Pervez Musharraf, America’s little buddy in Pakistan, stepped down after internal legal and political pressures closed in on him. The impending impeachment targeted him for some crimes that should be quite familiar to Arab AND American readers: “imposing a state of emergency last November, sacking judges and other alleged crimes, including violation of the constitution and gross misconduct.”
The Pakistani public has largely been calling for the end of his tenure. And the American media, with no interesting analysis of possibly successors, such as former prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s PML-N party or Bhutto’s PPP, ponders if this means Al Qaeda will take over Pakistan.
I wish President Bush would follow suit. While the extent of Bush’s crimes are less than Musharraf’s — he did not suspend the rule of law as completely — the damages caused by the roguish American president in the rest of the world has been far graver. However, the key difference is that impeachment took on a political life in Pakistan whereas in the United States it is off the table.
Plus, as I heard Congressman John Conyers point out, there is a problem. If they impeach President Bush, you end up with Dick Cheney. If they impeach Dick Cheney, they still end up with Dick Cheney.
Though he is known in the Arab world as Mish ’3aarif (“doesn’t know”), the former General and now dictator should serve as a model for Arab authoritarian heads as well. I look forward to the day Arab states will have peaceful transitions of power on non-hereditary lines. The ruinous clowns in power now have no right ruling countries as personal fiefdoms.
That said, I hope Pakistan never sees teeny-bopper Bhutto’s son, her widower, nor Sharif in power. Yet, these seem most likely.
Related posts:
- Libby Rats Out Bush
- Sit and Spin, Dick. Sit and Spin.
- The Cheney of Command
- Pointers President Bush Missed
- Bush Announces Cheney’s Replacement
This is kind of rambling… not your best work.
Posted by Anonymous | August 18, 2008, 9:03 pmAND American readers: “imposing a state of emergency last November, sacking judges and other alleged crimes, including violation of the constitution and gross misconduct.”
Pretty silly stuff, Will.
And don’t you have to wait and see if things get better in Pakistan before claiming this is “good”? Or is it automatically good just because you hate America so much?
Posted by programmer craig | August 19, 2008, 12:46 amWould not know personally (too lazy to find out) but some claim that in reality he was never a great friend of the West anyhow and made secret deals with militants to stay in power.
I wonder if it ever really pays to support dictators against the wishes of the populace for short term considerations, sooner or later they are ousted and you have an entire nation hostile to you. Would we have some of the problems we have now if not for engineering the 1953 coup in Iran?
The “war on terror”, WTF is that? Did I miss the millions killed in trenches? Never have the antics of a few terrorists been so overblown as an excuse for so many cointerproductive foreign policy decisions.
Posted by xoggoth | August 19, 2008, 1:58 amLet me assure you that nothing like this will happen in any Arab country simply because there is no arab street. The middle class in teh Arab world tha thas been known for its revolutions has been demolished and almost vanished.
Posted by Ali | August 19, 2008, 6:16 am