Late Breaking: Joe Biden Is A Maverick, Too!

One of the lines I was most eager to blog about when I read it -- but couldn't at the time -- came from Mary MacElveen, via Bob Parry's Consortium News.

While arguing that the national news media unfairly pay more attention to Elephant veep candidate Sarah Palin than to Donkey veep candidate Joe Biden [photo], MacElveen also argues that John McCain is not the only "maverick" in the race.

According to MacElveen:

Biden too showed he was a maverick in stating he would buck his own party to continue funding the troops when some opposed it.

He certainly doesn't appear to be the sort of maverick we need at the moment. But thanks for the insight, Mary.

From one point of view, Consortium News, with its 24/7 Obamathon, continues to be one of the hugest craters in the pockmarked landscape formerly known as independent American journalism.

But from another angle, it's remarkable how deeply and fully Bob Parry's site reveals the bankruptcy of American politics -- where even those pulling for the "opposition" are unabashedly despicable.

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More Screwed Now Than Ever Before

My rusty old steed has finally gone to CPU heaven; rather than changing careers, I decided to get a new computer. I do not like the new keyboard at all, nor do I care much for the new OS. And they don't seem to like me, either. So we're having a big battle and not much else is getting done. All my blogs have been dormant.

But I've been reading as much as possible ... and I can't shake the feeling that we're more screwed now than ever before, though it seems hardly anyone agrees with me.

Perhaps that's why I don't agree with them.

I thought Mark Morford was making sense in his newest -- Greetings from "the angry left" -- until the end of his column:

But don't you worry, because there's an even bigger secret looming that the right wing can't really mention right now. See, much as they want to sling "angry left" around and hope it sticks, there's simply no getting over the fact that, despite how it will take the Obama administration many years to repair the incredible damage Hurricane Bush hath wrought, most of us on the left are actually feeling pretty damn good these days. Happy, even.

See, we know the tide has turned. The Bush Dark Days are nearly over. The Obama groundswell is historic, extraordinary, unstoppable. The GOP had its turn, was handed six years of unprecedented, unchecked power, and very nearly destroyed the country. Even Republican leaders now openly admit their party is a mess, shattered and gutted by Bush, will take years and decades to restore to something resembling dignity. And McCain/Palin? An aberration, one of the most disquieting quasi-conservative tickets to ever give a nation the creeps.

So then, trust me when I say, try as they might, "the angry left" won't stick. As anyone with the slightest sense of history and poetic justice knows, such a jab is merely the final, desperate wailings of the bankrupt, the shameful, and the doomed.

It's too bad how he's got it all twisted around there. It's America that's bankrupt and doomed, not the Republican party. As for shameful, I would use that word to describe Barack Obama and the people who still support him.

But Mark Morford thinks the Obama administration is going to reverse the depredations of the Bush administration and that's why The Left is not Angry. Uh-huh. Sure, Mark.

The only problem with this analysis in my opinion is that there isn't a shred of evidence that Obama wants to do anything of the kind, and plenty of evidence to the contrary; in the meantime Obama is showing himself to be utterly shameless with respect to a massive war crime as well as the betrayal of the vast majority of American voters. In other words, he is ready to be Commander-in-Chief.

And Mark Morford may speak for The Left but he certainly doesn't speak for me. Oh well.

At At-Largely, Jeff Huber slays a pack of stupid little lies in his newest -- They Lied with Their Boots On -- but along the way he sips from the Magical Chalice containing the Big Lie. As usual.

Huber rips into David Petraeus for saying things he can't prove, writing:

It's the eye-watering lies of the neoconservative oligarchy that everyone remembers, but I've come to believe the little lies they tell reveal more about their malignant nature, and I'm particularly interested when these venial mendacities get dropped not by our politicians, but by our ever growing phalanx of political generals.
...

[Petraus] said that senior Al Qaeda leaders "might be" diverting fighters from the war in Iraq to the Afghan frontier area. He also said that Al Qaeda "might be" reconsidering Iraq as its highest priority war front. What made him say this "might be" happening is "some intelligence that has picked this up.” In case you're wondering what "some intelligence" might consist of, Petraeus explained that, "It's not solid gold intelligence." And "not solid gold intelligence" means what, exactly, General?

“There are unsubstantiated rumors and reflections that perhaps some foreign fighters originally intended for Iraq may have gone to the FATA," Petraeus finally told AP, which means in point of fact that the entire story about al Qaeda in Iraq transferring itself to the Bananastans is total f***ing bulls***; but that didn't keep Petraeus from telling it or the Associated Press from running it.

And that's quite legitimate, but on the other hand consider this nonchalant reference to an even bigger lie, portrayed here as truth:

... you can smuggle dribs and drabs of martyrdom interns from Baghdad to Islamabad or wherever. You'd do that with key leadership personnel, or with special task operatives like the carload of out-of-towners who pulled off the 9/11 attacks. But it's not like the Petraeuses of this world would have you believe ...

The problem, of course, is that IF a cartload of out-of-towners had pulled off the 9/11 attacks, the entire terror war might be somewhat justified and the fact that Petraeus is exaggerating wildly now would be of minor import.

In order to believe the big lie, you also have to believe that a 47-story skyscraper that wasn't hit by a plane disintegrated in seven seconds, due to thermal expansion -- the first and only building to do so in the history of the world.

Yeah, right!

The NIST report by its own admission is utter horse manure, but Barack Obama buys the 9/11 Myth just as fully as John McCain does ... and while guys like Huber and Morford drink from the poisoned chalice, shake their bloody pom-poms and dream their pipe dreams, the biggest lies of all are still standing, and growing, and being reinforced in hundreds of millions of ways.

The foul and bloody chimera erected seven years ago is becoming more solid all the time.

Meanwhile, Robert Parry has been both Too Bad and As Usual lately as well, as prior trends have continued, and the former Consortium News has now become Cheering For Obama.

Recently, Parry has been writing about McCain and Palin and how phony they are; nothing of the sort about Barack Obama and Joe Biden. They're the good guys in an ever-evolving tale of news and politics, from one of the formerly great investigative journalists of his bygone era. Very sad and getting worse.

Why, among all the chumps writing today, do I pick on these three? Some sort of moral deficiency on my part, I suppose.

I used to think these three writers were excellent. I used to read them all the time.

Now I can't break the habit, even though they make me so sad and/or angry so often.

Sometimes I think that by sidestepping the big questions and/or supporting the big lie and/or ignoring the words and sponsors of their chosen candidate, they're insulting my intelligence.

Other times I think I'm insulting my own intelligence by continuing to read them ... but what else is there to read?

Plenty.

Gandhi is all the way in Australia but he can see what Obama is up to.

Sept. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Barack Obama said the surge of American forces in Iraq has ``succeeded beyond our wildest dreams,'' though Iraqis still haven't done enough to take responsibility for their country.

``The surge has succeeded in ways that nobody anticipated,'' Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, said in a recorded interview broadcast tonight on Fox News's ``The O'Reilly Factor'' program.

Gandhi asks:

Is it time to vote Green yet?

Yes!

John Caruso was paying attention and his post at A Distant Ocean bears the perfect title: "Obama and O'Reilly share a sip from the blood cup":

Just in case you missed it, here's another lovely nugget (or see the video here) to share with your Democrat friends:

Sen. Barack Obama: “Bill, what I’ve said is—I’ve already said it succeeded beyond our wildest dreams.”

Bill O’Reilly: “Right! So why can’t you just say, I was right in the beginning, and I was wrong about the surge?"

Sen. Obama: “Because there is an underlying problem with what we’ve done. We have reduced the violence…”

O’Reilly: “Yeah?”

Sen. Obama: “...but the Iraqis still haven’t taken responsibility! And we still don’t have the kind of political reconciliation. We are still spending, Bill, $10 [billion] to $12 billion a month.”

O’Reilly: “And I hope, if you’re president, you can get them to kick in and pay us back.”

Sen. Obama: “They’ve got $79 billion in New York!”

O’Reilly: “And I’ll go with you!”

Sen. Obama: “Let’s go!”

O’Reilly: “We’ll get some of that money back.”

As a friend said: let's make them pay for the whip we're using to beat them!

Exactly. Why not? Iraqis have to take responsibility for their own country now; this is an ownership society! And as the "Angry Left" used to say, we don't own Iraq.

Instead Iraq is the scene of an enormous and ongoing crime -- a war crime, a crime against humanity, the most serious offense against the most serious legal strictures ever passed -- and nobody -- left, right, or center -- will say anything about it, other than a few madmen on the net.

Chris Floyd must be the maddest of all the internet madmen; his four most recent posts combine to tell an awesome tale:

Surge Protectors: Obama Embraces Bush-McCain Spin on Iraq

Both parties support a heinous lie, a brutal crime against innocent people which is hailed as a success. Meanwhile ...

Work of Evil: Beyond the Worst-Case Scenario in Somalia

... yet another country is being destroyed as part of the Terror War, by proxy and for gas and oil, and without the knowledge or consent (or, apparently, much concern) of the American people.

Rebel Yell: Resistance and Renaissance in the Age of Terror

What's a self-respecting human to do? Submit to the craziness, or fight back in defense of life and dignity?

Fight back against what? The root of all evil?

Gobblers on Parade: Portrait of a Highly Successful System

Share it fairly but don't take a slice of my pie...

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Pakistan's Broken Coalition Faces A Null Transition

The eyes of the world will be on Denver this week as the Democratic party goes even further through the looking glass than anyone could have expected who wasn't paying attention all along.

Obama-Biden/2008: It's a world-class train wreck in agonizingly slow motion, and if that's not enough for you, there's another agonizing new disaster slowly unfolding in Georgia.

These of course are in addition to all the other disasters slowly unfolding in the rest of the world, most of which were already there three weeks ago.

But things are happening very quickly in Pakistan, where the governing coalition is coming apart, even as I write.

On the other hand, the eventual result of this "unpredictable crisis" appears to be well mapped out, and favorable to Americans of the elite policy-making persuasion.

It's funny how things work out in your favor once you start gaming the system.

~~~

The men at the center of the Pakistani drama are Asif Ali Zardari and Nawaz Sharif.

Zardari [on the left in the photo above] is the widower of slain former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto who now leads the PPP, the Pakistan People's Party.

Sharif [on the right in the same photo], a former Prime Minister, leads the PML-N, one branch of the fractured Pakistan Muslim League. The other branch, PML-Q, supported former president Pervez Musharraf, who resigned last week rather than face impeachment charges.

Prior to his resignation, Musharraf made a series of moves designed to strengthen his position. He dismissed the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court after some court rulings displeased him. When that didn't work, he declared a state of emergency, sacked all the judges who displeased him, and kept them under house arrest. He used the Army and the Police to oppress his political opponents. He even changed the Constitution to give himself more power, adding a 17th Amendment which gives the President the power to dissolve the Parliament.

In a true parliamentary government, the power to dissolve the parliament rests with the Prime Minister for a very good reason.

A Prime Minister holds his position at the pleasure of the parliament he leads. If he dissolves it, there will be another election, and the winners of that election will determine who becomes the next Prime Minister.

So no Prime Minister can dissolve the parliament except at the cost of his job -- which he may lose permanently, depending on what happens in the election.

But a President needn't have any such qualms if he can dissolve the parliament, forcing another election, without losing his position. In this case the dissolution of parliament becomes a political weapon of choice, rather than a last resort.

~~~

In the most recent parliamentary elections, all the moderate opposition parties did well, especially the PPP and the PML-N.

These parties formed an anti-Musharraf coalition, nominally led by the most successful opposition party, the PPP. But the opposition parties had very different platforms.

Specifically, the PML-N had pledged to reinstate the judges, whereas the PPP had made no such promise. PPP in fact resisted the reinstatement of the judiciary, on the grounds that this might provoke a backlash from Musharraf.

So the PML-N agreed to help PPP to get rid of Musharraf, and in return the PPP promised that when Musharraf was gone they would support PML-N on reinstatement of the judges.

But Zardari never intended to do that, and he still doesn't, and now that Musharraf is gone, he's been forced into a corner where he has no option other than making his position clear. And his position is an ugly one ... but it's politically strong.

Zardari is supported by the Americans (very quietly, now that his wife has been killed) and by the PPP, which for historical reasons is the strongest of the opposition parties, even though it no longer represents true opposition.

But Zardari himself has no experience in politics, unless you count raking in enormous amounts of cash as a military procurement officer while his late wife, Benazir Bhutto, was Prime Minister.

And he's a free man in Pakistan only because of a "reconciliation" agreement promulgated by Musharraf, granting him immunity from corruption charges so he could participate in Pakistani politics in the wake of the assassination of his late wife, Benazir Bhutto.

Benzair Bhutto had been a free woman in Pakistan only because of a "reconciliation" agreement promulgated by Musharraf, granting her immunity from corruption charges so she could participate in Pakistani politics in the wake of Musharraf's dismemberment.

As for Musharraf, he was was torn apart on the rack of American foreign policy, where rogue allies play dangerous double games.

~~~

I'm still working on this post but in view of the breaking news I have decided to post it early.

I will continue to update it as frequently as possible, subject to work and other constraints.

For more background see my most recent post on this subject:

Pakistan After Musharraf: Same As It Ever Was, Only A Bit More So; Kinda Like What We Have Here, But Different

~~~

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Crushing Defeat For Musharraf: "The Myth Is Broken"; "Q Is Finished"; "They Couldn’t Have Rigged It Even If They Tried"

UPDATE: PML-Q concedes defeat

ISLAMABAD, Feb 19 (AFP) Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) conceded defeat Tuesday after elections. “We accept the verdict of the nation,” Tariq Azeem, PML-Q spokesman, told AFP. (Posted @ 14:20 PST)

Original post follows:

~~~

Early and unofficial results from the Pakistani parliamentary elections show a landslide for the opposition parties and a crushing defeat for pro-American terrorist general Pervez Musharraf and his party, the PML-Q. The Islamic extremists also appear to have lost ground.

Supporters of the party of Pakistan's former prime minister Nawaz Sharif celebrate the unofficial results of Pakistan's general elections in the street of Rawalpindi, Pakistan.

Carlotta Gall and Jane Perlez in The New York Times:

Pakistanis Deal Severe Defeat to Musharraf in Election

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan : Pakistanis dealt a crushing defeat to President Pervez Musharraf in parliamentary elections Monday, in what government and opposition politicians said was a firm rejection of his policies since 2001 and those of his close ally, the United States.

Almost all the leading figures in the Pakistan Muslim League-Q, the party that has governed for the last five years under Mr. Musharraf, lost their seats, including the leader of the party, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussein, the former speaker of parliament, Chaudhry Amir Hussein, and six ministers.

Though official results would not be announced until Tuesday, early returns indicated that the vote would usher in a prime minister from one of the opposition parties, and opened the prospect of a parliament that would move to undo many of Mr. Musharraf’s policies and that may even try to remove him.

Sharif supporters celebrate in Taxilas. In early, unofficial results, Pakistanis dealt a crushing defeat to President Pervez Musharraf, in what government and opposition politicians said was a firm rejection of his policies since 2001 and those of his close ally, the United States.

The early edge went to the opposition Pakistan Peoples Party, which seemed to benefit from a strong wave of sympathy in reaction to the assassination of its leader, Benazir Bhutto, eight weeks ago, and may be in a position to form the next government.

The results were interpreted here as a repudiation of Mr. Musharraf as well as the Bush administration, which has staunchly backed Mr. Musharraf for eight years as its best bet in the campaign against the Islamic militants in Pakistan. American officials will have little choice now but to seek alternative allies from among the new political forces emerging from the vote.

Politicians and party workers from Mr. Musharraf’s party said the vote was a protest against government policies and the rise in terrorism here, in particular against Mr. Musharraf’s heavy handed way of dealing with militancy and his use of the army against tribesmen in the border areas and against militants in a siege at the Red Mosque here in the capital last summer that left more than 100 dead.

Others said Mr. Musharraf’s dismissal last year of the Supreme Court chief justice, Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, who remains under house arrest, was deeply unpopular with the voters.
...

By association, his party suffered badly. The two main opposition parties — the Pakistan Peoples Party and the Pakistan Muslim League-N of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif — surged into the gap.

Supporters of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif in Lahore. In Lahore, the political capital of Punjab province, lines were thin, and many voters complained they could not find their names on the voting lists.

By early Monday night, crowds of Sharif supporters had already begun celebrating as they paraded through the streets of Rawalpindi, the garrison town just outside the capital, Islamabad. Riding on motorbikes and clinging onto the back of minivans, they played music and waved green flags of Mr. Sharif’s party decorated with the party symbol, a tiger.

“The tiger has come!” shouted one man on a motorbike making a victory sign. “Long live Nawaz!”

From unofficial results the private news channel, Aaj Television, forecast that the Pakistan Peoples Party would win 110 seats in the 272-seat national assembly, with Mr. Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-N taking 100 seats.

Mr. Musharraf’s party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Q, was crushed, holding on to just 20 to 30 seats. Early results released by the state news agency, the Associated Press of Pakistan, also showed the Pakistan Peoples Party to be leading in the number of seats in the national assembly.

The Election Commission of Pakistan declared the elections free and fair and said the polling passed relatively peacefully, despite some irregularities and scattered violence. Ten people were killed and 70 injured in violence around the country, including one candidate who was shot in Lahore on the night before the vote, Pakistani news channels reported.

A voter is marked with ink after casting a ballot in Lahore. Fears of election fraud were stoked by the complaints, mostly from opposition parties, of bribery and the use of state resources for campaigns. Reports also included the production of thousands of counterfeit identity cards and of millions of names missing from voter rolls.

Fearful of violence and deterred by confusion at polling stations, voters did not turn out in large numbers. Yet fears from opposition parties that the government would attempt to rig the elections did not materialize, as the early losses showed.

Official results were not expected until Tuesday morning, but all the parties were already coming to terms with the anti-Musharraf trend in the voting.

Nosheen Saeed, information secretary of the women’s wing of Mr. Musharraf’s party, conceded the early losses. “Some big guns are going to lose,” she said.

At the headquarters of Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, the minister of railways and a close friend of the president, his supporters sat gloomily in chairs under an awning, listening to the cheers of their opponents. “Q is finished,” said Tahir Khan, 21, one of the party workers, referring to the pro-Musharraf party.

The party workers said Mr. Ahmed, who was among the ministers who lost their seats, was popular but had suffered from the overwhelming protest vote against Mr. Musharraf and his governing faction.
...

With Mr. Musharraf as both president and head of the Pakistani military — a post he relinquished last November — the administration poured about $1 billion a year in military assistance into Pakistan after 9/11.

After Mr. Musharraf stepped down from the army, the Bush administration still gave him unequivocal support. Last month, Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, Richard Boucher, told Congress he considered the Pakistani leader as indispensable to American interests.

Such fidelity to Mr. Musharraf often raised the hackles of Pakistanis, and the newspapers here were filled with editorials that expressed despair about Washington’s close relationship with the unpopular leader.

Many educated Pakistanis said they were irritated that the Bush administration chose to ignore Mr. Musharraf’s dismissal in November of the Supreme Court chief justice.

The big swing against the Pakistan Muslim League-Q party that supported Mr. Musharraf appeared to bear out the position of the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee, Sen. Joseph Biden, Jr, who has been a critic of the administration’s Pakistan policy.

On his arrival Sunday to observe the elections, Mr. Biden said: “I don’t buy into the argument that Musharraf is the only one. We have to have more than just a Musharraf policy.”

As a starting point for a new policy, Mr. Biden said that the United States needed to show Pakistanis that Washington was interested in more than the campaign on terror. “We have to give the vast majority of Pakistani people some reason to believe we are allies,” Mr. Biden said. To that end, he would propose that economic development aid be tripled to $1.5 billion annually.

But Washington could take some comfort in the losses of the Islamic religious parties in the North West Frontier Province that abut the tribal areas where the Taliban and Al Qaeda have carved out bases.

This is the standard liberal media lie, one of several places where it rears its head as "context" in this otherwise fine report. (Most of the others have been snipped.)

Washington needs the terrorists. Bush needs strong Islamic and Islamist parties which he can call "IslamoFascists"; the term itself is another Orwellian aspect to this war of spin and terror.

"The IslamoFascists want to create a global caliphate", says the twice unelected president, and all the bobbleheads nod along in unison.

But Islam and Fascism are utterly incompatible, so there cannot be any real IslamoFascists, although there are some seriously corrupt "Islamic" business-government combinations. Two of America's "firmest" Asian allies in the supposed Global War on Terror are Saudi Arabia, where the royal family does most of the business, makes most of the money, and runs one of the most repressive governments on the planet; and Pakistan, where the military is entwined in the "civilian" economy to an extent companies like SAIC, Halliburton and Blackwater can only dream of (at this point). The army produces and sells all manner of everyday "civilian" consumer items, from breakfast cereal on through the day.

These are the IslamoFascists, if such there are on Earth. Pseudo-Islamic fascists, to be accurate, and allies of our government.

On the other hand there's no doubt that pseudo-Christian fascists (so-called "Christo-Fascists") do exist in large numbers and have drafted plans -- published and publicly available for many years now -- according to which they will take over the American government (by stealth) and then the world (in the usual American way.)

In order for these imperialist dreamers to implement their evil schemes, the radical Islamic parties have to gain support, and perhaps the best news from this election -- news which probably won't make much of a dent in the mainstream account -- is confirmation that the radicals in Pakistan have virtually no support from the electorate.

The New York Times won't report certain aspects of the story, for fear of being called treasonous or for fear of lost advertising revenue, or simply because telling the truth about the GWOT is as unpalatable as telling any of the other ugliest truths about America, and the New York Times is not in the business of telling any of those stories.

But you've read it here: the administration is very unhappy with the collapses of both the PML-Q and the lunatic fringe.

The greatest blow [against] Mr. Musharraf came in the strong wave of support in Punjab province, the country’s most populous, for Mr. Sharif, who has been a bitter rival since his government was overthrown by Mr. Musharraf in a military coup in 1999 and he was arrested and sent into exile.

He returned in November last year and although banned from running for parliament himself, has campaigned for his party on an openly anti-Musharraf agenda, calling for the president’s resignation and for the reinstatement of the Chief Justice Chaudhry and other Supreme Court judges.

It's interesting how the NYT portrays Nawaz Sharif's reappearance at the center of Pakistani politics as a simple "return" in November. That was his second "return", actually. The first time, he was arrested and deported before he even got out of the airport! Some democracy!

Underscoring the reversal for Mr. Musharraf was the downfall of the powerful Chaudhry
family of Punjab province who had underwritten his political career by creating the political party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Q, for him.

“They myth is broken, it was a huge wave against Musharraf,” said Athar Minallah, a lawyer involved in the anti-Musharraf lawyers’ movement. “Right across the board his party was defeated, in the urban and rural areas. The margins are so big they couldn’t have rigged it even if they tried.”

A few hours after the size of the defeat became clear, the government eased up on the restrictions against Aitzaz Ahsan, leader of the lawyers’ movement that has opposed the president.

Mr. Ahsan, who has been under house arrest since last November when Mr. Musharraf imposed emergency rule for six weeks, found the phones in [his] house were suddenly reconnected.

“Musharraf should be preparing a C-130 for Turkey,” Mr. Ahsan said, referring to Mr. Musharraf’s statements that he might retire to Turkey where he spent his childhood.

Two politicians close to Mr. Musharraf have said in the last week that the president was well aware of the drift in the country against him and they suggested that he would not remain in office if the new government was in direct opposition to him. “He does not have the fire in the belly for another fight,” said one member of his party. He added that Mr. Musharraf was building a house for himself in Islamabad and would be ready soon to move.

Of course the official results are still to be released, and it could be that by this time tomorrow the PML-Q will have made a massive comeback. Or does that only happen in America?

It'll be pretty sad if "the greatest democracy in the history of the world" is shown up by a military dictatorship.

But it would be even sadder if that didn't happen.

~~~

(All photos for this piece are courtesy of the New York Times; please see this slideshow for more.)

37 Dead As Suicide Bomber Attacks Pakistani Political Rally

More horrible violence racks Pakistan in the final days before Monday's parliamentary election, as Jane Perlez of the New York Times reports from Lahore.

A suicide bomber rammed a car into a campaign rally in the tribal areas on Saturday, killing 37 people and wounding at least 90 others.

The attack in Parachinar, a town in Kurram, occurred two days before parliamentary elections on Monday and was apparently intended to deter voters from participating, said Brig. Javed Cheema, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry.

“It’s the same people who have been carrying out attacks, whose purpose is to create confusion and chaos and stop the polling process,” Brigadier Cheema said. The government of President Pervez Musharraf has blamed a Pakistani Taliban leader, Baitullah Mehsud, who is allied with Al Qaeda, for the steep rise in suicide attacks in the past year.

It seemed unlikely, however, that the attack on Saturday would have a significant effect on voter turnout because the tribal areas, which are semiautonomous and border Afghanistan, are considered remote and lawless by most Pakistanis.

Thus Perlez points out one aspect of the Interior Ministry's announcement that seems odd, but she doesn't mention the other: The government has no proof of anyone's complicity in anything.

She goes on to describe the scene of the attack:

The rally at Parachinar was organized by Syed Riaz Hussain, a candidate for the national Parliament who is affiliated with the Pakistan Peoples Party, the opposition party of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated in December. After the rally, supporters of Mr. Hussain gathered on a roof for food, and others stayed on the roadside below in a large group, Brigadier Cheema said.

The suicide bomber, driving a car filled with explosives, attacked the group on the side of the road, the brigadier said. Kurram is known for sectarian violence between Shiite and Sunni Muslims, although Saturday’s attack was aimed at a political rally. According to one account, the people at the rally had emerged from a Shiite shrine and were on their way to the headquarters of Mr. Hussain when the bomber drove into the crowd.

Hours later, two people were killed and eight wounded in a suicide attack outside an army media center in the northwestern Swat Valley, Agence France-Presse said.

The Parachinar attack was the first violent incident in the immediate prelude to the election that pits President Musharraf’s party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Q, against two main opposition parties, the Peoples Party and the faction of the Pakistan Muslim League led by former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

The first violent incident in the immediate prelude to the election but not the first violent attack of the campaign and likely not the last either, sad to say.

Mr. Musharraf was re-elected late last year to a five-year term as president, but the parliamentary elections are viewed by many as a referendum on his rule, which has been marred in the last year by an increasingly aggressive insurgency of Islamists, the killing of Ms. Bhutto and the imposition of emergency rule.

It's very interesting to see what details are left out of this report.

For instance, Jane Perlez gives no indication that Musharraf's "re-election" (last October 6) was even more "marred" than his "rule" has been. As we have discussed here many times, Musharraf's "re-election" was a tragic farce, the conduct of which violated three distinct laws. The Supreme Court of Pakistan was about to strike down the "result" of that "election" when Musharraf imposed emergency rule on November 3.

Musharraf said he was going after the terrorists, but one of his first moves was to sack the Chief Justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, and the eight other justices who refused to go along with the program. Those nine judges are still under house arrest, more than three months after the emergency was declared. These facts are well known to anyone who cares to learn.

So when the Americans send observers to monitor Monday's election, they are not really interested in democracy; if democracy were the goal, the US would have cut ties with Musharraf a long time ago. He did take power in a military coup, after all.

Oh, no. What the Americans are interested in is the appearance of democracy.

Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who will be an election observer, said Friday before leaving Washington for Pakistan that the United States should cut military aid to Pakistan if the elections were substantially rigged.

Guess what, Joe? The election last October was substantially rigged -- illegal three times over. The president could only maintain his power by arresting the Supreme Court and keeping them still and quiet, so that's what he did.

The rule of law is still suspended and the honest judges are still under house arrest and bombers are ravaging the opposition and the government keeps blaming it on "extremists".

But the fact remains that extremists are barely represented in Pakistani parliaments and have very little to lose in this election. Musharraf, whose hold on power grows increasingly tenuous, has much more to lose, should the election go ahead as scheduled and in peace. And therefore it is very difficult to dismiss the claims of those who say Musharraf and/or his security forces have been behind all this violence.

The American collaborators in this farce have said nothing about any of this; if they had any principles (other than maintenance of power) they wouldn't be sending observers at all -- they'd be denouncing the horrific Pakistani-American farce that pretends to be democracy.

NBC Makes Up Arbitrary Rules To Bar Mike Gravel From October 30 Debate In Philadelphia

The news item excerpted below was published by the Associated Press on Friday, October 19, 2007, and would have been warmly received by Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and the people running their campaigns:

Gravel fails to meet rules for Democratic debate

Mike Gravel will not be part of the next Democratic presidential debate, Oct. 30 in Philadelphia.

The former Alaska senator did not meet fundraising and polling requirements for the forum, said NBC News political director Chuck Todd.

The two-hour debate, sponsored by NBC News and the Democratic National Committee, will be telecast on MSNBC. Brian Williams will moderate.

All the other Democratic candidates are expecting to participate, including Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Chris Dodd; former Sen. John Edwards; New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson; and Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich.

But it hasn't been warmly received by Mike Gravel. Here, via the Huffington Post, is his response:

Why NBC and the DNC Want Me Out of the Debates

In the past year, I have attended 11 national Democratic debates of which two were sponsored by corporate media giant NBC. However, last week, the network suddenly conjured up arbitrary polling and fundraising requirements specifically designed to exclude me. None of the previous debates I attended held such requirements.

When my staff called NBC directly to find out why I was now barred from attending, Chuck Todd, NBC news' political director, told us that there were three criteria we did not meet, namely that I had not campaigned in New Hampshire and/or Iowa at least 14 times in the past year, that I was not polling at 5% and that I hadn't raised $1 million.

It is abundantly clear that NBC just wants me out of the race. This was made evident by the fact that NBC did not even inform me of its arbitrary criteria before making the decision to stifle my campaign. NBC's Todd waited until 5 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 19, to inform my staff that I was not invited to the Oct. 30 debate at Drexel University in Philadelphia.

Since I announced my candidacy for the Democratic Nomination for President of the United States on April 17, 2006, I have certainly traveled to New Hampshire and Iowa at least 14 times. And, according to a recent CNN poll, I am tied with Joe Biden, Dennis Kucinich and Chris Dodd.

NBC claims I haven't raised enough money to qualify. I'm proud of the fact that I don't collect millions from special interests (or fugitives like Norman Hsu). The reason why Senator Hillary Clinton seems to have a fundraising scandal every month is because money has corrupted our democracy. By stifling my voice on the basis of fundraising dollars, NBC is reinforcing the power of money over our national political discussion and our freedom.

But why has NBC suddenly come up with "requirements" designed to exclude me from the debate?

NBC's decision is proof that our corporate media do not want a genuine debate over our impending war with Iran. During the last debate I was the only one to aggressively confront Senator Clinton over her vote to label the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization. Had I not brought up the subject, seasoned NBC commentator Tim Russert, the moderator of the Sept. 26 debate, would not have even asked about it.

Most Americans still don't appreciate the gravity of that vote and they don't understand that our government is intentionally raising roadblocks to diplomacy. Corporate media have once again failed to investigate how Bush and a compliant congress have set us on the warpath. Instead the media simply parrots the demonization of Iranian President Ahmadinejad and the administration's unproven accusations against Iran. NBC and the other corporate media have jumped on the war bandwagon and they are determined to shut up anyone who tries to stop it.

The fact that NBC is owned by General Electric, one of the world's leading military contractors, is frightening and certainly smacks of censorship directed at the most outspoken critic of the influence that the military-industrial complex holds over this great nation. In the past decade, GE has benefited financially from the global war on terrorism and currently holds almost $2 billion in military contracts.

So I ask that anyone, who is as concerned as I am about the power of the mainstream media and the military-industrial complex, speak out in support of my campaign today. And, even if you support another candidate, surely you understand the implications of NBC's decision for our democracy and the future peace and security of our nation.

And since the powers that be now require that I raise $1 million in order to participate in the debates, please make a donation to my campaign. Unlike my fellow candidates, I am not focused on raising million of dollars; I am focused on fixing representative government. Help us reach that arbitrary threshold, and I will continue to fight for democracy and peace.

Senator Mike Gravel

Ain't that a kick?

Here, courtesy of Village Green, are some things you can do about it:

1. Sign the online petition to have Mike Gravel included in the debate!

2. Contact NBC and GE and tell them they are wrong for trying to stifle his campaign!

Here are the email addresses: you can copy and paste them into your "TO:" field of your email:

chuck.todd@nbcuni.com, viewerservices@msnbc.com, directors@corporate.ge.com, ombudsperson@corporate.ge.com, jeff.zucker@nbcuni.com, lynn.calpeter@nbcuni.com, steve.capus@nbcuni.com

3. Email the DNC and urge them to press NBC to allow Mike Gravel to participate in the debate.

Here's another idea:

4. Write to Dr. Constantine Papadakis, the President of Drexel University, and ask the same of him.

papadakis@drexel.edu

One final note: See what John Edwards has to say about this:

It is essential, in a Democracy, for all voices to be heard. We should continue to attempt to adhere to this Democratic ideal.

So please contact the DNC and MSNBC today about Mike Gravel's exclusion. And, please, spread the word about this.

Please note that this is the very same John Edwards who said in July:

"We should think about at some point ... maybe some time in the fall, we'll try to have a more serious debate with a smaller group of people."

What's the difference between then and now? He didn't know his mic was on then.

Bob Koehler: 'Disciples Of Yossarian'

I don't link to Bob Koehler often enough. Bob's an editor for Tribune Media Services in Chicago, and he writes a weekly column as well. I know him (in the virtual way) through the pro-democracy movement, and he's always been really friendly and generous. [As a blogger dealing with a mainstream media person, I can't deny I love that reaction. And yes, I have had other sorts of reactions from other mainstream people, but let's not go there just now.]

I don't know much about Bob's editing because who can tell what he's worked on? His weekly columns are so carefully crafted I can tell he's a stickler for detail. And I love that about him too. Most of all I love his writing. Bob Koehler kicks butt in a direct and heartfelt way every week, and sometimes (like this week) he really gets rolling, and then he's even more fun to read, in my slightly frozen opinion. Anyway...

This week Bob sticks his foot even further than normal up the butt of the monster Ike warned us about, with a piece whose theme features the central character of my favorite novel ever ever ever. So in addition to linking to Bob's site, I feel compelled to repost his column in full, and to scribble a frozen little introduction for it, a reasonable facsimile of which follows:

The summer before my senior year in high school, I got sick and was more or less bedridden for six weeks, time I spent reading and re-reading and re-re-reading the same book. After a month and a half I had read it seven times and I believe it had re-routed the connections in my brain because after my six weeks alone with Catch-22, I never again saw anything in quite the same way, ever ever ever.

If you haven't read Catch-22, you're missing a treat and a half; briefly: it's about a WWII American bomber squadron attacking Italy. The central character, Yossarian [played by Alan Arkin in the Mike Nichols film -- see top photo], hates flying missions but does it anyway (not that he has any choice) and whenever he reaches the number of missions required to complete a tour of duty (therefore supposedly earning a trip home) Colonel Cathcart raises the number of missions! Oops! There's a catch! It's a "Catch-22".

But that's not the only catch.

Doc Daneeka tells Yossarian he can get out of flying if he's crazy. But there's a catch -- another Catch-22: Anybody who doesn't want to fly in a war is obviously not crazy, so Yossarian must be sane and therefore he has to keep flying.

It turns out that "Catch-22" covers an enormous category of insanities. Any rule or regulation that generates contradictions (and contradictions abound in this very carefully crafted work of ironic fiction) is called a "Catch-22".

Not to spoil any endings, but: After reading it seven times in a row, I decided to model my life after Orr, one of Yossarian's buddies, who pledged "to live forever or die in the attempt". Orr used to crash on virtually every mission, and claimed Yossarian was crazy for not wanting to fly with him.

The author of this massively twisted tale of life in the Air Force, Joseph Heller, thus became and still remains my favorite American novelist ever ever ever, with the possible exception of Mark Harris, of whom we spoke quite a while ago here. Most of the people I know who love Catch-22 are lukewarm (at best) about most of Heller's other work, all of which I consider top-notch, so I am in a very small minority to praise Heller so highly. But then again, as I've said, I was sick, and my synapses were rearranged.

On a minor side note, I must say it frosts my already frozen rump to be accused of anti-Semitism, (as all 9/11 truth-seekers are, not to mention all those who are in any way critical of Israel!), when some of the people I love the most (both online and in real life) are Jewish, and especially when I would crawl for miles over broken glass to meet the Jewish-American novelist Joseph Heller -- but most unfortunately Joe Heller passed away in 1999.

Sigh. RIP Joe Heller.

I apologize for the ramble but on the other hand I thought you might be interested.

This week's column from Bob Koehler brought all that back to mind, and much more too.

DISCIPLES OF YOSSARIAN

By Robert C. Koehler | Tribune Media Services

Following on the heels of his flirtation with violent “decisiveness” toward Pakistan, Barack Obama got twisted up even further in the conflicting loyalties that complicate the lives of Democratic presidential candidates and the people who vote for them. Pretty soon the other candidates were in there with him, like cats in the yarn.

After declaring in a speech last week that he might order military strikes on Pakistan border areas to take out suspected al-Qaida camps, he was asked by an AP reporter if he’d use nuclear weapons against al-Qaida in Pakistan.

I pause here a moment to ponder the insanity of this question, or what I might call the “Yossarian moment” it produces, referring, of course, to Joseph Heller’s notorious central character in the World War II novel “Catch-22,” whose everyman sanity stood in constant amazed contrast to the routine insanities of war, like people all the time trying to kill each other. This is a Yossarian moment on steroids, reporter to almighty-deity-in-chief wannabe: When killing thine enemies, sir, would you be inclined to take ’em out 50,000 at a swath? A hundred thousand? A million?

We’ve been thinking the unthinkable for 62 years now, so long that only a dazed disciple of Yossarian, apparently, stumbles today on the idea that “the button” is still — still! — within human reach. Otherwise, our horror over this, or at least the media’s horror, has worn down over the decades to a smooth sense of normalcy.

Yossarian’s ... I mean Obama’s ... response was illuminating — a burst of idealism, uncensored, unsophisticated, uncompromised. One might even suppose he spoke as “himself”: “I think it would be a profound mistake for us to use nuclear weapons in any circumstance,” he said.

Then, uh-oh, the Presidential Candidate took over, quickly adding the preposterous caveat: “... involving civilians.”

What? Non-civilian mass slaughter only? On its face, this is arguably the dumbest comment to date of the 2008 presidential campaign. But it’s also much more than that. It’s a sudden, stunning glimpse at the Truth About Presidential Campaigns: that the front-running candidates, the big-time players, the ones who might actually capture their party’s nomination, are only nominally running for president of the United States — president, that is, of that unruly mob of 300 million struggling, unpredictable and possibly peace-craving souls out there, including you and me.

In point of fact, they’re running for president of the Establishment — the power structure, the interlocking status quo of economic and geopolitical interests that knows what it wants and sets the parameters of policy: the war machine, in short; the military-industrial-media complex.

“Let me scratch that,” Obama went on. “There’s been no discussion of nuclear weapons. That’s not on the table.”

Close call! Idealism off the table.

But it didn’t end there. Not quite. The painfully “presidential” Hillary Clinton, who, we can be certain, has been sand-blasted free of every last embarrassing protrusion of “it takes a village” idealism over the last 15 years, was asked to weigh in. “Presidents should be very careful at all times in discussing the use or non-use of nuclear weapons,” she said, laying out the rules of the game.

“Presidents, since the Cold War, have used nuclear deterrence to keep the peace,” she went on. “And I don’t believe that any president should make any blanket statements with respect to the use or non-use of nuclear weapons.”

Joe Biden, a second-tier rival for the nomination, had to be more succinct. Channeling the invisible powers a U.S. president must serve, he pronounced Obama “naive,” the ultimate condemnation. Let’s move on, shall we?

Well, no, let’s not. This fleeting moment in the making of a presidential candidate is a sobering reality dunk for every last unreconstructed disciple of Yossarian in the bleachers, or for every disciple of Albert Einstein, who famously observed: “The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.”

Those of us who believe in a genuinely peace-rooted, nuke-free, disarmed future — who believe that violence doesn’t work and see this confirmed almost daily in the headlines (190,000 AK-47s and other U.S.-distributed weapons missing in Iraq, many of which are almost certainly being used against us) — must take note. No leading U.S. politician is on our side or ever will be until we succeed at crashing the party.

The paradoxes of today’s violence may be strangling the future as we look on, but they’re so easily ignored by servants of the status quo, who will grab any irrelevant historical precedent (the Cold War is over, Hillary) to justify the continuation of the highly profitable myth that peace must gorge itself on blood.

~~~

Robert Koehler, an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist, is an editor at Tribune Media Services and nationally syndicated writer. You can send him email at bkoehler@tribune.com or visit his Web site at Common Wonders dot com.

© 2007 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

Thanks again, Bob. You Rock! And thanks to Joe Heller too.

One last tangent: I once met a youngster who told me his first name was Yossarian. I didn't believe it at first but the guy who introduced us knew the family and swore it was true. Yossarian started to explain the origin of his name, and seemed relieved to find out no extended dissertation was necessary. He said, "I'm named after a character from a book." I said, "Of course!" He said, "Catch-22 is my dad's favorite book." I said, "No kidding!" And that was the end of that.

Yossarian turned out to be a very impressive 14-year-old. Sharp, quick, funny, very well-informed, the works. I haven't seen or heard of him in a long time, and I have no idea how he's doing but I certainly wish him well.

Please forgive me for a moment...

Hey Yossarian: if you read this, send me some email, will you?

Surprises Everywhere

"Hope for the best, but expect the worst," said my mother, the Winter Matriarch. Her advice has come in very handy lately, under the volcano of impending tyranny. My expectations are continually being met -- and quite often exceeded! Thus ...

George Bush says Karl Rove is protected under Executive Privilege and orders him not to testify before Congress, despite -- or maybe because of -- a subpoena he received last week. So Rove's aide shows up and ducks all the questions on his behalf.

The BBC says British troops are stressed out.

More than 1500 "Liberal bloggers" are expected for the second annual YearlyKos Convention. The press and seven of the eight declared Democratic candidates will be there. Joe Biden and I will be elsewhere.

The South African cricketers are getting set for a visit to Pakistan but nervous about security and asking for the list of venues to be reviewed.

"They are not comfortable with Peshawar," PCB [Pakistan Cricket Board] sources said.

Australia's A side are due to visit Pakistan in September. If the South Africans are nervous about security, what must the Australians be thinking? Hint: How many South African troops are involved in the GWOT?

You heard it here first.

Former Secretary of Defense Ronald H. Dumsfeld and some other current and former brass were questioned by a congressional oversight panel which learned nothing of value; the New York Times ran a "news" article (or here) which buried all the key questions in the introduction, like so:

With Donald H. Rumsfeld seated at the witness table, the chairman of a House committee investigating the bungled aftermath of the friendly fire death of Cpl. Pat Tillman told a packed Capitol Hill hearing room Wednesday that the time had come for some answers. What did Mr. Rumsfeld and other top Defense Department officials know about Corporal Tillman’s accidental killing by American forces, he asked, and when did they know it?

They're still trying to unravel the coverup, and asking "Who knew what when?" But no attention at all is paid to the central question: What happened to Pat Tillman? This is the standard operating procedure, exactly what the media -- even much of the supposedly dissident media -- have done since Tillman's murder. Damned "Liberal media."

Larisa Alexandrovna reports that the Bush administration has been covertly arming Gulf states since 2004.

The administration has also kept secret a court ruling that its illegal surveillance program is illegal.

Bush has declared a state of emergency based on some unspecified threat to the government of Lebanon and claimed even more anti-Constitutional powers.

A Marine has been convicted of murder in Iraq.

USA Today has yet another appalling human-interest propaganda piece.

When Steve Yelda, a 17-year-old Iraqi high school student, visits the Al-Ameer market, he heads straight for the Pringles display case.

"The taste," Yelda said, "is incredible."

Watch out for all the salt, Steve. In Baghdad there's no running water, or very little; some people have had none for weeks; they have electricity a couple of hours a day if they're lucky; daytime temperatures have been approaching 50C (120F) and the search for ice has become deadly.

In perhaps the biggest surprise of all, Feds Look the Other Way While United Fruit Company Peddles Death and Corruption in Latin America. As Chris Floyd points out, this story "could have been written any time in the last 100 years or more".

This -- all this! -- is the fruit of our hard-earned tax dollars at work, not to mention a broken electoral system, a corrupted congress, a predisposed supreme court, a lapdog media, a touch of transparently false-flag terror and an endless repetition of the emergency phone number "coincidentally" embodied in the date of same; and it's all brought to you by an administration whose nature is becoming increasingly obvious every day, even to those who are, shall we say, less sensitive to such things than others.

But still life goes on, almost as normal.

And all the people trapped in the lies seem like they'll be happy to replicate the fiction forever, or until it consumes them. We all know which will come first.

Meanwhile the people shedding the lies seem like they'll be unhappy forever, or until something else finally comes along and consumes them. We're going to find out more about this soon ... too soon, in my opinion.

Last but certainly not least, signs of serious trouble have been appearing in several crucial nodes of the blogosphere.

Just one surprise after another, as the last vestiges of reality slip away...

How CNN Sk(r)ewed The NH Debates

Over at Chris Dodd dot Com they've been tracking the amount of time allocated to each of the speakers during the most recent debates and the results are almost exactly what you'd expect if you figured the production was sk(r)ewed in favor of certain (read: pro-war) candidates.

Lookee here:


The top four in the Donkey debate were Obama (16 minutes), Clinton (14:26), Blitzer (13:24) and Edwards (11:42), followed by Richardson (10:48), Kucinich (9:02), Dodd (8:28), Biden (7:58) and Gravel (5:37).


In the Elephant debate, the lion's share of the clock went to Blitzer (19:34), McCain (12:44), Giuliani (12:35) and Romney (11:04), followed by Brownback (7:12), Hunter (7:14), Huckabee (6:48), Glimore (5:59), Paul (5:51), Tancredo (5:43) and Thompson (4:21).

The first surprise: Dennis Kucinich ahead of both Chris Dodd and Joe Biden. Is Joltin' Joe sinking that fast? Hard to believe ...

The second surprise: Ron Paul ahead of two -- count 'em -- two other Elephants!

The third surprise: Fred Thompson got even less time than Mike Gravel. But then again he doesn't need any, since middle America plans to watch Law & Order reruns forever anyway.

And now ... drum roll ... the obvious conclusion: Wolf Blitzer for President!!

Don't you think?

Dem NH Debate: Kucinich 'Draws Blood', 'Horrifies Liberals Everywhere'

A short and very pointed excerpt from David Vest's "The Democrats' War", via Counterpunch:

John Edwards poked from third place in the polls at Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama early on, without getting much of a rise. Sen. Joe Biden rarely deviated from an everybody-else-is-an-idiot tone of near-psychopathic rage, but Mike Gravel kept his anger -- if not his scathing wit -- pretty much in check.

Sen. Christopher Dodd and Gov. Bill Richardson both presented themselves as serious people who have been in government forever, and intend to stay there, with Dodd winning the boilerplate trophy by a narrow margin.

The only candidate to draw real blood in the debate was Kucinich, who horrified liberals everywhere by saying that Iraq is now "the Democrats' war."

A blog called Digby's Hullabaloo quickly accused Kucinich of "undermining the single most important rationale for a Democratic president, which is that the Republicans are responsible for the mess in Iraq," adding that "it takes almost nothing to gain currency in the MSM and that particular notion is a very dangerous one."

You bet it is.

The very real danger is that the top Democrats will be caught in a withering crossfire, with Republicans accusing them of wanting to "cut and run" from Iraq, and the rest of America saying, "if only they would!"

Mike Gravel underscored the risk by pointing out that most of the people onstage with him were "part of the leadership right now in the Congress, and could end the war if they want to."

If Kucinich and Gravel aren't included in future debates, look no further for the reason.

Pakistan: Politics Growing Ever More Volatile As Former Prime Minister Looks For An Opening

Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto is considering a return to Pakistani politics, according to the intrepid Carlotta Gall, who reports from Pakistan and Afghanistan for the New York Times and the International Herald Tribune.

Exiled leader considers political return to Pakistan

Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto is roiling Pakistani politics by talking of a power-sharing deal with President Pervez Musharraf and by saying in an interview that she might return to Pakistan before the end of the year.

Threatened with arrest, dogged by corruption charges, Bhutto has sat out the last eight years in self-imposed exile in London and Dubai, while still leading what is arguably the country's largest party with nationwide support, the Pakistan People's Party.

If you think American politics is difficult, you should see what goes on in Pakistan, where the overall situation is in many ways much more volatile.

In that time, she has seen Musharraf, her former chief of military operations, seize power in a coup. She has watched the political turmoil build here as Pakistanis grow restless under military rule, galvanized most recently by Musharraf's ouster of the Supreme Court's chief justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry.

Members of her party were heavily represented in the outpouring of support for Chaudhry at a rally Saturday, a peaceful rally just weeks after more than 40 people were killed in Karachi in clashes related to his ouster.

As we have been discussing (here for instance), President General Musharraf is obligated by Pakistani law to call an election before the end of the year, and he is forbidden to stand for re-election as a military officer. It is widely believed that the President General sacked the chief justice because he was determined to uphold this particular law. To my nearly frozen way of thinking, this explanation makes more sense as "the last straw" rather than "the single reason", but I digress. In any case, popular support for Mr. Chaudhry has been strong, and visible, and growing. And Carlotta Gall has been very busy: here's her report on Saturday's rally:

Thousands Wait to Hear Ousted Pakistani Justice

ABBOTTABAD, Pakistan, Sunday, June 3 — Pakistan’s suspended chief justice led a cavalcade of about 100 cars jammed with lawyers and political supporters on a 75-mile trip from Islamabad on Saturday, continuing to protest his dismissal by Gen. Pervez Musharraf two months ago.

It was the first trip outside of the capital by the justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, since his trip to Karachi three weeks ago. Violence between his supporters and those of General Musharraf broke out upon his arrival in Karachi, leaving more than 40 people dead.

The government, lawyers’ associations and political parties have blamed one another for the deaths.

On Friday, the government banned protests in the capital, but there was no attempt to stop Mr. Chaudhry’s convoy as it left Islamabad on Saturday morning for Abbottabad, where he was to speak to the bar association.

Along the route, hundreds of people stood waiting at every junction and small town.

Kind of like what we could have here, if we had anything at all.

When the long motorcade passed, they tossed rose petals at Mr. Chaudhry’s car, played drums and chanted, “Until independence for the judiciary, the fight goes on!” and “Go! Musharraf Go!”

I've also seen an uncorroborated report saying that people were also chanting "Death To Musharraf!"

The President-General has been under increasing heat at home for his "alliance" with the USA in the so-called "War" on so-called "Terror", much of which seems to involve tracking down alleged terrorists who were allegedly trained in Pakistan or Afghanistan by ISI (the Pakistani intelligence service) or Al-Q'aeda (the two appear to be virtually interchangeable). Many in Pakistan and Afghanistan see Musharraf as waging war against Pakistan's friends and neighbors; perhaps you will recall that as of 9/11/2001, the Taliban government in Afghanistan was officially recognized by only one foreign government! But I'm digressing again. Carlotta Gall:

“This is not just a movement of lawyers, but this is for you, to bring equality for you,” Ahmed Khan, one of the lawyers representing Mr. Chaudhry, told a rally at the town of Haripur at midafternoon. “That’s why the chief justice is going around the country and why we want him reinstated.”

Mr. Chaudhry never left his car and did not speak to the crowds along the way.

Instead, one of his lawyers spoke.

“We are encouraged and invigorated with the spirit of this reception,” Ali Ahmed Kurd, one of lawyers representing the chief justice in his challenge against dismissal, speaking at Haripur, the main town on the way to Abbottabad and about halfway through the trip. “If things continue like this there will be no general or commander any more.”

He railed against the military commanders running the country and moves by the government to clamp down on the news media. “If you close these channels, can you close off the people’s voice from Karachi to Khyber?” he asked the crowd.

The Pakistani people are not simply upset about the sacking of the chief justice. There's a long list of complaints.

At Haripur, students, workers and retirees who turned out to hear the lawyers’ speeches complained of many things, including rising prices, the increasing gap between rich and poor, the failing education system, support for the United States global campaign against terrorism and the injustice of military rule.

“The work of the army is to defend the country, not rule the country,” said Amir Shehzad, 22, a chemical engineering student at Haripur. “There is a revolution happening. We are facing for many years a military dictatorship and people want democracy.”
...

Throughout the day, those interviewed along the route seemed to think that General Musharraf should not stay in power much longer. They called for elections, rather than a continuation of military rule.

“People do support the lawyers because they are talking about justice,” said Mubarak Dad Abbassi, 57, a government employee from Rawalpindi, early in the day, adding of Mr. Chaudhry: “I do think there was an injustice to him. People say he should be reinstated and Musharraf should go.”

When the motorcade reached its destination, there was a bit of a party going on.

When he arrived in Abbottabad at 11:30 p.m., thousands lined the streets to welcome him.

The opposition parties led by the former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif were out in force, as well as religious parties and other smaller group.

Hundreds of lawyers waited for hours in an Abbottabad park, listening to speeches and poetry and dancing in the aisles and on stage to a popular song whose refrain refers to General Musharraf: “Uncle, why don’t you take off your uniform and go back home? Why don’t you take your pension and go back home?”

And then ...

The chief justice finally began to speak at 2 a.m. Sunday.

He told he lawyers that the judiciary should come forward as a strong institution that people could trust.

“You are waging an immortal struggle for the independence of the judiciary and the supremacy of law and the Constitution,” he said. “You have given a lot of sacrifices, but you are not alone. The judiciary and the ordinary people are standing shoulder to shoulder with you.”

He spoke of human rights and freedom of speech, citing articles of the a Constitution.

Ahh, the old rule-of-law bit. People still go for that, in a big way.

So the Pakistani government took a pragmatic approach:

The government did not try to stop the political rallies along the way in support of Mr. Chaudhry, and the police provided security.

Government pressure was applied instead to the private media channels that have been following him on his tour of the country.

The government media-regulating agency warned all television channels that live coverage of events was not permitted, apparently to prevent them from showing Mr. Chaudhry’s speech and the rowdy cheering and chanting against General Musharraf and the government. By midafternoon, no channel was reporting live from the event.

You see how easy that was?

Things won't be so easy for the President General in the near future ... or will they?

As Pakistan veers toward elections this year, and as Musharraf runs into mounting opposition over his plans to seek a second term, Bhutto, 53, is raising her profile once again and positioning herself as savior of the nation, someone who can lead Pakistan back to democracy and provide a final bulwark against Islamic extremism.

Despite his repeated insistence that Bhutto will not be allowed to contest the elections, Musharraf, aides and diplomats say, has been conducting discreet negotiations for some kind of deal that would allow Bhutto back and him to stay on as president.

Now there's a quid pro quo you could bathe in! Will it happen? Who knows?

Carlotta Gall's long portrait of the former prime minister is quite sympathetic, and well worth reading (especially if you gaze between the lines a bit) but probably not the final word on the subject.

Speaking of gazing between the lines, you might enjoy another blogger's take on all this. If so, check out "Pant Load in Pakistan" from the Rock The Truth.

And speaking of final words, the following news updates from Pakistan's Dawn will serve as well as any, at least for the moment:

U.S. lawmakers raise alarm over Pakistan politics

WASHINGTON, June 5 (Reuters) - Pakistan's use of violent intimidation to quell political protests threatens U.S. and Pakistani interests, and President Pervez Musharraf must be encouraged to restore democratic processes, several U.S. congressmen say.

The unusually blunt comments to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice by Sen. Joseph Biden and Rep. Tom Lantos, both Democrats, and Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen reflect growing U.S. unease with Musharraf's handling of a widening confrontation with political opponents and the prospects for Pakistan's stability.

“Over the past two months, we have witnessed the spiral of civil unrest and harshly suppressed protest in Pakistan with increasing concern,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter to Rice obtained by Reuters on Tuesday.

“The national interests of the United States and Pakistan are both served by a speedy restoration of full democracy to Pakistan and the end to state-sponsored intimidation -- often violent -- of Pakistani citizens protesting government actions in a legal and peaceful manner.” They said Rice should make a public appeal to this end.

Biden is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a Democratic candidate for president. Lantos is chairman of the House of Representatives International Relations Committee and Ros-Lehtinen is the panel's senior Republican.

Pakistani opposition says hundreds detained

ISLAMABAD, June 5 (Reuters) - Pakistani authorities have detained hundreds of opposition party activists in advance of a day of protests against the government this week, opposition party officials said Tuesday.

“Authorities have launched a massive crackdown against our activists and more than 200 workers have been arrested in Lahore alone,” said Shah Mehmood Qureshi, a provincial leader of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) which is planning a day of protests in Punjab province on Thursday in support of suspended chief justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry and the media, which is facing increasing government curbs.

Qureshi said the protests would go ahead despite the detentions.

An Interior Ministry spokesman said “some arrests have been made in Punjab where the government feels they were necessary to maintain law and order.”

A spokesman of the MMA, an opposition alliance of conservative religious parties, said some of its activists had also been arrested in Punjab although he did not give a figure.

Thursday ... Thursday ... a day of protests in Punjab province on Thursday ... I'll be watching!