You left me alone, Musharraf tells his allies

Society Pakistan & World Affairs
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Re: You left me alone, Musharraf tells his allies

Perhaps COAS are dropped by Storkes from the sky. What a naive and ridiculous POV you have.

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Re: You left me alone, Musharraf tells his allies

I will agree with you on this.

Granted however that influx of money did not come without a pre-condition to please USA. And given the circumstances what else should he have done but to bite the bullet.

Our so-called democratic process also inhibits growth of new leaders as well because the political parties are not democratic. I agree Bhutto inspite of his downfall on the domestic front is what I would call a world class leader, he could fool the world and get away with it and in many instances he did which is why Pakistan even has the nuclear program to begin with.

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Re: You left me alone, Musharraf tells his allies

There wouild be a great dent to his popularity if he leaves office and not a single lota is there for him.. the official jalsas are but a forced gathering of govt officials and few paid onlookers.. he has to understand that all his efforts has only made a very small segment of society fattened but vast majority even more desperate..

[Real incident]
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Re: You left me alone, Musharraf tells his allies

Musharraf would have understood that the lota league was with him due to the power of his 'uniform'...now they have smelt the cofee and they dont see any place of musharraf in the future so they are waiting to jump off...

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Re: You left me alone, Musharraf tells his allies

Sorry to see the thread hijacked...

I will like to say two things...

when did musharraf took all his parliamentary members into confidence before taking any decission.. decission like taking a u-turn on kashmir policy, putting the national hero under house arrest, killing the innocents, disappearing the innocents, taking u-turn on afghan policy, bombarding his own country men... I don't remember any of the public leader doing things like this anywhere in the world... democracy means that we have a best decission from a collective thinking not a product of a single brain. Now why is he crying... really pathetic..

Secondly doesn't the democracy means that the people should have the right to choose whomever they like... I feel all these american residents are tyrant, oppressive, unjust and without brains by nature just like their president the Bush... i believe all such people will have a very dreadful fate... Its our right to choose who we like, we never interfere so much when american election comes, no matter how much stupid people you elect.

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Re: You left me alone, Musharraf tells his allies

Well said. Let the people decide & let the system work. If system is allowed to work and once it becomes mature, it will filter out the corrupts.

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Re: You left me alone, Musharraf tells his allies

Gen Yahya was a true patriot..
anyone against that?

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Re: You left me alone, Musharraf tells his allies

True dat and not only that he was soldier in a totally different class then Mush the fat gutted slob could ever aspire to be...He fought against the Germans in North Africa and was taken prisoner of war and interned in Italy, where the conditions were not the best...he escaped from the POW camp on his third attempt...

If Mush would have been in his position he would have been collaborating with his German/Italian guards to turn in his fellow POWs...

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Re: You left me alone, Musharraf tells his allies

Dictatorships don’t go easy
Reality check

By Shafqat Mahmood

The writer is a former member of parliament and a freelance columnist based in Lahore

Of the many splendours of democracy, flawed or otherwise, the most nourishing is its ability to provide an honourable way out for unpopular rulers. Elections become a perfect exit strategy. A reference is made to the electorate and if it decides against the incumbent, he or she gets an opportunity to make all the right noises and gracefully bow out before the will of the people. No such luck for military dictators.

They take power by force, hang on to it through the barrel of a gun, and only leave when people push them out. In the process, there is repression and sacrifice, tragedy and heroism, and an enveloping sense of bitterness. All the fault lines within the state and society surface to create an emotional and physical paralysis.

This affects the economy because production and commerce slow down and foreign capital starts to shy away. It affects governance because the state’s primary focus becomes repression leaving normal functioning by the wayside. It affects society because the tensions smouldering within become manifest leading to intolerance, vigilante highhandedness and crime. The death throes of a dictatorship are singularly unpleasant.

There were many in this country who had convinced themselves that Pervez Musharraf was a different kind of a military dictator. He appeared to be straight-talking, result-oriented, and enlightened. Above all, he seemed to have his feet firmly planted on the ground. He often said that he was pushed into this position of power against his will and if he ever felt that people were not with him he would quit. How time has belied everything he professed or claimed to be.

It is obvious now that he is not as straight talking as people had imagined him to be. When asked why the state abdicated its responsibility in Karachi on May 12, he goes into a long harangue about how it is MQM territory and they had a right to take out a procession, etc. etc. Not a word about who gave the orders for the police or rangers to stand down and give the murderers a free hand. No desire to pin responsibility for this carnage on political or administrative shoulders. Not even a shard of remorse for the mayhem, the trauma that the city was made to go through.

He is neither as much of a realist as people thought he was. When he is told that there is genuine and widespread anger on the sacking and mistreatment of the chief justice and on the murders in Karachi, he refuses to acknowledge it and instead blames the media. If this was tactical and a spin on the news, however dishonest, one could at least understand it. It appears that he genuinely believes that the current crisis has only been created by the media. This is beyond deceit. It is a flight from reality.

He is also not such a reluctant ruler as he has always pretended to be. He obviously loves power and is willing to go to any length to retain it. He refuses to take off his uniform because it ensures him support of the army. He knows that it is a disciplined force and he is using this admirable trait within the institution to strengthen his hold on power.

Much has been made of the corps commanders conference and the obviously political statement that was made in support of General Musharraf. Why this should surprise anyone or particularly strengthen the General, is beyond me. What else would an institution, whose organising principle is discipline and obedience, do? It would obviously stand behind the person who at that particular moment happens to be its chief. The sad part is not that this statement was issued by the corps commanders. The tragedy is the use of this institution by the General to retain his hold on power

This ‘reluctant’ ruler is also determined to take every step however controversial to secure his hold on power. He is determined, for instance, to make the current assemblies elect him as president in September. He knows very well that this is not only legally and morally contentious but also deeply divisive and could lead to further disruption and unrest in the country. But, he does not care. As long as he can hang onto power, it does not matter what happens to the country.

Now the general has started, like all military dictators, to believe that his staying in power is essential for the country. This was the crowning argument made by him while berating PML-Q legislators for not standing up for him. According to published reports, he said: “You do not know the problems for Pakistan if I am left out …You would see Talibanization in Lahore and Karachi as well… I am not worried about myself. I am fighting your war.”

Our war indeed. There is no time in this column to restate how during his tenure the radical elements in the country have gained greater power. Not only to do religious parties have more representation in the parliament and in the provincial governments, the radicals are directly challenging state authority all over the country. The problems in Islamabad are only its most visible manifestation.

This enlightened man full of moderation has now trained his guns on the electronic media. The draconian PEMRA ordinance is straight from the rule book of dictators. As long as the General did not feel that his hold on power was directly threatened, he could play the benign military ruler to the hilt. It was a repetitive mantra. “The media have never been freer than in our time. We have allowed a hundred channels to bloom. We are more democratic than the democrats.”

The moment a real challenge came to his hold on power, all the democracy and freedom that ‘we’ gave to the media, came to nought. Channels are being forced off the air, particular programmes being targeted and now the threat through the ordinance of even greater punishment. This is reverting to form. Dictatorships just cannot be benign. It is not within its genetic code.

No wonder then that one by one, Musharraf has begun to dismantle all the false embellishments of democracy he had garnished his rule with. Those who watched carefully knew the truth, particularly since the fraudulent referendum, but many were taken in by the benign facade. It began to unravel with the treatment of the Chief Justice and then by turning a blind eye to the murders in Karachi. Now it is the turn of the media.

Dictatorships don’t go easy. They will use every ounce of state authority to bolster their hold on power. Already thousands have been arrested all over the country and more of this will follow. The media will also be subjected to further harassment. Repression is the last weapon of weak dictators and it will be unleashed to the full. The sad part is that the country will suffer greatly before a new beginning can be made.

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Re: You left me alone, Musharraf tells his allies

wasalam

but this gov had given so many hopes to comman man that they had started thinking that might be there life will change ,but what happen , state goes worse then before

i am not talking about that water
i am talking about drinking water

see news daily people are dyeing because of drinking pulloted water

he has absolute power , don’t you think

comman man never like any polition or dictator
when they see , they and their children dieing of hunger and these dictators are enjoying luxuries of life , they start hating them and start waiting some new one to make them fool again

these days loadshedding is going on as a sensorship of the electronic media
every time "Aaj kamran khan key sath " starts lights goes off

if these people are lover of pakistanies , they would have generated electricity through solar energy , secondly Pakistan is a neuclear power why not we use neuclear engery for generating electricity

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Re: You left me alone, Musharraf tells his allies

PML-Q members are deserting the weakening dictator, as they even they realize the country has turned against him

Kabir Wasti, one of the party’s 40 vice-presidents, said: “The president has lost the support of the majority of the people of Pakistan, if not the whole.”

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Re: You left me alone, Musharraf tells his allies

I was talking abt mistakes made by the people of pakistan in choosing leaders that were totally inept.

Musharraf's only positive for me is the economic growth and even that is tied to the influx of money post 9/11. I dont know in what other sphere of life he has done any better than the politicians.

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Re: You left me alone, Musharraf tells his allies

:hehe: :rotfl:

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Re: You left me alone, Musharraf tells his allies

Whats new here. And who is polluting the water … Musharraf.

And again like this is something new. Every politician enjoys this same luxury or is Musharraf the first one?

Now this I can agree with that it is politically motivated. However if we want to talk about media, our media is very one sided. When it was under state control it was not open but not with some freedom all it does is report against the government. They do not have balanced reporting.

:omg: Even USA cannot do that yet for public needs and you expect Pakistan to be there.

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Re: You left me alone, Musharraf tells his allies

not even a single project in the last 5 years for electricity generation speaks volume of Mush's vision and performance

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Re: You left me alone, Musharraf tells his allies

good read as always

Summer of discontent, season of hope

By Ayaz Amir
PITY the Q League, the latest target of Gen Pervez Musharraf’s wrath. When did it ever pretend to be a real political party? Now Musharraf wants it to behave like one. It’s like expecting a plant in a hothouse to grow overnight into a mighty oak.

“I bluntly say,” said the enraged Commander-in-Chief at a meeting of Q League legislators on Wednesday, “you always leave me alone in time of trial and tribulation…you never came to my support.”

Strange that he should talk in this mode. For eight years he has been a law unto himself, taking everything for granted, deciding everything himself, with little or no consultation least of all with his political stooges. Now he expects the same stooges, many of them political orphans who wouldn’t be in the assemblies without ISI help, to step forward as his fearless defenders.

“You are not delivering,” he went on to say. “You have lost the war of nerves. You all are silent upon what the media is doing. If I myself have to do everything then what is your purpose?” A newspaper editorial would be hard put to give a better description of the general’s plight.

This is all the more strange considering that not long ago he was derisive about the current agitation. It would soon pass, he told his Q League loyalists. They should concentrate on electing him president later this year, and everything would be all right. Now suddenly a different tune altogether. The same newspaper report from which I have quoted said that Musharraf looked “visibly shaken”. As well he might. When was twisting in the wind good for anyone’s composure?

A few days ago it was the corps commanders’ affirming support for their Chief, the first time this has happened in the history of Pakistan. A press release said they “…took serious note of the malicious campaign against institutions of the state, launched by vested interests and opportunists who are acting as obstructionist forces to serve their personal interests and agenda even at the cost of flouting the rule of law.”

Malicious…vested interests…opportunists…obstructionists: all in one sentence, verbal overkill reflecting the draftsman’s skill or the confusion in the minds of the corps commanders? Then the touching reference to the rule of law: amazing.

Even in the edited footage shown on television you could sense some of the unease on the faces of the formation commanders. One fair-faced general was caught grinning in an ingratiating manner (we may assume his promotion or preferred posting is assured) but one or two others looked pretty glum.

Assailed on all sides by an opposition on the warpath, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in the summer of 1977 extracted a statement of support from the then service chiefs. Exactly 30 years later Musharraf is playing the same card. As good an example as any of history repeating itself, but with a difference: Bhutto was an embattled civilian, Musharraf an army chief.

Army commanders are happiest when a civilian government is in trouble. Then they can look serious, as if worried about the country’s future, and contemplate drastic action. Bailing out an army chief in trouble is a staff exercise they have yet to conduct. What will they do? Nothing seems to be working, neither the heavy guns of the corps commanders nor the water pistols of the Q League.

As if there weren’t enough fronts already, the presidential camp has opened another one, against the media, especially private TV channels, now demonized in its overheated imagination as the source of all its troubles. The amendments in the law relating to the electronic media are another exercise in overkill. Far from being cowed down, the media is up in arms.

It is a sign of the times that even on this issue the government has been forced on to the back foot, the prime minister (looking more confident nowadays, I wonder why) has set up a committee to review the amendments. Meanwhile, no action will be taken under them. A victory for the media, another setback for the government: just goes to show the disarray in the official camp.

Until now freedom of the media was Musharraf’s one great alibi, the excuse which served to soften the outlines of his one-man rule. Now even this fig-leaf has been discarded.

Remember, please, that back in Oct ’99 his coup was hailed by the English-speaking liberati and many upright pillars of English journalism. Liking what he saw, Musharraf cast himself in the role of free media sponsor, the honeymoon only souring when his troubles mounted. Now with the first real political threat to his rule emerging, the mask has finally slipped, revealing the true face of dictatorship underneath.

But repression is tricky business. It can work when a government’s authority is intact. But at journey’s end, with the shadows of evening closing in, its use is counter-productive, more an admission of defeat and failure.

This is turning out to be a strange summer for Pakistan: a summer of discontent for Musharraf and his increasingly disheartened acolytes, the Q League just a step or two short of going into actual mourning; but for much of the nation a season of hope.Eight years of militarized democracy is long enough. The yearning for change, now almost palpable, has taken hold of the political class and the intelligentsia, and even ordinary citizens, who have gained little from the economic bonanza of the last eight years.

Crisis of the state? This is more like a crisis of mediocrity. Remember that the vision in command for the last eight years is the same vision which gave us Kargil. Sept 11 was lucky for it, easing the country’s finances and bringing Musharraf international recognition. But luck doesn’t hold out forever. Even Napoleon’s ran out in the end. And mediocrity is, well, mediocrity, not divine grace.

Musharraf’s present troubles stem from one all-consuming flaw: an inability to understand that 2007 is not 2002. Back then he was able to fix not just his own referendum and the subsequent general elections but the entire political landscape. His power to fix things is not what it used to be.

Whatever the Supreme Court decides, whether Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry is restored or not, drastic climate change has already occurred. Musharraf’s heart is still set on a phony presidential election, but he is now in no position to enforce one from these assemblies (whose own term will soon be expiring). The time for such shenanigans is past. Even his own corps commanders, whatever they may say to him to his face, will have a hard time swallowing such an imposition.

Justice Chaudhry’s role in this crisis is pivotal and enormous. But for his courage and steadfastness the torch we see burning on the horizon would not have been lit. This movement which has already altered the political landscape would not have started. Lawyers, the heroes of this movement, would not have been galvanized into action. Political parties would not have stirred from their sleep. Excitement allied to a sense of expectation would not have filled the air.

Even so, Musharraf can’t blame Justice Chaudhry for all his troubles. The time was ripe for change. More and more people were getting fed up with the half-truths and clichés of the present hybrid system. Justice Chaudhry did not create these conditions of unrest. They were already there, waiting to be kindled. The true author of his misfortunes is, thus, Musharraf himself, who refused to grow with the times or curb his irrational ambition.

Even at the Q League meeting I have referred to he could not help making another of his usual pitches about his indispensability. He said he was needed because if he went Talibanisation would follow. As figments of the imagination go, this is audacious. The present lawyers’ movement is all about secular principles, the supremacy of the Constitution and the independence of the judiciary, not the mysteries of religious doctrine.

For Musharraf to raise the spectre of Talibanisation is like a gambler’s last throw of the dice. In this summer of unrest and hope, Pakistan is threatened not by Talibanisation but a genuine return to democracy. Musharraf’s last and ultimate failure is his inability to come to terms with this possibility.

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Re: You left me alone, Musharraf tells his allies

Anyway Folks I'll bug out of this thread. My point is not to defend Musharraf but his failure is not solely his own. Any leaders failure is accompanied by the failure of his cohorts. For anyone who realizes and does not live for the moment (as many here) the mood of every opposition or people in Pakistan is always the same by the end of their chosen politicians tenure. No one here (maybe an exception in the early days) can show an example of when the Pakistani people were not fed up of their leaders at the end of the day. This is only indicative that the people need to change their perceptions as well and you are not going to get anywhere by blaming your leaders all the time. Granted Musharraf has made many mistakes but again, nothing works if the people are not with you anyway. If you compare why things are better in developed countries is because their majority adheres to the policies their politicians legislate.

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I agree completely only a genuinely elected civilian government can achieve it not military dictators

Paindoo list...
Paindoo list...
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Re: You left me alone, Musharraf tells his allies

Gen Yahya Khan is being hailed a hero, how pathetic can things get, after reading this, there is no bottom.

Yahya Khan single handidly partitioned Pakistan and is primarily responsible for millions killed in East Pakistan. Musharraf on the contrary is trying to keep this religious-ethnic infested country together with no help from the usual suspects ie political parties. Yahya had the Jamaat e Islami to support his policies and Bhutto played his cards well, which of course yielded a partitioned Pakistan. Now if there was a villian, it was Yahya Khan, JI and PPP (Bhutto).

Musharraf is no saint and has made many mistakes, but he has escaped two suicide attacks by these crazy Al qaeda and their political patrons (JI etc), Short cut aziz has survived one attack and so has the Interiro minister, unfortunately there have been many who did not survive like the DIG Peshawer. Point being, ppl forget the forces waiting for Musharrafs fall, the same forces who wish to spread their ugly tentacles across Pakistan and idiots like Imran Khan are helping their cause because of his greed to grab power, lack of political vision and sheer arrogance.

We need o think beyond tomorrow and one week, Pakistanis have to think for the next generation and for that we need a country.

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Re: You left me alone, Musharraf tells his allies

could this just be a step on the way towards ditching PML(Q) for the PPP deal?

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