Well, I'm going to leave the house now and go to Target, but "Musharraf Declares Emergency Rule" seems like a big story. If you're not at the mall, go read a real newspaper. Or maybe you want to check out Joshua Hammer talking about "After Musharraf".
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Um... Off to the Mall...
03 Nov 2007 01:39 pm
Comments (14)
Greetings.
In response to Pakistani dictator Pervez Musharraf's declaration of martial law and illegal dismissal of a Pakistani Supreme Court Justice, I am encouraging all bloggers out there who want true democratic rule for Pakistan's 165 million people to unite in opposition.
From now on, I am asking bloggers to consistantly refer to Musharraf as "Pakistani dictator Pervez Musharraf" consistantly linking back to a post I made explaining this idea in greater detail.
The post allows threaded comments, so that those opposed to Pakistani dictator Pervez Musharraf can start discussing ways that we can organize and unite in opposition to his dictatorial actions.
My hope is that a consistant message of opposition to martial law and support for democracy in Pakistan can help to influence the media away from legitimizing the Musharraf regime by referring to him as a President. By definition, he cannot be a President if he refuses the right for his government's Supreme Court to decide whether his running for office is legal or not.
Please drop by the post, leave a comment as to what ideas you have on how we can best unite in opposition to martial law, and please do consider using the phrase "Pakistani dictator Pervez Musharraf", linking back to the post.
Thank you,
Mark Kraft
This seems like a good time to ask this
question:
Why do people believe a nuclear
Shia Iran can dominate the Sunni Middle East
when its far more populous nuclear Sunni
neighbor dominates precisely nothing?
We appease a dictator and we're surprised and disappointed that he doesn't implement democratic reforms?
Perhaps we can also refer to our fearless leader The We Waterboard but Don't Torture President.
"Why do people believe a nuclear
Shia Iran can dominate the Sunni Middle East
when its far more populous nuclear Sunni
neighbor dominates precisely nothing?"
I don't worry about a nuclear-armed Iran dominating the Middle East, I worry about it increasing the chances of nuclear terrorism or nuclear war. We have been exceedingly lucky that no nukes have been used in anger since WWII -- we shouldn't take that for granted.
I am also worried about Pakistan's nukes, for the same reasons. Just because a Pakistani nuke hasn't been detonated in anger yet (by the Pakis or terrorists) is no reason for complacency.
You'll notice that the ostensible problem is Pakistani Islamic militants - not the Supreme Court, the TV stations, the phone system - and all the other stuff Musharef immediately took over or shut down.
In other words, this is a naked power grab by Musharaf. The US forced him to bring Bhutto back into the country, and she's been grabbing the headlines since the bomb attack on her. So that's bad news for Musharaf, who expects he'll end up getting kicked out of any "coalition" government.
So he nips that in the bud, using the Islamists as the excuse.
Meanwhile, his actions will endanger the true democratic bent of the population, shifting them more to the side of the Islamists. Standard political theater in just about any Third World country throughout the 20th Century and now into the 21st.
Meanwhile, the war against the Pashtuns, Taliban and Al Qaeda is going badly and will continue to do so, following the obvious historical dictate that no one has ever conquered the Pashtuns and no one is likely to - certainly not the Pakistani Army.
The tribalists seized two police stations and raised their own flag over them today. The local population up there donated $24,000 to the "mujahideen" within three hours of being asked. More Pakistanti troops have been captured wholesale.
Polls show the majority of Pakistan do not support a war against Al Qaeda or the Taliban, and overwhelmingly do not support US incursions into the country to hunt down Al Qaeda.
I was expecting from things Barnett Rubin had to say about the support for democracy in Pakistan among the population that Pakistan was at risk of falling, but that it would take another five or ten years for the Islamists to get up that much support.
Now I think the figure is half that. Within two to five years, Pakistan's government will fall to the Islamists, regardless of what the Army or the ISI thinks they can do to prevent it.
At that point, the US will have to invade Pakistan to secure the nuclear weapons, assuming they aren't evacuated from the country by the government before it falls.
And THAT will put the US in yet another hopeless quagmire along with Iraq and Iran (which will be in full swing by that time.) Because of course, once the nukes are secured, the US will try to take down the Islamists and Al Qaeda at the same time.
That means the US will be at war with FOUR countries at the same time - Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. And probably also supporting Israel in Syria and Lebanon.
If you think the cost of the Iraq war in dollars and lives is bad, you ain't seen nothing yet. Within five years, the US will be losing a thousand soldiers or more a month and spending $20-40 billion a month on war.
And the right wing trolls all think this is just a great idea, and "victory is near."
> Within two to five years, Pakistan's government
> will fall to the Islamists, regardless of what
> the Army or the ISI thinks they can do to
> prevent it.
I'm always baffled when I hear this. Perhaps
an actual Pakistani on the ground can clear
this up for me:
Is there really any chance at all that the
army's power can be challenged in the Pakistani
heartland? I mean REAL power, not the ability
to take over the Lal Masjid or trivial stuff
like that, but a Khomeini-style challenge.
I can't even envision what a "fall to the
Islamists" would look like.
Well, you could start by looking at the numbers of Pakistani Army troops who have surrendered to the tribalists without firing a shot - up to 300 at a time, I've read.
The Army is demoralized. They've had to bring in Shia troops from other provinces to go against the tribalists.
That doesn't bode especially well for the Army's ability to crush the tribalists, let alone whether they have the actual power to do so - which itself is not clear, since no one has ever "crushed" these tribal areas in history.
Barnett Rubin has said that it's highly unlikely that the majority of Pakistan would support a Sharia Islamist government. I believe him, simply because he knows more about it than I do.
However, that situation could change if the political dynamic changes from "democratic government against Islamist extremists" to "dictatorship against Islamist extremists".
If Musharaf pisses off enough of the mainstream population, they're either going to have to find a democratic opposition party to support AND find a way to get Musharaf overthrown - by force - to replace him and THEN set up a government that will use economic development and negotiation, not force, to deal with the tribalists - OR they're going to be sidelined while the fight becomes between the extremists who aren't afraid to blow stuff up and the Pakistani military, who are ditto.
That way lies Iraq. It's just simple history that once a conflict gets reduced to one of violence between two extreme factions, one or the other is going to win eventually, and the middle of the road people are going to get stuck with one of them.
This is the case in Iraq, this is similar to the Israel-Palestinian situation, and it's looking like this will be how Pakistan goes.
Right now, it might not be the case that the tribalists, Taliban and/or Al Qaeda can directly challenge the Pakistani Army. But can we be sure that situation will continue for the next several years of a Musharaf dictatorship?
I'm talking about the Pakistani heartland --
Punjab and Sindh. If "fall to the Islamists"
has to have any meaning, it has to mean Punjab
and Sindh.
I'm finding it difficult to come up with a
good analogy but, roughly, tribalist challenge
to the Pakistani state's authority is more like
an IRA challenge to British authority. Nobody
expected the *British* govt to fall to the IRA,
right? Even if the IRA set off bombs in London,
it didn't mean that the UK govt was losing its
grip on *Britain*, just in Northern Ireland.
No threat of British nukes falling into IRA
hands etc. You get the picture.
Anyway, that's how I see it. I'd welcome
anybody with more authoritative knowledge
on the matter.
The other wrinkle is that asking how Pakistan
will survive under a military dictatorship is
a little like asking how long Britain can survive
as a kingdom. I mean, love it or hate it, its
a known quantity so its hard for me to understand
why people are expecting radical consequences.
DJ makes some good points. The Islamists are not broadly popular in Pakistan, though they clearly are in places like Waziristan. What percent of the vote did Islamist parties take in the last national elections? Something like 15-20%? There can't be too many Pakistanis who look at the economic boom next door in India and think that Pakistan's problem is too little radical Islam.
This is obviously a power grab by Musharraf, using the nutters as an excuse. Hopefully, Washington will move to cut off aid to Pakistan if he doesn't cut the crap. It's time to cut our losses with Pervez. His time is limited.
The IRA was local to Ireland. They had no intention of toppling the British government, just driving them out of Ireland. It was a challenge but not a revolution.
That is not the case with the Taliban and Al Qaeda. While it is true that the tribalists themselves aren't necessarily that interested in toppling the government per se, any further government force used against them because of pressure from the US will turn them more radical and allow the Taliban and Al Qaeda to gain ground in their area.
Meanwhile the Taliban and Al Qaeda most definitely desire to see the Pakistani government overthrown for two reasons: another base to operate from and nukes. That should be obvious.
And as I said, if the situation devolves into two sets of extremists battling it out, the middle ground won't be relevant in the end.
The notion that a Pakistani dictatorship is anything like the British royal family is a bit bizarre. The problem is that a Pakistani dictatorship might well be different than, say, Saddam Hussein. Hussein had his challenges, too, mostly from the Kurds in the north. He was able to keep them from being a problem, if not put them down completely. But again, the Kurds weren't that interested in toppling the Baghdad central government. The Taliban and Al Qaeda ARE interested in dropping the Pakistani central government.
I'm not saying they will do it next week. That's why the Musharraf moves are a power grab, not a true "emergency". But if he keeps that crap up, it's going to polarize the people - and while the people right now have no stomach for the Taliban and Al Qaeda, they will learn to have no stomach for Musharraf either in time.
And if the Islamists can get even 15-20% of the people on their side, they can bring down the government with the right moves, in time. That is the lesson of history.
So I repeat my prediction that Musharraf's government will not last more than another two to five years at most.
RS Hack, I think the point is not about the end of Musharraf's government as what replaces it. This is of course influenced by how it ends, but evidence from on the ground supports DJ's thesis. Punjab and Sind are not going to knuckle under to a Pashtun-Taliban government, neither is the Baluch population (who would likely be able to draw support from factions in Iran.)
As such, in the medium term I'd be predicting either YAAD (yet another Army dictator) who maybe has to accept de facto loss of control in tribal areas around Afghanistan or a relatively nasty "civil war" conflagration...
"As such, in the medium term I'd be predicting either YAAD (yet another Army dictator) who maybe has to accept de facto loss of control in tribal areas around Afghanistan or a relatively nasty "civil war" conflagration..."
I'd say that amounts to a "collapse of the central government"...
First of all, YAAD isn't going to help the situation at all if it leads to once again acknowledging no control over the FATA. That will simply embolden the tribal Islamists, the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
Second, a "civil war" is hardly something to be wished for when you're talking about avoiding a collapse of the central government.
If you're saying that there is no chance that the Taliban and/or Al Qaeda and/or Islamic tribals can replace the secular government with Islamism, check out these facts I just saw today at the Counterterrorism blog:
http://counterterrorismblog.org/2007/11/pakistan_and_islamism.php
"In the most recent World Public Opinion poll of Pakistanis, it was found that 60 percent of Pakistanis believe that "Sharia should play a larger role in Pakistan law" than it does now. Per this recent World Public Opinion poll, only 26 percent say Sharia should play the same role (15 percent) or a smaller role (11 percent) and 15 percent do not answer.
Most of the news stories based on the recent World Public Opinion poll of Pakistanis have been focused on the limited support within Pakistan in pursuing Al Qaeda or in fighting "insurgents", and these are legitimate tactical war concerns: (a) only 44 percent favor the Pakistani Army pursuing Al Qaeda, (b) only 48 percent would support the Pakistan Army acting against "Taliban insurgents who have crossed over from Afghanistan", and (c) nearly 80 percent are against US pursuing Al Qaeda or Taliban in Pakistan. But the underlying problem in U.S. relationships with Pakistan are demonstrated by the polls indication of significant Pakistani support for Islamism.
Nor is this the only poll that shows such Pakistani sentiment. A month earlier, a poll of Pakistani opinion, taken for Terror Free Tomorrow, yielded similar results on Islamism and support for Jihadist groups. Once again, the Islamist results were not the headline story, but they were a significant finding. To the question regarding Pakistani positions on the need for "implementing strict Sharia law throughout Pakistan", 76 percent of the Terror Free Tomorrow poll responders viewed this as "important". This 76 percent was comprised of 41.2 percent that viewed this as "very important" and 34.8 percent that viewed this as "somewhat important".
The Terror Free Tomorrow Pakistani poll also showed 46 percent of Pakistanis in that poll having a favorable view of Osama Bin Laden (and only 26 percent having an unfavorable view). Other results of the Terror Free Tomorrow Pakistan poll showed: (a) 74 percent opposing US pursuing Al Qaeda or Taliban in Pakistan, (b) 37 to 49 percent approving local Pakistani Jihadi groups, and (c) half of those responding approving of the Taliban.
The American long-term strategy with Pakistan must be clarified if 60 to 76 percent of its population seek to turn Pakistan into an Islamist, Sharia-based nation."
I don't know if this is correct, or if it agrees with Barnett Rubin's analysis of the situation, but if true, it clearly shows that the odds of the Islamists taking over are considerably higher than if only five or ten or twenty percent of the population accepted Islamism as a positive thing.
The Counterterrorism blog article points out that the US has no official policy on "Islamism" vs "Jihadism" and that without one, the US can't really determine what to do in situations such as Pakistan, where the government says one thing and the population may support another.
Comments closed November 17, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
Let's hope that the State Department's FSOs assigned to Pakistan are willing to do their jobs there despite the danger and talk some sense into their counterparts in Musharraf's administration.
Posted by Fred | November 3, 2007 2:40 PM