Thursday, March 27, 2008

Oh Damn! Democracy's Back in Pakistan


When it comes to the Global War Without End on Terror, the less democracy we have to overcome the better.

Look what happens when those brown people get democracy? You get Hamas elected by the Palestinians. Hezbollah gets in to the Lebanese legislature. Now you've got moderates in power in Pakistan. What next?

You see the thing is, once they get elected, they get all uppity. They just don't do what they're told, they're hardly any use at all - or worse.

Take Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's former dictator. He swept the decks; threw uncooperative judges in jail, tossed the parliament - now there was a guy you could double-deal with. Sure he conned you a lot of the time but at least he said he'd do what he was told. And then, along comes democracy. Great.

Now Pakistan has fallen into the hands of a bunch of "free thinkers" who've announced they'll actually hold talks with the Taliban and al-Qaeda leadership in their country. When Bush sent diplomats John Negroponte and Richard Boucher to meet coalition leader Nawaz Sharif, they got a chilly welcome and a scolding. From The Guardian:

"...senior coalition partner Nawaz Sharif gave the visiting Americans a public scolding for using Pakistan as a "killing field" and relying too much on Musharraf.

"...body language between Negroponte and Sharif during their meeting on Tuesday spoke volumes: the Pakistani greeted the American with a starched handshake, and sat at a distance .

In blunt remarks afterwards, Sharif said he told Negroponte that Pakistan was no longer a one-man show. "Since 9/11, all decisions were taken by one man," he said. "Now we have a sovereign parliament and everything will be debated in the parliament."


It was "unacceptable that while giving peace to the world we make our own country a killing field," Sharif said, echoing widespread public anger at US-funded military operations in the tribal belt.

"If America wants to see itself clean of terrorism, we also want our villages and towns not to be bombed," he said."

Well, there goes the neighbourhood and it's all the fault of that damned democracy again.

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