Pakistani strongman, General/President Pervez Musharraf is now responding to international pressure by promising to hold a general election in February. The problem is that Mushie has a bad habit of saying one thing and doing something else altogether.
With this guy it's useful to measure his words against his actions. For example, pledging free elections and in the next breath placing his rival, Benazir Bhutto, under house arrest. He even arrested her house. He's got Bhutto and her house surrounded with barbed wire.
If Musharraf's election promise is genuine there are a few things he'll have to do. One of them is return Pakistan to the rule of law by reinstating its judiciary. If he keeps the courts closed down, chances are there isn't going to be an election that's either free or fair.
I suspect if Langley could have found a better, more reliable stooge, Musharraf would have been gone a long time ago. This is, after all, the guy who had promised to seal off all the escape routes when bin Laden and the al-Qaeda leadership were pinned down in the 15-square mile patch of mountains called Tora Bora. Since then he's gotten billions of dollars in assistance from Washington most of which he's used for conventional weapons far better suited for a war against India than for battling insurgents in the border regions. Then there was his "truce" with the Taliban insurgents in Waziristan and his abject failure to seal off his country's border with Afghanistan. All in all, he's been a major league disappointment - yet he's still in power.
With this guy it's useful to measure his words against his actions. For example, pledging free elections and in the next breath placing his rival, Benazir Bhutto, under house arrest. He even arrested her house. He's got Bhutto and her house surrounded with barbed wire.
If Musharraf's election promise is genuine there are a few things he'll have to do. One of them is return Pakistan to the rule of law by reinstating its judiciary. If he keeps the courts closed down, chances are there isn't going to be an election that's either free or fair.
I suspect if Langley could have found a better, more reliable stooge, Musharraf would have been gone a long time ago. This is, after all, the guy who had promised to seal off all the escape routes when bin Laden and the al-Qaeda leadership were pinned down in the 15-square mile patch of mountains called Tora Bora. Since then he's gotten billions of dollars in assistance from Washington most of which he's used for conventional weapons far better suited for a war against India than for battling insurgents in the border regions. Then there was his "truce" with the Taliban insurgents in Waziristan and his abject failure to seal off his country's border with Afghanistan. All in all, he's been a major league disappointment - yet he's still in power.
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