Professional Wrestling

PM Gilani "assails" and "protests"
His ambassador to DC says nothing to protest here; all is fine.

In Urdu we have a phrase for fake wrestling; "noora kushti". There is no equal term in American English. We refer to fake wrestling with the very positive phrase: "professional wrestling."

I have not seen the Pakistani or Global media pick up this professional wrestling between Gilani and Dick Cheney. Brian Cloughley in CounterPunch did notice:

It was slightly disturbing, however, that Pakistan’s representative in Washington, the highly intelligent Mr Hussain Haqqani, who has lived in the US for seven years and is still a professor at Boston University, was apparently instructed to deny that the government in Islamabad had considered the airstrikes as an intentional hostile act. He told Reuters that the incident would not cause Pakistan to reconsider its relationship with Washington, “but rather find ways of improving that partnership”.

So there appear to be two messages coming from Islamabad about the killing of Pakistani citizens : “totally unacceptable” and “cowardly act” on one hand ; and an opening to “improving partnership” on the other. But what partnership, what trust, can there be with a nation whose artillery, drones and bombers regularly kill citizens of Pakistan, be they civilians or soldiers?

What evidence is there for Mr. Haqqani's intelligence? I have seen his love letters to Daniel Pipes. I have read his argument why the lack of democracy within PPP is a good thing for democracy. I think he is kinda dumb.

"Sharif, the man Musharraf overthrew to first come to power almost eight years ago, returned to sweep large section of the country in the election earlier this year."

Mr Sharif did not sweep anything. He is not elected to anything. The party that he leads did the sweeping. Its an important distinction make. We want our elected officials to be answerable to the voters, and not just be puppets of their unelected party bosses.

What are we going to do about the Taliban

Says NYT.

The article talks about Baitullah Mahsud of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, and introduces Qari Hussain. "Much of Mr. Mehsud’s strength lies in his alliance with Mr. Hussain, a militant groomed in the anti-Shiite group Laskar Jhangvi."

This week I listened to a couple of interviews of Imran Khan on Pakistan TV that were posted online. He is starting to make more sense than he ever has in the past. He makes some important points about how "Islamic" terrorism and the war on terror are not a religious war but a colonial/imperial struggle. He is only half right. It is both.

There is some wishful thinking in Pakistan that the religious violence will go away once we get rid of Musharraf. It will not. Lashkar Jhangvi is not a product of Bush and Musharraf. It is a product of our own ignorance (jahalat) and savagery. It is also a product of the Israel+Saudi vs Iran power games, that are also not related to Musharraf. We will have to come to grips with all of this if and when Musharraf packs his bags.

Pakistani opinion makers act with revulsion when MQM blows up innocent civilians. They do not express the same revulsion when religious (or pseudo-religious) nut cases blow up innocent civilians.

Sharief-Zardari's one accomplishment

Laura King of LA Times has a standard piece today about how everyone in Pakistan is beating up on Musharraf. Here is the part that I disagree with.

After two months in office, the ruling coalition, made up of the Pakistan People's Party of assassinated former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and the Pakistan Muslim League-N, led by former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, is deeply divided, with no real policy accomplishments to point to.

They have one real accomplishment. They have broken from the Bush policy of "bomb first ask questions later" in Western Pakistan and have started to talk to the folks in that region. Of course it does not take much to improve on Bush's policy, and it is too soon to say what the results of this new policy will be, but it most certainly is a new policy accomplishment. She is right about the rest of it. These clowns have done pretty much nothing else.

US and Pakistan military

Aijaz Ahmad talks about the the relationship between U.S. and the Pakistan military.

Based in New Delhi, Aijaz Ahmad is The Real News Network Senior News Analyst and Senior Editorial Consultant and political commentator for the Indian newsmagazine, Frontline. He has taught Political Science and written widely on South Asia and the Middle East.

Chaudhrys of Gujrat

Reuters has a standard fluff piece about the horses running in the Pakistani elections. To their credit they add the Chaudharys of Gujrat to their list.

Here is a 2004 Newsline article about Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain that furnishes a few more details. We might as well start talking about these clowns.

One Demand. For and against.

For

Imran Khan was on NPR again last week. He has been very clear about his political priorities. He is currently on a hunger strike to make his one demand, and was recently seen ripping up his nomination papers. A guest on a TV sidewalk talk show noted that Imran's party PTI was advertising for candidates in a newspaper ad. Does anyone know more about this?

Retired military men join in on the one demand.

Against

CNN news story this morning tells us that Musharraf will lift the emergency on December 16th. The words "constitution" and "supreme court" do not appear in this story.

Professor Juan Cole lists a sample of editorials from the Urdu press yesterday upon the return of Nawaz Sharief. The tone of the Urdu editorials is shockingly different from that of the TV talk shows. The focus is on having nice clean elections, and not on boycotting the sham elections till the supreme court is restored.

BBC tells us how events are widely seen

Sometimes BBC can be so trashy. Today's article titled "Pakistan's big three - the options" is good example of the worst writing about Pakistan. Here is the first sentence:

The retirement of Pervez Musharraf from the army is widely seen as the most significant development in Pakistan since the coup of 1999 which brought him to power. (my emphasis)

Widely seen? Really? There are those who have no regard for the rule of law in Pakistan. BBC adds its name to that list. The lines are clearly drawn.

Pakistan Supreme Court's successful fight back against the firing of its chief justice earlier this year was a much more significant event. The current sacking of constitution is even bigger. These events dwarf uniform doffing games of this week. Shame on BBC for trivializing the rule of law in Pakistan.

Something happened this week that involved BBC iteself that may have been more significant that the uniform change. Musharraf admitted that his actions of Nov. 3rd were illegal.

"Have I done anything constitutionally illegal? Yes, I did it on 3 November," he said, referring to his imposition of emergency rule. "But did I do it before? Not once."

Bravo General Sahib. You may plead as a first time criminal. Bravo BBC for staying focussed on what is important.

The seething anger of the Pakistani population at the trashing of legal institutions and news media far outweighs their reaction the clothing change. Maybe The BBC's M Ilyas Khan just woke up from a long nap.

In Bhutto's profile, BBC neglects to mention her criminal past. There is no mention of how she is widely seen by ordinary Pakistanis. Much of her profile is devoted to her cozy relationship with the US Administration, but there is no mention of how this is "widely seen" by Pakistanis.

Musharraf had to push through the odious National Reconciliation Ordinance to forgive her criminal past. There is no mention of the NRO here, neither is there any mention of how Bhutto is dependent on the destruction of the supreme court to benefit from the NRO. Of course, BBC will not discuss how the NRO is widely seen in Pakistan.

The BBC's M Ilyas Khan is almost dismissive and disdainful towards Pakistan's push for the rule of law. Who is this clown?

What we are up against

Pakistan civil rights revolt is up against the police, military and intelligence agency apparatus of our own country. This we know. We are done with Musharraf and his chamchas.

We are also up against imperialism and the genocidal war on terror that operates above the law. It destroys legal institutions it finds threatening. This we have not addressed this so much.

We are also up against the ignorance and apathy of the rest of Pakistan that is on the sidelines. This we hardly ever talk about.

Here is an account of a college student in Lahore reporting on a scene of police brutality. His/her questions (#2and #3) about numbers and "the show" are really heartbraking.

1. Can’t the police ‘capture’ such protesting ‘terrorists’ without baton charging? Can’t they ask lady police to ‘grab’ the protesting ladies?

2. Can’t we stop asking questions like ‘how was the show’? (Show? SHOW?)

3. Can’t we think beyond numbers? (Kitna crowd tha? Kitnay zakhmi huyay? Kitnay maray? Kitnay giruftaar huay?)

4. Can’t we do something more than posting the pictures and videos on blogs? Discussing this issue on email forums only?

Musharraf gets on the wrong train