Coup in Pakistan

Gen. Musharraf of Pakistan has once again suspended the constitution, arrested his opponents (except for Benazir Bhutto, who made a triumphal return to Pakistan after years of exile a few days ago and then, evidently, just left again; she is now supposedly on her way back), fired (and arrested) most of the Supreme Court, shut down opposition radio & tv stations, telephones, etc etc. But he did it in order to “preserve the democratic transition I initiated 8 years ago.” So that’s all right, then.

(Pardon the paucity of links, by the way; I’m cutting & pasting from all over. My favorite headline, though, from the Times of India: “Mush Blames Terror, Judiciary for Emergency.”)

“Pakistan is on the verge of destabilization!” he warned. Which makes the interesting assumption that a coup is the opposite of destabilization.

He said that “Pakistan’s sovereignty is in danger unless timely action is taken.” Which makes the interesting assumption etcetera.

He said he literally had no other choice. “Inaction at this moment is suicide for Pakistan and I cannot allow this country to commit suicide.”

He said he’s like Lincoln, who “usurped rights to preserve the union.” Yes, he’s just like Abraham Lincoln.

The last 3½ minutes of his 45-minute televised address were in English:



He asked for patience from the international community because “we are learning democracy.”

Mush discussed this step with his advisors on Wednesday, according to the WaPo, so the US knew in advance, since some of those advisors are certainly on the CIA payroll and the NSA listens to their phone conversations.

But Condi refused to say whether Musharraf (with whom she’s spoken several times this week) had warned her he’d be doing this, although it’s pretty clear that he did, which makes the US complicit. She said, “I’m not going to characterize how the conversations went, but we were clear that we did not support it. We were clear that we didn’t support it because it would take Pakistan away from a path of civilian rule, the democratic path -- by the way, a path that President Musharraf himself has done a lot to prepare [Ed.: hah!], and that it was absolutely essential that those elections be held.” In other words, if he holds Potemkin parliamentary elections, we’ll pretend they’re democratic, which they cannot be under these circumstances. Condi says she had told him in one of those conversations, “even if something happens, that we would expect the democratic elections to take place.” Coup + elections = good enough for us.

Indeed, this entire crisis came about because Musharraf insisted on running for president without giving up his position as army chief, in violation of the Constitution, as the Supreme Court was about to rule (Mush accused it of “creating hurdles for democracy”). The source of his authority lies solely in his monopoly of military power, not from the vaguely democratic-appearing processes he cobbled together to give him the title of president.

Condi also warned the Pakistani people not to resist the coup, or at least that’s how I interpret this sentence, in a CNN interview: “There really should not be violence, there should not be activity that will disturb calm, because it’s a difficult time for Pakistan.”

Pentagon spokesmodel Geoff Morrell says that “At this point, the declaration does not impact our military support for Pakistan’s efforts in the war on terror,” adding that Pakistan is “a very important ally in the war on terror”.

Bush has said nothing in public, either before the coup or since, and if he’s talked to Musharraf in the last few days, as Condi has done several times (and Adm. Fallon of CentCom met with him in person Friday), no one is mentioning the fact. Funny, that.