PPP so watch NS destroy that with multiple means.

C. If the first two points are accepted, then we would soon see crisis within the ruling alliance. This alliance will be exploited by proliferators for destabilising. Niazi, Arbab, Multan, Karachi and now Jamrud incidents are perhaps linked to this destabilisation effort.

The army would do what it can to keep the alliance in a fragile state while they concede on CJ and next on Musharaf. It is a matter of who has the ability to press. NS wants to press now and AZ is too embroiled in keeping the power. He will go along when he sees a clear signal or is pressed enough.

The democracy requires lots of thinking and persuasions. Time is needed to learn these skills. The army makes it difficult and now everyone has to be on a fast track to learn these skills. So just watch the game!

Hp & Zeemax,
This is what I wrote on Beena's Essay.

"I would agree with your argument that the CJ Issue provided the Lawyers, Civil Society and Political Parties to coalesce. This is in fact the trigger and not the start point. Some of the developments we must lookout for are: -

A. Will BBs policy of Partial appeasement, partial defiance and partial compromise serve the cause of democracy in the long run, or will it provide a germination ground for the proliferators of democracy to become stronger? This view is in contrast to the Purist view of the intellectuals.

B. Will the purist view of Civil Society supported by NS and AWK finally become a victim of the compromises by PPPP.
?
C. If the first two points are accepted, then we would soon see crisis within the ruling alliance. This alliance will be exploited by proliferators for destabilising. Niazi, Arbab, Multan, Karachi and now Jamrud incidents are perhaps linked to this destabilisation effort.

The road is indeed difficult and the summit to democracy steep. In my view, PPPP has missed a chance for true democracy. They have returned from the brink of a revolution."