It looks like Bush's friend in Pakistan has gone off the deep end. Yesterday, Pervez Musharraf suspended the Constitution, fired the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and sent his soldiers into the streets. It looks like he is tired of pretending that Pakistan is a democracy.
He said he took the actions because of tribal unrest in the rural areas of Pakistan, but what does that have to do with the Supreme Court? Nothing! The truth is that he was afraid the Supreme Court was going to rule that his re-election was illegal (and they probably were), so he took action to hang on to power.
He has tried to fire this same Chief Justice once before, and the people reacted so negatively that he had to rescind his order. I don't know why he thinks it will be different this time. Maybe he decided if the military in Burma could hold on to power at the point of a gun, then so could he. I think if anything, he may have just hastened his own demise. He only had a tenuous grip on power to begin with, and these recent actions won't improve his popularity and support .
You would think that after the remarks about Castro and Cuba (a country that just held elections) that Bush made last week, that he would be very upset at Musharraf's steps toward dictatorship, but that doesn't seem to be the case. The Pentagon has already announced that Musharraf's anti-democratic actions will have no effect on our support for and aid to Pakistan.
Obviously, Bush doesn't care whether another ruler supports democracy and freedom, as long as he pays homage to Bush's world view and is willing to cooperate with Bush's corporate buddies. To the Bush administration, money trumps everything.
It does make me wonder though, what are the corporations going to do when Musharraf is pushed out of power (as he soon will be)?
No comments:
Post a Comment
ANONYMOUS COMMENTS WILL NOT BE PUBLISHED. And neither will racist,homophobic, or misogynistic comments. I do not mind if you disagree, but make your case in a decent manner.