Pakistan's Musharraf declares emergency

[Stray Pooch]

This can't be good.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071103/ap_on_re_as/pakistan

Pakistan's Musharraf declares emergency

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - President Gen. Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency in Pakistan on Saturday ahead of a crucial Supreme Court decision on whether to overturn his recent election win and amid rising Islamic militant violence.

Eight Supreme Court judges immediately rejected the emergency, which suspended the current constitution. The government blocked transmissions of private news channels in several cities and telephone services in the capital, Islamabad, were cut.

"The chief of army staff has proclaimed a state of emergency and issued a provisional constitutional order," a newscaster on state Pakistan TV said, adding that Musharraf, who took power in 1999 coup, would address the nation later Saturday.

Dozens of police blocked the road in front of the Supreme Court building, with the judges believed inside.

The state TV report gave no reason for the emergency but it follows weeks of speculation that he could take the step. Military vehicles patrolled and troops blocked roads in the administrative heart of the capital.

The U.S. and other Western allies urged him this week not to take steps that would jeopardize the country's transition to democracy.

During previous emergencies in Pakistan, a provisional constitutional order has led to the suspension of some basic rights of citizens and for judges to take a fresh oath of office.

"This is the most condemnable act," said Ahsan Iqbal, a spokesman for the opposition PML-N party of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Sharif was barred by Musharraf from returning to exile to Pakistan in September to mount a campaign against military rule.

"The whole nation will resist this extra-constitutional measure," he said.

Private Geo TV network reported the eight judges rejected the declaration of emergency and ordered top officials, including the prime minister, and military officers not to comply.

Geo reported that the army had entered the court building, but the report could not immediately be confirmed.

Shahzad Iqbal, an official at a cable TV news provider in Islamabad said authorities were blocking transmissions of private news channels in Islamabad and neighboring Rawalpindi. State TV was still on the air.

"The government has done it," he said.

Residents of Karachi said their cable TV was also off the air.

[Plane]

Amost eight years ago Canadate Bush was asked the name of the President of Packistan as if it were a pop quiz.


And he didn't know.

[The_Professor]

Of course, a major issue is the number of nuclear weapons ready and available in that nation, regardless of who is in charge.

So, let's see: radical Taliban hiding out in Pakistan assume power there either directly or in cahoots with resident Muslim radicals.

A pretty picture, huh?

[Stray Pooch]

So, let's see: radical Taliban hiding out in Pakistan assume power there either directly or in cahoots with resident Muslim radicals.

Yep.  Precisely my concern.   And of course, the Taliban are FWB of them friendly folks that brought you 9-11.  This looks like another potential no-win situation (or maybe what we called a CF in the Army).

[The_Professor]

I am sure the Indians are watching these events VERY CLOSELY.

[Stray Pooch]

I am sure the Indians are watching these events VERY CLOSELY.

Yeah, and that could put even more cluster into the works.  How many ways could Pakistan go to hell and take the whole world with them right now? 

I sometimes get the feeling the US is trying to hold a dam back and we're running out of fingers to plug up the holes.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Pakistan, no matter who runs it, does not have the power to strike at the US. Only some clandestine, non-governmental outfit like Al Qaeda might be able to harm the US.

India would be far more at risk from a Pakistani fanatical Muslim group. India has its share of fanatical Hindis.

I am pretty sure Juniorbush knows who is running Pakistan now.

[Plane]

Pakistan, no matter who runs it, does not have the power to strike at the US. Only some clandestine, non-governmental outfit like Al Qaeda might be able to harm the US.

India would be far more at risk from a Pakistani fanatical Muslim group. India has its share of fanatical Hindis.

I am pretty sure Juniorbush knows who is running Pakistan now.

If Al Queida has such power , how can a government which could form secret military branches not have such a power?

[Xavier_Onassis]

If Al Queida has such power , how can a government which could form secret military branches not have such a power?

Pakistan is a country, and would have to attack with traditional weapons, They don;t have any that could reach the US. If Pakistan were to use a typical Al Qaeda stealthy attack, it would make them a pariah among other nations. Everyone would hate and mistrust them.

Al Qaeda specializes in sneaky operations with only a few members.

Everyone already hates and mistrusts Al Qaeda.

[Stray Pooch]

Pakistan is a country, and would have to attack with traditional weapons, They don;t have any that could reach the US. If Pakistan were to use a typical Al Qaeda stealthy attack, it would make them a pariah among other nations. Everyone would hate and mistrust them.

The problem, however, is that Pakistan is home to elements of the Taliban, a probable hiding place for bin Laden, and has an active Islamic Fundamentalist movement who would love nothing more than to get their hands on the government.  If that were to happen, there is a more than even chance that Al Quaeda would gain nuclear weapons by default. 

If you believe a country must use conventional tactics and weapons to attack may I remind you of a certain incident in the air over Lockerbie - not to mention a myriad of other acts associated with governments like Iran, Libya and (to a lesser extent) Syria.  If the government of Pakistan were taken over by Islamic Fundamentalists, then nuclear weapons - and the attendant technology - would be available to then and a lot of other bad guys.  That might make our current issues with Iran look like a schoolyard shoving match. 

[Xavier_Onassis]

If you believe a country must use conventional tactics and weapons to attack may I remind you of a certain incident in the air over Lockerbie

========================================================================================
During the Iran-Iraq War, a US ship blew up an Iranian airliner filled with Muslims going on a pilgrimage to Mecca. The Captain, as I recall, was the namesake and grandson of Will Rogers.

A Libyan airliner was shot down over Egypt, and then Lockerbie occurred. But we are supposed to see these as entirely unrelated events.

I would say that even if there were another airliner shot down, the number of casulties would vastly be outnumbered by only the US casualties that would result in Iraq and Iran as a result of some punitive Juniorbush mission.

It isn't really better to die on one's feet than to live on one's knees. A war would put both the US and Iran on their respective knees. It is always better to live. It is always worse to die. The effective proverb to this would be an old Polish one: "When two idiots fight, the third idiot wins."


The only thing that will win the confrontations in Iraq and between the US and Iran is diplomacy. It is past time to get started on this.

[Xavier_Onassis]

If we had some ham, we could have ham & eggs, if we had eggs.

Jeez, Louise!

Pakistan is quite unlikely to be taken over by Al Qaeda.

Al Qaeda is a tiny Arabic-speaking group that could not run a large country like Pakistan even if they handed them the keys. Pakistanis barely even know Arabic.

[Michael Tee]

I think what Pooch is worried about is native fundamentalists sympathetic to al Qaeda taking over the government of Pakistan, not necessarily al Qaeda itself. 

Al Qaeda's power, after all, is more in the nature of inspirational power at this point - - it showed hundreds of millions of oppressed Third Worlders that The Great Satan is not invulnerable.  It showed them what a few determined men with a plan can accomplish, and (as planned, IMHO) it greased the path for the fascist and militarist elements of the U.S. ruling class to lead the country into disastrous campaigns in Afghanistan and (a probably unexpected bonus!) Iraq as well.  Even the purely defensive measures that the U.S. has been forced to adopt are costing it hundreds of billions of dollars.  This is a fantastic feat of leverage, performed at minimal cost by twenty very expendable men.

Will al Qaeda be able, "inspirationally" or otherwise, to engineer a takeover by radical Islamic factions of the Pakistani government?  Who the hell knows?  Even the incredibly stupid Stanley Kurtz article from National Review On-Line, posted by sirs in another thread, gave away the game in a throw-away reference to the one real expert on Pakistani affairs, who has said that nobody can predict such things.   Pakistan has a well-developed Muslim middle class which will not accept fundamentalist restrictions over their lifestyle.  It would take a Revolution on the order of Iran's Islamic Revolution, to impose fundamentalism on the entire nation, including its urban elites.  The Iranian Revolution was ignited by the tyranny of the Shah, conducted by the secular middle class and taken over by the crazies.  Sure, the pattern is there to be followed in Pakistan, just substitute Musharraf for the Shah (he's nowhere near as bad, but could be getting there) and the Pakistani bar and press for Bakhtiar's supporters.

The reality is that the U.S. has already lost Pakistan.  The Pakistani people hate the U.S.  Musharraf is able to exploit this hatred by extorting billions of dollars annually  (probably by now hundreds of billions) from the U.S. in a classic extortion racket, selling "protection" the way the Mafia sold it to businessmen on the Lower East Side a hundred years ago but with diplomats doing the buying and selling.  The nukes, however, aren't for the U.S., they're for India, "just in case," and probably won't even be used against them either.

Once again, what you are really seeing is the gradual erosion of U.S. power and influence in the world.  It's not Bush's fault, if anything he's just accelerating the natural forces at work, but it's natural and inevitable.  Power is slowly shifting back to normal, from a very un-natural configuration caused by a series of historical accidents that left the U.S. at the top of the heap and its natural competitors in a vegetative coma at the bottom.  For a brief moment.  Events in Pakistan are no more subject to U.S. control than events in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan or even Palestine.  Over time, things will even out.  More powerful players than the U.S. will be taking a hand in these things if they aren't already.  Do we really think that the Chinese are just watching what goes on in Pakistan with no interest whatsoever in assessing what's to their benefit and what's not?  Or that they have no clue as to how they can influence a more favourable outcome for themselves?

[Xavier_Onassis]

I agree that China will eventually be a major world power, perhaps THE world major power someday. I am sure that Pakistan is being carefully watched by China, and of course India, and that each of these has its own agenda, which probably does not correspond to that of the US.

[Stray Pooch]

Pakistan is quite unlikely to be taken over by Al Qaeda.

I'm not suggesting Al Quaeda would take over Pakistan - although that possibility is not out of the question.  An awful lot of small parties become major players under the right circumstances.(The National Socialist Workers Party and the Bolsheviks come to mind.)  But Al Quaeda could gain access to Pakistan's nuclear weapons if a fundamentalist government sympathetic to their cause took over.  That is entirely possible with Iran, btw.  It is not at all unusual for a power to use an non-government entity to do their dirty work.  We do it - so can they.