Musharraf, Bush and Cheney's Man in Pakistan, Resigns
Bush and Cheney, the Laurel and Hardy of failed foreign policy, stuck by their tyrannical, undemocratic man in Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf like flies on a turd. Now, Musharraf, the former president of Pakistan, resigned as expected.
The myopic, ignorant foreign policy of this Bush regime is appalling.
As I wrote is December, 2007, "The inimitable Digby sheds more light on that subject in her post "Pakistan Crisis For Dummies." Digby had bookmarked a Washington Post article from this summer that is relevant to the Bush administration's clueless foreign policy, or lack of any coherent foreign policy, towards Pakistan. Here some pertinent passages from the Post article:
'The roots of the crisis go back to the blind bargain Washington made after 9/11 with the regime that had heretofore been the Taliban's main patron: ignoring Musharraf's despotism in return for his promises to crack down on al-Qaeda and cut the Taliban loose. Today, despite $10 billion in U.S. aid to Pakistan since 2001, that bargain is in tatters; the Taliban is resurgent in Afghanistan, and al-Qaeda's senior leadership has set up another haven inside Pakistan's chaotic border regions.
'The problem is exacerbated by a dramatic drop-off in U.S. expertise on Pakistan. Retired American officials say that, for the first time in U.S. history, nobody with seriousPakistan experience is working in the South Asia bureau of the State Department, on State's policy planning staff, on the National Security Council staff or even in Vice President Cheney's office. Anne W. Patterson, the new U.S. ambassador to Islamabad, is an expert on Latin American "drugs and thugs"; Richard A. Boucher, the assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs, is a former department spokesman who served three tours in Hong Kong and China but never was posted in South Asia. "They know nothing of Pakistan," a former senior U.S. diplomat said. [Underline emphasis mine]
" 'Current and past U.S. officials tell me that Pakistan policy is essentially being run from Cheney's office. The vice president, they say, is close to Musharraf and refuses to brook any U.S. criticism of him. This all fits; in recent months, I'm told, Pakistani opposition politicians visiting Washington have been ushered in to meet Cheney's aides, rather than taken to the State Department.' "
Last November I wrote this: "Pervez Musharraf sounds like the George W. Bush of Pakistan. General Musharraf, Pakistan's president, recently suspended the country's constitution and substituted a Musharraf provisional order, dismissed the Supreme Court's chief justice and dissolved the Supreme Court replacing it with judges amenable to him, and declared martial law in all but name.
"He has now refused to set a date for lifting martial law using the war on terror as an excuse and illogically proclaiming that these undemocratic measures were necessary to"save the democratic process."
"He has now refused to set a date for lifting martial law using the war on terror as an excuse and illogically proclaiming that these undemocratic measures were necessary to"save the democratic process."
"A day prior to the general's refusal to lift martial law, King George the Lesser, who demands obeisance from Congress as the above-the-law, trample-on-the- Constitution, unitary executive, called Musharraf the best president for Pakistan and supports him because they share "a common goal" of fighting Al-Qaeda.
"Georgie provided excellent cover for Musharraf's undemocratic policies. Bush seems to have also suspended his own self-touted spreading democracy agenda; probably permanently. Just like Bush's ever changing lies about the reasons for his Iraq invasion, democracy for Pakistan was never really the deal, as Juan Cole points out."
"Georgie provided excellent cover for Musharraf's undemocratic policies. Bush seems to have also suspended his own self-touted spreading democracy agenda; probably permanently. Just like Bush's ever changing lies about the reasons for his Iraq invasion, democracy for Pakistan was never really the deal, as Juan Cole points out."
Last month I wrote this: "So, the Bush administration put all its eggs in one basket, the basket of the haves and have mores, in Pakistan and backed the dictator, Pervez Musharraf, with millions in military funding. Instead of assisting Pakistan with a public school system that would help poor children and decrease recruits to the Taliban, Bushites decided that money for a dictator, weapons, and warmongering were the answer. It was an answer alright, but the wrong one."
And McClatchy Newspapers reports today: "Pakistan's President, Pervez Musharraf, bowed to massive pressure and quit today, ahead of impeachment proceedings due to start this week.
"Pakistan's army, which has ruled the country for more than half its tumultuous history, quietly told Musharraf that it would not back him if he decided to fight the impeachment, stripping him of the only backing that might have saved him. Similarly, close allies — the U.S., Britain and Saudi Arabia — also indicated to the president that it was time to go. However, those international allies are thought to have put pressure on the Pakistani government to let him resign before impeachment.
"Details of the deal that led to Musharraf's resignation were not immediately available. Back-channel negotiations between the coalition government and Musharraf had centered on Musarraf's desire to remain in Pakistan and be granted immunity from prosecution. The government was reluctant to grant those requests.
"There is speculation that key aspects of Musharraf's cooperation with the United States would have been aired in any impeachment hearings, including details of the "disappearance" of since 9/11 of hundreds of Pakistanis, some into U.S. custody, and the sanctioning of American missile strikes against suspected militant camps in Pakistan's tribal areas. The Pakistan army raid on Islamabad's radical Red Mosque last year, which resulted in around 100 deaths, might also have featured in any Musharraf trial."
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