Musharraf, Benazir, Altaf a US dream team for Pakistan

[Shamraz_Khan]

Good to know the US has Pakistan’s best interest at heart…

http://nation.com.pk/daily/oct-2007/30/index4.php

Musharraf, Benazir, Altaf a US dream team for Pakistan

CH AAMER WAQAS
LAHORE - The Pakistan Peoples Party has outrightly rejected Tariq Azeem’s statement about US pressure to bring Benazir Bhutto back, whereas, the APDM leaders have the statement true, observing that the trio of Benazir Bhutto, Altaf Hussain and General Pervez Musharraf is a US dream team for actualising its agenda in this region.
“That is why the deal between the two has been brokered by the US. The State Minister has himself made it clear that the General can only show fist to the nation but he becomes waiflike under the US pressure every now and then.”
Leaders of the All Parties Democratic Movement said this, while talking to The Nation on Monday when asked to comment on the statement of the State Minister for Information Tariq Azeem given to the US media. The leaders bitterly criticised General Musharraf and his coterie for becoming US stooges, and turning the country into an American colony.
Condemning the statement, Secretary-General Pakistan Peoples Party Jehangir Badar maintained that Tariq Azeem had said this out of fear in his subconscious about the PPP’s popularity and a threat to the election prospects. “The PPP has been raising this issue of bringing genuine democracy in Pakistan on various international forums, but has never asked any foreign government, including the US, to exert pressure on the Pakistan government to bring Benazir Bhutto back. We have been asking foreign powers only to support the true democracy in Pakistan. There are many international organisations, like the National Democratic Institute, working for the restoration of democracy in the third world countries. Such institution might have been influencing the government to take steps for transition to democracy,” he said, also adding that the PPP never believed in such tactics to get support of foreign powers.
Chairman Pakistan Muslim League (N) Raja Zafar-ul-Haq said the statement by Tariq Azeem had actually confirmed the earlier impression that there was an agreement between Benazir Bhutto and General Pervez Musharraf. “Now one of the two parties, Pakistan and the US, has confessed it, while the other has yet to come on record. However, this has left nothing to imagination now,” he averred.
Raja Zafar said people were already feeling that Pakistan’s policies were the outcome of the US directions, which are never in the interest of the country. “One can see Bhutto’s statements in this regard about providing access to nuclear scientist Dr A Q Khan and allowing the NATO forces to strike inside Pakistan,” he added.
Chairman Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Imran Khan said the trio of Benazir Bhutto, Altaf Hussain and General Pervez Musharraf was a US dream team for actualising its agenda in the region. “That is why the deal has been brokered by the US between the two. Now the State Minister has himself made it clear that the General can only show fist to the nation and the poor people, while he becomes a wet sheep for the Americans, since he took power in 1999,” he maintained. “In the coming elections, there will be a distinct divide between pro-US and Pro-Pakistan forces, and all the democratic political parties should act in unison to fight against such elements that are bent upon destroying the country,” he said.
Secretary-General Jama’at-e-Islami Syed Munawar Hassan said the political parties had been saying this over the last many years that Pakistan was being run under the US pressure, and it had been turned into a US colony. “Since 9/11 after just one call from an American, General Musharraf has been working according to the dictation of the US, and killing his own people to please the Americans,” he said, while adding that Tariq Azeem had spoken the truth after a very long time. He demanded that the government to redefine the foreign policy for the betterment of the country.
While talking about the National Reconciliation Order in this context, Munawar said the fault lay with General Musharraf. “The NRO is between two individuals, that is, Benazir Bhutto and General Pervez Musharraf, who do not constitute a nation. This reconciliation has been outlined because of the US pressure,” he added.

[teggy]

Re: Musharraf, Benazir, Altaf a US dream team for Pakistan

i don't think it's gonna last though, if it's forged and 'MADE' to fit.

[Spock]

Re: Musharraf, Benazir, Altaf a US dream team for Pakistan

True, too many unstable elements here... BB cant work with others, power sharing for her is unacceptable... Altaf/MQM has made and broken alliances and then ended up in bloody rows with their ex-allies... They've fought taken pangaz with literallly everyone, the army, pathans, polciyaz, punjabis, sindhis u name it... It wont work out...

[Iconoclast]

Re: Musharraf, Benazir, Altaf a US dream team for Pakistan

Spock
Altaf is lot wiser now, all he wants is the money to flow and keep a Mafia liek hold on Karachi. He will make alliance with anyone that will be in power. Even if tomorrow its Nasirullah Babur, he will happily make alliance with him.

[Shamraz_Khan]

Re: Musharraf, Benazir, Altaf a US dream team for Pakistan

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-10-28-pakistan-bhutto_N.htm

Official: U.S. forced Pakistan to allow Bhutto back

By Paul Wiseman, USA TODAY
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The United States pressured Pakistan to allow former prime minister Benazir Bhutto to return from exile, promoting her as a moderate influence in a country facing a growing threat from Islamic extremists, a Pakistani government spokesman said.

“She says what America wants to hear,” Deputy Information Minister Tariq Azim Khan said in a weekend interview with USA TODAY. He said the U.S. government forced a reluctant Pakistan to allow her to return after eight years of self-imposed exile: “You twisted our arm.”

After months of negotiations with the military government of President Pervez Musharraf, Bhutto returned to Pakistan on Oct. 18 to lead her Pakistan Peoples Party in parliamentary elections, due in January. Her triumphant homecoming was shattered when bomb blasts killed 145 people in a crowd of tens of thousands gathered to welcome her back in Karachi.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said the Bush administration is encouraging Musharraf to work with moderates and hold the elections, but other U.S. officials have denied meddling.

State Department spokesman Tom Casey said Oct. 11 that he “would certainly take exception to the idea that the United States is somehow stage-managing, guiding or otherwise telling Pakistanis how to run their own internal affairs.”
FIND MORE STORIES IN: Pakistan | PM | Pervez Musharraf | Islamic militants | Karachi | Benazir Bhutto | Pakistani government | Pakistani Prime Minister | President Pervez Musharraf | LARKANA

For months, though, Pakistan’s news media and political commentators have contended that the Bush administration is pressuring bitter enemies Musharraf and Bhutto to agree to a shotgun political marriage. Such a deal would leave Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal under the control of a trusted ally, Musharraf, and would unite two voices that have consistently opposed Islamic militants.

It also would boost Musharraf’s democratic credentials after eight years in which he marginalized political opponents and ruled largely as a military strongman.

Khan said the decision to let Bhutto return from eight years of self-imposed exile was foisted on Pakistan. “America has this notion they are the best judge,” he said. “They might as well hold the election in Washington.”

Khan said Washington was enticed by Bhutto’s assurances that she would let U.S. troops hunt al-Qaeda and other extremists in Pakistan and allow United Nations inspectors to question rogue scientist A.Q. Khan, who developed Pakistan’s atomic bomb but gave nuclear secrets to Iran and North Korea.

He said Bhutto’s willingness to cooperate with the United States in ways that Musharraf has not would hurt her with a Pakistani electorate. A.Q. Khan, who has been under house arrest for years, is considered a national hero, and many Pakistanis are deeply skeptical about the U.S.-led war on terrorism.

Musharraf, the army chief who seized power in a 1999 coup, has been reeling from a series of pro-democracy demonstrations and terrorist attacks by Islamic militants. Bringing back Bhutto was supposed to stabilize his regime.

He dropped corruption charges against Bhutto and let her return. In return, she and her supporters agreed not to fight his Oct. 6 re-election to another five-year term as president by a panel of national and provincial lawmakers.

The deal set the stage for a power-sharing arrangement — Musharraf as president, Bhutto as prime minister if her party does well in the upcoming elections.

Former Bhutto adviser Husain Haqqani, now director of Boston University’s Center for International Relations, said the two share a secular outlook and opposition to the religious extremists who have seized power along the lawless northwestern frontier. Even so, the alliance looks rocky, because:

•Bhutto has traded insults with leaders of Musharraf’s ruling party over the bomb blasts. Bhutto says ruling party figures conspired to kill her; the party blames her for coming home despite security threats.

•Popular former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, overthrown by Musharraf eight years ago, vows to return from exile for the elections and could play the spoiler.

Sharif, who is close to Pakistan’s hard-line Islamist parties, tried to return Sept. 10 but was deported within hours. “Sharif’s popularity is growing day-by-day,” says Mirza Rian Baig Raj, a columnist for the Urdu-language newspaper Nawa-i-waqt. “The anti-Benazir vote has no place else to go.”

Having allowed Bhutto’s return, Musharraf probably will have to let Sharif return home, too, Khan said.

•Bhutto’s dealings with Pakistan’s military government have dented her popularity. Her approval ratings plunged to 36% last month from 54% in June, according to a poll conducted in late August and early September by the International Republican Institute, the democracy-promoting arm of the U.S. Republican Party.

Pakistan’s Supreme Court, which is reviewing Musharraf’s re-election and the amnesty deal he offered Bhutto, could create chaos by nullifying them.

Meantime, terrorist attacks — especially the Karachi bombings — have put the country on edge, as has intensified fighting in border areas between Pakistani troops and Islamic militants.

All of it could be too much for Musharraf. Naseer Ullah Babar, a retired major general and former Bhutto interior minister, predicts that Musharraf will “find some pretext” to postpone elections.

“Never underestimate the difficulties and cruelties of Pakistani politics,” says Mathew Schmalz, a South Asia specialist at the College of Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass. “Musharraf could declare martial law. If so, all bets are off.”

[Reza_Pahlavi]

Re: Musharraf, Benazir, Altaf a US dream team for Pakistan

@Shamraz_Khan

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-10-28-pakistan-bhutto_N.htm

Official: U.S. forced Pakistan to allow Bhutto back

By Paul Wiseman, USA TODAY
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The United States pressured Pakistan to allow former prime minister Benazir Bhutto to return from exile, promoting her as a moderate influence in a country facing a growing threat from Islamic extremists, a Pakistani government spokesman said.

“She says what America wants to hear,” Deputy Information Minister Tariq Azim Khan said in a weekend interview with USA TODAY. He said the U.S. government forced a reluctant Pakistan to allow her to return after eight years of self-imposed exile: “You twisted our arm.”

After months of negotiations with the military government of President Pervez Musharraf, Bhutto returned to Pakistan on Oct. 18 to lead her Pakistan Peoples Party in parliamentary elections, due in January. Her triumphant homecoming was shattered when bomb blasts killed 145 people in a crowd of tens of thousands gathered to welcome her back in Karachi.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said the Bush administration is encouraging Musharraf to work with moderates and hold the elections, but other U.S. officials have denied meddling.

State Department spokesman Tom Casey said Oct. 11 that he “would certainly take exception to the idea that the United States is somehow stage-managing, guiding or otherwise telling Pakistanis how to run their own internal affairs.”
FIND MORE STORIES IN: Pakistan | PM | Pervez Musharraf | Islamic militants | Karachi | Benazir Bhutto | Pakistani government | Pakistani Prime Minister | President Pervez Musharraf | LARKANA

For months, though, Pakistan’s news media and political commentators have contended that the Bush administration is pressuring bitter enemies Musharraf and Bhutto to agree to a shotgun political marriage. Such a deal would leave Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal under the control of a trusted ally, Musharraf, and would unite two voices that have consistently opposed Islamic militants.

It also would boost Musharraf’s democratic credentials after eight years in which he marginalized political opponents and ruled largely as a military strongman.

Khan said the decision to let Bhutto return from eight years of self-imposed exile was foisted on Pakistan. “America has this notion they are the best judge,” he said. “They might as well hold the election in Washington.”

Khan said Washington was enticed by Bhutto’s assurances that she would let U.S. troops hunt al-Qaeda and other extremists in Pakistan and allow United Nations inspectors to question rogue scientist A.Q. Khan, who developed Pakistan’s atomic bomb but gave nuclear secrets to Iran and North Korea.

He said Bhutto’s willingness to cooperate with the United States in ways that Musharraf has not would hurt her with a Pakistani electorate. A.Q. Khan, who has been under house arrest for years, is considered a national hero, and many Pakistanis are deeply skeptical about the U.S.-led war on terrorism.

Musharraf, the army chief who seized power in a 1999 coup, has been reeling from a series of pro-democracy demonstrations and terrorist attacks by Islamic militants. Bringing back Bhutto was supposed to stabilize his regime.

He dropped corruption charges against Bhutto and let her return. In return, she and her supporters agreed not to fight his Oct. 6 re-election to another five-year term as president by a panel of national and provincial lawmakers.

The deal set the stage for a power-sharing arrangement — Musharraf as president, Bhutto as prime minister if her party does well in the upcoming elections.

Former Bhutto adviser Husain Haqqani, now director of Boston University’s Center for International Relations, said the two share a secular outlook and opposition to the religious extremists who have seized power along the lawless northwestern frontier. Even so, the alliance looks rocky, because:

•Bhutto has traded insults with leaders of Musharraf’s ruling party over the bomb blasts. Bhutto says ruling party figures conspired to kill her; the party blames her for coming home despite security threats.

•Popular former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, overthrown by Musharraf eight years ago, vows to return from exile for the elections and could play the spoiler.

Sharif, who is close to Pakistan’s hard-line Islamist parties, tried to return Sept. 10 but was deported within hours. “Sharif’s popularity is growing day-by-day,” says Mirza Rian Baig Raj, a columnist for the Urdu-language newspaper Nawa-i-waqt. “The anti-Benazir vote has no place else to go.”

Having allowed Bhutto’s return, Musharraf probably will have to let Sharif return home, too, Khan said.

•Bhutto’s dealings with Pakistan’s military government have dented her popularity. Her approval ratings plunged to 36% last month from 54% in June, according to a poll conducted in late August and early September by the International Republican Institute, the democracy-promoting arm of the U.S. Republican Party.

Pakistan’s Supreme Court, which is reviewing Musharraf’s re-election and the amnesty deal he offered Bhutto, could create chaos by nullifying them.

Meantime, terrorist attacks — especially the Karachi bombings — have put the country on edge, as has intensified fighting in border areas between Pakistani troops and Islamic militants.

All of it could be too much for Musharraf. Naseer Ullah Babar, a retired major general and former Bhutto interior minister, predicts that Musharraf will “find some pretext” to postpone elections.

“Never underestimate the difficulties and cruelties of Pakistani politics,” says Mathew Schmalz, a South Asia specialist at the College of Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass. “Musharraf could declare martial law. If so, all bets are off.”

Yep, as I have said BB does no longer trust “people power” (maybe it has really abandoned her), and has opted to get back into power through American patronage, Pak Army support and kissing upto the likes of the MQM.

[Aalsi]

Re: Musharraf, Benazir, Altaf a US dream team for Pakistan

Mashallah. It’s good that the APDM have recognised this fact and now know who is in the dream team.

[Captain1]

Re: Musharraf, Benazir, Altaf a US dream team for Pakistan

@Shamraz_Khan

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-10-28-pakistan-bhutto_N.htm

Official: U.S. forced Pakistan to allow Bhutto back

By Paul Wiseman, USA TODAY
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The United States pressured Pakistan to allow former prime minister Benazir Bhutto to return from exile, promoting her as a moderate influence in a country facing a growing threat from Islamic extremists, a Pakistani government spokesman said.

Where is Sa1eem to deny all these “lies”? Pakistan is a “SOVEREIGN” state and does not take dictation from any country whether it is US, UK or Swaziland, right Sa1eem mian? Few more highlights here:

“She says what America wants to hear,”** Deputy Information Minister Tariq Azim Khan** said in a weekend interview with USA TODAY. He said the U.S. government forced a reluctant Pakistan to allow her to return after eight years of self-imposed exile: “You twisted our arm.”

So it is not some unkown official saying that

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said the Bush administration is **encouraging **Musharraf to work with moderates and hold the elections, but other U.S. officials have denied meddling.

I know what you will say about “encouraging”, 10 paragraphs explaining difference between encouraging and “telling” :cb:

He dropped corruption charges against Bhutto and let her return. In return, she and her supporters agreed not to fight his Oct. 6 re-election to another five-year term as president by a panel of national and provincial lawmakers.

[Spock]

Re: Musharraf, Benazir, Altaf a US dream team for Pakistan

A dictator, a plunderer, and a terrorist... Good combo indeed...

[Reza_Pahlavi]

Re: Musharraf, Benazir, Altaf a US dream team for Pakistan

@Aalsi

Mashallah. It’s good that the APDM have recognised this fact and now know who is in the dream team.

Fazlur Rehman is trying to join the “Dream Team” as well, so it’s membership is continuting to expand. I wonder who will join next?

[Shamraz_Khan]

Re: Musharraf, Benazir, Altaf a US dream team for Pakistan

@Captain1

I know what you will say about “encouraging”, 10 paragraphs explaining difference between encouraging and “telling”

[Amour]

Re: Musharraf, Benazir, Altaf a US dream team for Pakistan

its like a "worst nightmare team" to me!

[Farid]

Re: Musharraf, Benazir, Altaf a US dream team for Pakistan

@Spock

A dictator, a plunderer, and a terrorist... Good combo indeed..

You mean "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly":D

[Reza_Pahlavi]

Re: Musharraf, Benazir, Altaf a US dream team for Pakistan

You mean "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly":D

Which one is which? :)

[Aalsi]

Re: Musharraf, Benazir, Altaf a US dream team for Pakistan

Fazlur Rehman is trying to join the "Dream Team" as well, so it's membership is continuting to expand. I wonder who will join next?

I believe Shahbaz Sharif wants piece of the action. :)

[Reza_Pahlavi]

Re: Musharraf, Benazir, Altaf a US dream team for Pakistan

I believe Shahbaz Sharif wants piece of the action. :)

But BB wants more than just one slice of the cake. :)

[Ali_R]

Re: Musharraf, Benazir, Altaf a US dream team for Pakistan

Could someone enlighten me on the fact, why would the US want Altaf Hussain to be a member of the dream team? I can understand If Indian demands for it or even Isreal indirectly. But the US?

[Rebel_X]

Re: Musharraf, Benazir, Altaf a US dream team for Pakistan

karachi votes, and no matter what it is it is not a party that is pals with the religiosu right or extreme religious right. that is probably why

[5Abi]

Re: Musharraf, Benazir, Altaf a US dream team for Pakistan

Rebel X2: offtopic quetion, is spock banned again?

[Ali_R]

Re: Musharraf, Benazir, Altaf a US dream team for Pakistan

karachi votes, and no matter what it is it is not a party that is pals with the religiosu right or extreme religious right. that is probably why

Oh I understand, but what would it look like in Karachi? (ideally speaking) 50%-50%? Matlab PPP and MQM share Karachi votes? I'm sorry I'm a bit unaware about this situation. Thank you.