Re: More Progress : Civilians can be court-martialled : Army Act amended
They don't have the resources to manage that. At the moment, lives are in stake in NWFP. See Mamaof3's personal responses in "Watching SWAT". When you have a government that has minimal resources, then priorities come first. I think the safety and protection of natural rights of millions in NWFP , and the threat to security to a nuclear power comes first before the internal politics of the government. I don't think that's a hard concept to follow. If I were leader of state, I would be putting the fussings of individual politicians and well-fed Pakistanis on the backburner while militarily dealing harshly with treason and protecting national interest. And if that meant curbing a media and politicians and activists that could possibly thwart that actiivty, then so be it.
The problem comes in when you have the corrupt police do that work for you, but then they can't spare their army either to handle the civilian unrest in urban areas either, if they're using their army in SWAT, and Wazirstan troubled areas. The problem is when CNN, (Oh wait, aren't you guys always complaining about how America portrays you and how Mush always listens to America - then why the heck are you paying attention to the Western media that's painting this emergency rule to be a selfish move? No conspiracy there for ya???) puts up pictures of men and women being mishandled on the streets as they're peacefully protesting rule, and the problem comes in when the President doesn't use the media to keep a full update and images of what's going on in SWAT. Had he done that, I think images and interviews of escaping SWAT residents would send enough chills down everyone's spine to garner morale support. That's where his mistake is. I don't think his heart is in the wrong place. He is a military man, and as such he leads the country like one leads the military.
For a group of Jaahil population like Pakistanis, I am hesitant to say that this is a wrong approach.