I think you have an unrealistic view of Pakistan. Under General Zia-ul-Haq (ruled from 79 to 88) the country became truly fucked up. Sharia was introduced and Islam took a very conservative swing in the country.
The country certainly does have western influences and hopefully someday it can actually be a functioning democracy, but Turkey is far more secular and western
I'm just calling it the way I see it-yes, they are in the coup spiral that plagues oh so many third world nations, but there was still the hope that with their growing economy and Western leaning president, they could fully enstate democracy. That hope that I personally had, the hope that Musharaf would be a Pakistani Attaturk, are basically gone now, because he's gone the route of the dictator, and will probably suffer a coup, which will put Pakistan back another generation in the eventual acceptance of democracy.
Heh, I find it ironic that, just as the USSR considered Communism universal and inevitable, we're doing the same with democracy now.
On another note, what're the sites you guys're using as sources? I want to keep an eye on this, and fox news/other American news forcast bullshit are way too biased to be seen as anywhere close to fact, at least if you look at them on their own.
If you want international news never get if from american sources. Actually if you want news period you shouldn't go to american sources, but thats just my opinion.
BBC and Reuters are pretty good. Al Jazeera is ok but its more geared towards middle east news, but if definately provides a nice non-western view. Beyond that just troll around the internet. Look up pakistan on google news. Look for news agencies in Pakistan or in the region. Look at blogs that focus on the subject. Check the wikipedia article every once and a while. Monitor forums. Thats pretty much my way of getting news, and it works decently well.
I'm so frustrated. Pictures of the lawyers being beaten in the streets drive me crazy. There has to be something I can do about this.
You can't make an omelet without irreparably breaking your justice system. And those lawyers were the first step toward the Taliban nuking Israel, and raping America. Musharaf told me.
I've got to say, an "unruly judiciary" has got to be the worst excuse for declaring martial law.
I'm so frustrated. Pictures of the lawyers being beaten in the streets drive me crazy. There has to be something I can do about this.
You can't make an omelet without irreparably breaking your justice system. And those lawyers were the first step toward the Taliban nuking Israel, and raping America. Musharaf told me.
Shinto, what do you think would be the realistic outcome if elections had occurred naturally, and Musharaf had not siezed control? How do you think it would've affected the US and Iraq in the short term and long term?
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Shinto, what do you think would be the realistic outcome if elections had occurred naturally, and Musharaf had not siezed control? How do you think it would've affected the US and Iraq in the short term and long term?
I believe Osama bin Laden would be elected the president of Pakistan and hell would swallow both the United States and Iraq whole.
So... you don't wish to answer the question, then?
ElJeffe on
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
So... you don't wish to answer the question, then?
I'm not enough of an expert on Pakistani politics to guess what elections will produce after eight years of rigged votes and suppressed democracy. I'm unfamiliar with the interest groups, personalities and ideological aims of the two main parties in the parliament, the domestic ramifications of the ongoing low level rebellion in Baluchistan and the domestic popularity of Bhutto, with whom Musharaf was to share power.
I do know that the longer dictatorship persists, the more opposition to dictatorship is concentrated in the only institution of Muslim societies strong enough to withstand its power - the mosque. Another ten years and it won't be lawyers and judges protesting.
Musharaf did not embark upon his dictatorship in order to save Pakistan from the religious fundamentalism of its elected leaders though and there is little doubt in my mind that he is not continuing it for that purpose.
So... you don't wish to answer the question, then?
I'm not enough of an expert on Pakistani politics to guess what elections will produce after eight years of rigged votes and suppressed democracy. I'm unfamiliar with the interest groups, personalities and ideological aims of the two main parties in the parliament, the domestic ramifications of the ongoing low level rebellion in Baluchistan and the domestic popularity of Bhutto, with whom Musharaf was to share power.
I do know that the longer dictatorship persists, the more opposition to dictatorship is concentrated in the only institution of Muslim societies strong enough to withstand its power - the mosque. Another ten years and it won't be lawyers and judges protesting.
Musharaf did not embark upon his dictatorship in order to save Pakistan from the religious fundamentalism of its elected leaders though and there is little doubt in my mind that he is not continuing it for that purpose.
The point you made about the mosques being an institution that can stand up to Musharraf is a good one. But I definately dont think that it will take 10 years for that to happen. I dont know how religious/extremist most of the population of Pakistan is (I'd wager not very), but all that matters is that there are plenty there already. With things being so unstable right now its possible for some event to trigger a bit of a migration to the mosques. For example, Musharraf pulls another Red Mosque type raid during martial law, brings out the big guns as it were. If the operation were botched, or if it turns out that the mosque was not in the wrong, or if the police kill a lot of people, or whatever, you could suddenly have huge numbers of people coming out in support of the mosques.
Musharraf has to be very, very careful right now. Its pretty likely that some Islamic extremists are going to try to pull of some big attacks whilst martial law is imposed. If Musharraf's reaction to those attacks is seen as too harsh, he could end up supporting the movement he is trying to quash.
There have been clashes between police and lawyers in Peshawar, and in parts of the Punjab, with several lawyers seriously injured in the city of Gujranwala.
There were reports of further arrests in the cities of Lahore, Quetta and Multan.
I am under arrest now, but soon I will also join you in your struggle
Iftikhar Chaudhry
But protests did not appear to be on the same scale as those suppressed by the security forces on Monday.
The president, who is also head of the army, has said he declared the state of emergency because of a crisis caused by militant violence and an unruly judiciary.
Mr Chaudhry was sacked and replaced after he and eight other judges refused to endorse the order, declaring it unconstitutional.
Critics have said Gen Musharraf acted to pre-empt a judgment by the Supreme Court on whether his re-election last month was legal.
Mr Chaudhry told around 500 lawyers on Tuesday: "The constitution has been ripped to shreds. The lawyers should convey my message to the people to rise up and restore the constitution.
"This is a time for sacrifices. I am under arrest now, but soon I will also join you in your struggle."
Mr Chaudhry is under house arrest but his comments were broadcast on the internet by a private television channel.
As he made the address, mobile phone services in most of central Islamabad went down, prompting suspicions they had been cut.
EMERGENCY RESTRICTIONS
Constitutional safeguards on life and liberty curtailed
Police get wide powers of arrest
Suspects can be denied access to lawyers
Freedom of movement restricted
Private TV stations taken off air
New rules curtail media coverage of suicide bombings or militant activity
Chief justice replaced, others made to swear oath of loyalty
Supreme Court banned from rescinding emergency order
The lawyers chanted slogans such as "There will be war till the constitution is restored" and "Chaudhry we are ready to die for you".
Mr Chaudhry, who defied attempts by the president to oust him in March and was later reinstated by the Supreme Court, has become a symbol of resistance to Gen Musharraf's rule, say analysts.
The former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, echoed his calls for the constitution to be restored in a press conference at her Karachi home on Tuesday.
"We want elections to be held on schedule. The government refrain from violence... it is the duty of the government to protect the people," she said.
The Pakistani cabinet is expected to meet later to discuss the parliamentary elections, which are supposed to take place by January.
On Monday, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said the vote would go ahead on schedule, but his deputy information minister later told the BBC the elections could be delayed by as much as a year.
International outcry
Lawyers have called for three days of protests and strikes against the suspension of the constitution.
They have boycotted courts and refused to appear before the new judges.
Hundreds of lawyers and political opponents have been detained.
HAVE YOUR SAY
I think Musharraf has about the most difficult job on the planet
David Bradshaw, Ashford, UK
Pakistan has come under heavy international pressure since Gen Musharraf imposed emergency rule.
Mr Bush urged Gen Musharraf to quit his post as head of the army and hold elections as soon as possible.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called for the release of all those detained since the state of emergency was declared.
The UK has also reiterated demands for a return to civilian rule in Pakistan.
The Netherlands became the first country to suspend aid, and the EU said its members were considering "possible further steps".
But Gen Musharraf said confidence in his government would soon return and insisted he still planned to give up his military post, as he had been scheduled to do this month.
So... you don't wish to answer the question, then?
I'm not enough of an expert on Pakistani politics to guess what elections will produce after eight years of rigged votes and suppressed democracy. I'm unfamiliar with the interest groups, personalities and ideological aims of the two main parties in the parliament, the domestic ramifications of the ongoing low level rebellion in Baluchistan and the domestic popularity of Bhutto, with whom Musharaf was to share power.
I do know that the longer dictatorship persists, the more opposition to dictatorship is concentrated in the only institution of Muslim societies strong enough to withstand its power - the mosque. Another ten years and it won't be lawyers and judges protesting.
Musharaf did not embark upon his dictatorship in order to save Pakistan from the religious fundamentalism of its elected leaders though and there is little doubt in my mind that he is not continuing it for that purpose.
The point you made about the mosques being an institution that can stand up to Musharraf is a good one. But I definately dont think that it will take 10 years for that to happen. I dont know how religious/extremist most of the population of Pakistan is (I'd wager not very), but all that matters is that there are plenty there already.
This isn't Pakistan's first period of military rule and the current spell has been ongoing since 1999. I think if there were really a dynamic for the country to shift rapidly to militant Islamism under dictatorship it would have manifested already.
Pakistan's opposition grappled for a united response on Tuesday to President Pervez Musharraf's imposition of emergency rule, leaving lawyers to protest alone for a second day and bear the brunt of a police crackdown.
Ousted chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, though being held incommunicado at his residence, managed to get out a message by mobile phone to the lawyers' movement that has been leading the public protests.
"The constitution has been ripped to shreds," Chaudhry said.
"The lawyers should convey my message to the people to rise up and restore the constitution. This is a time for sacrifices. I am under arrest now, but soon I will also join you in your struggle," said the charismatic judge, who defied Musharraf in huge public rallies earlier in the year.
While hundreds of lawyers were detained during clashes with police the previous day, Tuesday's protests were small and tamer.
Most Pakistanis express dismay and confusion over Musharraf's decision, and are impatient to vote for a new government.
"It just pains me that we're living in such an unstable and uncivilized country," said Samiya, a thirty-something corporate executive in Islamabad, who reckoned Musharraf should have quit rather than inflict an emergency to save his job.
"There's the law of the jungle here."
While hundreds of opposition activists have been detained, primarily from the party of exiled former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and Islamist groups, the political parties have yet to order their supporters on to the streets.
BHUTTO IN OPPOSITION TALKS
Former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, who returned last month from eight years abroad after Musharraf gave her immunity from old graft charges, flew to Islamabad to consult other opposition leaders but said she would not meet let alone negotiate with the military president on forming a caretaker government.
"If I met him face to face it might demoralize everybody else," Bhutto told Britain's Sky Television, adding that meetings in the past had not led to fruitful results.
"It's certainly very difficult to know what General Musharraf is going to do next, because he said one thing, and he says all the right things to me, but what he said did not happen."
Ahsan Iqbal -- a spokesman for Nawaz Sharif, the man Musharraf deposed in 1999, exiled and booted out again when he tried to return home in September -- said Bhutto would have to give assurances that she had cut links with Musharraf before they could talk of reviving an opposition alliance.
Former cricket star Imran Khan, now a high-profile politician but with only a small following, eluded police on Sunday amid the official crackdown and has vowed to oppose Musharraf from hiding.
In a message passed to Reuters by his ex-wife Jemima, Khan said: "Our aim is to continue the struggle and mobilize the youth of the country from underground."
When Bhutto landed in Islamabad on Tuesday, the leader of the largest opposition party, the Pakistan Peoples Party, was swiftly whisked away, waving from the sun-roof of a white bullet-proof land cruiser as some 500 supporters chanted "Welcome, Welcome Benazir Welcome" and "Prime Minister -- Benazir".
The United States had hoped Bhutto would end up sharing power with Musharraf after elections due in January.
Musharraf's move to impose emergency rule has cast U.S. policy toward Pakistan in some disarray.
President George W. Bush, who values Musharraf as an ally in his battle against al Qaeda and the Taliban, urged him on Monday to lift the emergency, hold elections and quit as army chief.
Officials have said that regardless of the emergency elections will take place in January or slightly later but the general has so far not confirmed this.
U.S. Ambassador Anne W. Patterson called on the Election Commissioner in Islamabad to urge him to set a timetable quickly to dispel people's doubts.
RAZOR WIRE
The security presence around Pakistani cities is not much greater than usual for a country that has had 23 suicide attacks by al Qaeda-inspired militants in the past four months -- one of the reasons Musharraf cited for his authoritarian steps.
But troops in Islamabad manned razor-wire checkpoints near the presidential palace, parliament and Supreme Court.
In Karachi, police vetted lawyers trying to enter the High Court, and in the central city of Multan they used batons to beat more than a dozen stone-throwing lawyers chanting "Go Musharraf Go" before bundling them into trucks, a Reuters witness said.
A dozen more were detained at the High Court in the eastern city of Lahore, according to a Reuters photographer, but a protest by about 200 lawyers in Islamabad passed off peacefully.
Musharraf's emergency declaration on Saturday was seen as an attempt to stop any chance of the Supreme Court invalidating his re-election as president by parliament last month on the grounds that he stood while still army chief.
After dismissing judges who were too difficult to handle, Musharraf has been filling the Supreme Court benches with more amenable figures. Four more were sworn in on Tuesday, taking the total to 9 -- well short of the original strength of 17.
The stock market had dropped 4.6 percent on Monday -- its largest daily fall in terms of points -- as emergency rule scared investors, but recovered from an early fall on Tuesday to close up 1.1 percent.
Standard & Poor's and Moody's international credit rating agencies revised outlooks on Pakistan from stable to negative.
"Only time will tell his act was right or wrong, but it's clear he did it to save himself," said retired government teacher Syed Sajjad Ali Shah in the northwestern city of Peshawar.
Hrm...I heard something on the radio about certain nations asking their embassies and diplomats to be ready to leave Pakistan in case the aggression escalates.
Isn't fucking up the succession system and the justice system one of the worst things to a country that wants to become eventually more democratic? Hell, it is one of the worst things that could happen even in countries that just don't want to have coup d' etat as the standard way of removing a person from power and frequent human rights abuses.
Posts
If you want international news never get if from american sources. Actually if you want news period you shouldn't go to american sources, but thats just my opinion.
BBC and Reuters are pretty good. Al Jazeera is ok but its more geared towards middle east news, but if definately provides a nice non-western view. Beyond that just troll around the internet. Look up pakistan on google news. Look for news agencies in Pakistan or in the region. Look at blogs that focus on the subject. Check the wikipedia article every once and a while. Monitor forums. Thats pretty much my way of getting news, and it works decently well.
I've got to say, an "unruly judiciary" has got to be the worst excuse for declaring martial law.
SHINTO SMASH
I believe Osama bin Laden would be elected the president of Pakistan and hell would swallow both the United States and Iraq whole.
I'm not enough of an expert on Pakistani politics to guess what elections will produce after eight years of rigged votes and suppressed democracy. I'm unfamiliar with the interest groups, personalities and ideological aims of the two main parties in the parliament, the domestic ramifications of the ongoing low level rebellion in Baluchistan and the domestic popularity of Bhutto, with whom Musharaf was to share power.
I do know that the longer dictatorship persists, the more opposition to dictatorship is concentrated in the only institution of Muslim societies strong enough to withstand its power - the mosque. Another ten years and it won't be lawyers and judges protesting.
Musharaf did not embark upon his dictatorship in order to save Pakistan from the religious fundamentalism of its elected leaders though and there is little doubt in my mind that he is not continuing it for that purpose.
The point you made about the mosques being an institution that can stand up to Musharraf is a good one. But I definately dont think that it will take 10 years for that to happen. I dont know how religious/extremist most of the population of Pakistan is (I'd wager not very), but all that matters is that there are plenty there already. With things being so unstable right now its possible for some event to trigger a bit of a migration to the mosques. For example, Musharraf pulls another Red Mosque type raid during martial law, brings out the big guns as it were. If the operation were botched, or if it turns out that the mosque was not in the wrong, or if the police kill a lot of people, or whatever, you could suddenly have huge numbers of people coming out in support of the mosques.
Musharraf has to be very, very careful right now. Its pretty likely that some Islamic extremists are going to try to pull of some big attacks whilst martial law is imposed. If Musharraf's reaction to those attacks is seen as too harsh, he could end up supporting the movement he is trying to quash.
This isn't Pakistan's first period of military rule and the current spell has been ongoing since 1999. I think if there were really a dynamic for the country to shift rapidly to militant Islamism under dictatorship it would have manifested already.