Time for Musharraf to Quit

Matloob Zaman writes "it is not the ruler and rather the nation on the whole which is not resilient enough to curb it's appetite for luxuries and false pride ..."

Do you have any clue how the vast majority of this country's people live? Over 84% on less than subsistence level? And you talk about "appetite for luxuries and false pride". It is one thing to be an idiot quite another to be a clone of the PMA style high school education that makes an army apologist write in this illiterate fashion, you seem to be a unique mixture of both...

Quit is too easy, his d*** should be cut off, then he should be hung by parliament decree and left to dry in the summer sun with his pants off, so the people whose blood he has sucked on for all these years see that justice has finally been done...

Matloob zaman writes "Most of this mess created by "us" i.e. by ourselves and not by the USA."

More lies, the mess is created by an institution, the Pakistan Army that is not representative of "us" the people, and that institution has as its paymasters the US, in whose desires its loyalty lies. Therefore, the US is directly responsible for the institution that has created the mess. The people who have NO, ZERO representation in the affairs of the military are not to blame at all. Get an education before you write nonsense...

matloob Zaman writes "The two prime parties that claim to have won with BIG mandate, aren’t these the same people who were in past written off by the people more than once for their corruption, mismanagement and robbing the country and the nation, and now once again we have the nerve to impose them on our homeland, how naive it is"

No they were not written off by the people, they were "written off" by the military when they didn't submit with the level expected of all civilians that are allowed to rule by the military. Even this time the PPP was brought in after a deal, what kind of "democracy" is this, it is a facade of an establishmentized "democracy" that is a smoke screen to mask military dictatorship in this cuntry because people do not like dicatation after a while. Every time they try this forumula, unintended consequences of which the lawyer's movement was the current one arise. Soon when these reach a critical mass the order will be overthrown then we will see the rebirth of democracy in this country, the first birth by ZAB, that involved the people of this country for the very first time into its affairs, was killed by Zia using the Jinnahesque cover of "Islam khatray mey hai" and then selling us wholesale to the Americans....

In the name of democracy----Pakistan style!
New dogs and old tricks that is what it all boils down to! The new faces in the govt. have not opted for a single new policy and in various cases have also announced so that they will continue to follow the same defense and finance policies that previous administration had in convention.

Then what did we need a new govt. for? Just to have some new faces whom some other supporters befriend and take advantage of! If the nation does not give up their rational of seeing a new face every now and then by bringing down the incumbents and replacing them with their cronies, only a miracle can help Pakistan prosper and/or stabilize.

Pakistan does not have the backbone to support rapid transitions as it has experienced over last several decades, transitions of the style Pakistan and Pakistanis have been subjected to reaches deep down to a level where one does not expect to see transitions, while all this happens only to accommodate that cha'cha or ma'ma whom the transitioning-in one's promised stars and the moon once I am there in that, yeah in that seat.

Supporting Musharaf is not the fault of US neither did the US place him in command of Pakistan, the fault lies with Nawaz not-so-Sharif who is solely responsible for not only Musharraf but a lot more than that. Musharaf is here today he wont be there tomorrow and some new character will be sitting in the same seat, and, once again another series of attacks on that new one will begin until we drive that one off the seat, and on and on it will continue.

Most of this mess created by "us" i.e. by ourselves and not by the USA.

How long will we continue to look towards others for fulfillment of our dreams? How long do we plan to remain the beggar at the junction spreading our hands in front of those who are no one to us? don’t we understand that when someone shows kindness it is never without a reason, this is a give and take world and those who accept donations from others should know that there are no free lunches in this world and the donor is looking to benefit from their act of charity in kind what is termed by the US as "interest" not the interest one pays on money rather they are interested in achieving their long drawn policies riding on the shoulder of entire nation. It is quite shameful to refer to the US media specially when they are busy shredding Pakistan's dignity and hollowing it's roots based upon the themes they support or even the themes of their ownership cartel.

They are a lot better organized as media a lot more organized as compared to the entire nation Pakistan, when they take up an agenda they go to any extent to undermine their target in a very systematic manner. They have never been interested in individuals as rulers of other countries other than gauging as to how long and how powerfully they can engage the given rulers to benefit them, and they will support such rulers as long as their purpose is served and in some cases in a manner that they don’t even let their accomplice ruler feel that they have been put to use to carry on their dirty agenda.

If one must live on the charity of others then they should be prepared to provide them a smooth passage to their goals and if one sticks their head out to the extent that one can be observed on the radar, one should remember what happened with Zia-Ul Haq whom they did not spare although it took them to kill many of their diplomats and attaches to bring down Zia.

While the game did not end there but it went on and their so-called forensic experts were allowed to investigate the site and debris which allowed them to clean up any traces of their doing that were hiding in the nerve gas canisters that were used to put the pilots of that plane to sleep so the plane could not be controlled in it's ascend.

As a ruler of Pakistan losing confidence of people is not that big of a deal and does not take much, it is not the ruler and rather the nation on the whole which is not resilient enough to curb it's appetite for luxuries and false pride which only God knows how many more time will take us through this passage of transitions, while God only knows how long can Pakistan hold fast with such rapid transitions imposed redundantly in the name of people's will and people's choice.

The two prime parties that claim to have won with BIG mandate, aren’t these the same people who were in past written off by the people more than once for their corruption, mismanagement and robbing the country and the nation, and now once again we have the nerve to impose them on our homeland, how naive it is.

We are nothing as a nation but conspirators and helpers of conspirators since ever, always seeking to topple every other govt. and replace it with someone we know so we can benefit solely on a personal level.

On one hand we raise slogans for democracy and on the other hand we seek Islamic systems while on the other hand we don't get tired pleasing others attempting to adopt their style of democracy that neither suits nor promotes a Welfare State and leads no where else other than a capitalistic society of other design of democracy.

Understand "democracy" and the varieties of democracy before claiming democracy.

Here is someone who is saying similar to what I have been saying on Chowk for a long time:


Finally, there is the much-maligned argument that Pakistan’s history proves that democracy has not worked in Pakistan. This is total nonsense. If one looks at Pakistan’s history, all one finds is vast periods of non-democracy — mostly under non-elected rule, but often also under elected rule. Empirically, the only thing that one can say on the basis of this history is that non-democracy does not work in Pakistan. As one surveys the socio-political landscape one finds the country in the grips of poverty, disease, despair, sectarianism, extremism, violence, and much more. But none of these can be blamed on democracy, simply because we have never really allowed meaningful democracy for any meaningful period of time. There are many things that don’t work in Pakistan, but all evidence suggests that democracy is not one of them. At least, not yet.
Adil Najam: Democracy and Pakistan
www.fascistarmy.org

It is not up to the pakistanis to decide when mushy should quit, it is for teh US. The pakis who cried blue when a few paki soldiers were killed by the US are happy when zardari asked nawaz to come with him to teh US to convince the US that mushy should go.

None of the educated pakistanis saw any surrender fo sovereignty in the action. Their own presdident remains in office as long as the US administration feels that he should.

Self respect...well let me check the book, there is no such notion...it is surrender to the laws of the book. AT last pakistan is a true islamic republic.

NO!!!!!...

can't have mushy quit...

need him around to keep the civil war going...

interesting quote
"Just a recap of Nilofer's case. . .

In the first week of April, 2007, the Islamic clerics issued a fatwa against a federal woman minister, Nilofar Bakhtiar, for having hugged a French paraglider who was her instructor. Finally, she lost her party position as the PML Woman’s Wing president because the President of her party, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain expressed displeasure at her conduct. Later, in January 2008, the Women’s Development Ministry received threatening calls that it must be closed down or face consequences. She has been nursing a grouse against the Chadhry ever since. After the recent elections, she formed a 'forward bloc' within PML-Q and has been giving a lot of headache to Chaudhry Shujaat. In the process, she has also earned the ire of Gen. Musharraf, whom she used to refer to as 'my leader' in earlier happier times. It won't be a surprise if she meets the same fate as Benazir in the hands of the same combine of Taliban-Chaudhry-Gola that eliminated the former PM."

Cultural roots of militancy —Rasul Bakhsh Rais

The cultural roots of militancy are spread throughout the country and we should not see them as exclusively tribal in nature, or as confined to the borderlands

The challenges we face today are too many, too complex and too threatening to be handled effectively by one political party. Let me broadly divide these challenges into three categories: militancy and violence; deteriorating economic situation; and poor governance.

Militancy and violence is the foremost of these issues.

The present stock of rulers may say that they have inherited many of these problems from the previous government, who is greatly responsible for what we face today. But this is no more convincing an argument than it was about four months ago. A period of one hundred days is more than enough to at least show that things that were bad have actually begun to change.

It is equally true that these problems are such that we cannot expect their resolution in a mere four months, and perhaps not even in a year or two.

But there are other measures of success or failure of a government even if it has inherited problems: have good policies at least been initiated; have worsening trends been arrested?

There is an emerging view that casts doubts on the leadership quality and political capacity of the elected government to understand the terrible nature of militancy. We know its roots, genealogy, extremity and its transnational entanglement with global Jihad.

The emergence of any group that is armed, organised and wants to run its own writ within a territory that it carves out is a direct challenge to national security and sovereignty.

The writ of the Pakistani state has been repeatedly challenged in the tribal regions. These regions are no longer isolated from the rest of Pakistan or even the world, because militant leaders use them as sanctuaries to plan attacks, raise volunteers for this purpose and inflict social harm. Sadly, the zone of extremist, violent activity has expanded in recent months to the settled districts where the Taliban and other groups have been enforcing their brand of law and order.

One reason religious militancy in Pakistan has still not been wiped out is the nature of debate on religious extremism in the country. While extremists operate in limited bands of groups, their social support base has alarmingly increased. For a vigilant society aware of the risk militant outfits pose to national security, even slight tolerance of such groups and individuals would be considered a moral, social and national offence.

Turn on any TV channel, attend any political seminar or engage with any social group with a religious orientation, and you will see open sympathy and support for militancy. The logic they present in support of the militancy is convoluted. What we hear often is this: ‘the state has failed to deliver security goods’, ‘there is unemployment’, and ‘what are Americans doing in Iraq and Afghanistan?’ This is confused and short-sighted argumentation at best and it shows that many do not understand what is in our best interest.

There are religious and political factions in the country with an irrational view of history and politics who think that Taliban-type governance is a better alternative to the semi-secular, post-colonial Pakistani state. Although some of them participate in open, democratic politics, they are not averse to capturing state power by violent means. I suspect that their portrayal of the Taliban militancy as legitimate has a strategic objective, that of increasing political space. In turn, the society at large is losing sight of the grave danger that militancy and intolerance pose to all of us.

There is a deeper cultural and historical issue that we cannot escape in our political debate on militancy and intolerance. We live in a very different age, a truly modern age defined by consumerism, the market economy and material desires. This is our objective world. But the subjective world of at least the majority of Muslims in Pakistan has still not changed. We continue to live in the cultural and historical world of conquerors, conquests, and invading hordes and heroes. Much of this subjective world has been shaped by celebratory historical narratives of Muslim invaders and the practice of asserting religious superiority over other religious categories.

The reason I am expounding on this theme is that the cultural roots of militancy are spread throughout the country and we should not see them as exclusively tribal in nature, or as confined to the borderlands alone. The larger objective of Islamising the state and society that religious political parties have pursued for decades using both the pulpit and open democratic space is yet another factor that has contributed to the increasing tolerance of religious intolerance and militancy.

Is there a way out? We have to work very hard to convince the world and ourselves that we really want democracy, constitution, rule of law and other modern forms of governance and can adapt them to our social setting. We also need to convince ourselves that doing so will not compromise our faith or religiosity. Generations of modernist intellectuals throughout the Muslim world and in the subcontinent have argued time and again that you can be a good Muslim in a modern state structure.

By nature, a modern nation state has secular institutions, and cannot and will never be religious. Only the militant groups that capture the state by force will coerce society to submit to their view of religion and rituals. The democratic route would moderate them, if they choose it, and if they don’t consider it a one-way ticket to power, the logic of democracy will force them to respect freedoms.

While we engage in a rational debate on our future and on how to address the problem of militancy, we need national consensus among political parties that this indeed is Problem Number One and that we must end it with whatever is required. Action needs to be taken urgently because of the real and potential spill-over effects of militancy to other countries. The world may not wait for us and, by choosing its own means and employing them inside our territory, could further create rifts that we may not be able to bridge.

Dr Rasul Baksh Rais is author of Recovering the Frontier State: War, Ethnicity and State in Afghanistan (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books 2008) and a professor of Political Science at the Lahore University of

Yaar Majumdar pi,

1. Please join the publish Masadi campaign by putting up an ilog...you can just copy paste from mine if you wish.

2. You are the facts and figures guy...do let me know if you have the info you inquired about :)

Toofan Payee,

the man did a lot of good for Pakistan

How many MW of power generation were added in Pakistan between 1999- till date?

Regards

Musharraf has turned out to be pretty good for Pakistan...although I despise the Army, and it's up to its same old tricks, the man did a lot of good for Pakistan...I know I know...I feel embarrassed even admitting this...but it is the truth.

If only Pakistanis had an attention span that lasted a couple of years, they would not have voted in an imperial House of Bhutto, corrupt mofos to replace the non-corrupt and good for pakistan Musharraf.

I know this is gonna piss off a lot of you, so be it.

Speak truth to power -my motto :)

Musharraf is definitely no angel. However, I would argue he is no worse than than the other politicans. Zardari and Sharif? These poltical hacks are the vanguard for democracy in Pakistan? Give me a break. Its hard to find anyone to back when the institutions of the state are a kleptocracy.

"I much prefer the sharpest criticism of a single intelligent man to the thoughtless approval of the masses."-- Johannes Kepler

Pak Hypocrisy

Kashmir:

Terrorists = Freedom Fighters = Martyrs = True Soldiers of Allah = Destroyers of India

NWFP:

Terrorists = Bloody Afghans = Murderers = False Interpretation of Islam = Destroyers of Pakistan

When a few soldiers got killed in the afghan border by the US all of teh educated of pakistan talked about paki sovereignty. Now the same educated shamelssly are talking about arrangements with teh US to get rid of mushy.

Hallo, the educated of pakistan, is it not the ultimate insult to teh notion of sovereignty.

NO I made a mistake, for a muslim to be killed by an infidel is terrible, that is per the book, the eductaed only clothe the religious dogma in modern terms like sovereignties.

The book is silent of the infidels selecting the rulers, hence it is OK for the paki educated.

What is destroying pakistan is this pretance of modernity, hiding the religious dogmas.

There has been not even a single article stating that the rulers being selected by the US is an insult to teh sovereignty. And that is pathetic