[QUOTE=Stranger On A Train]
As for the realpolitik of supporting the Musharraf regime in favor of someone less stable, well that’s certainly worked so well for us elsewhere…like Iran, Iraq, Argentina, Chile, et cetera. We’ll be paying for the Partition for decades to come, and there is no easy or simple way to undue what was then done. Wait until Pakistan’s agricultural industry–already starving for water as their extensive Chashma Right Bank Irrigation Project increasingly fails to fulfill demand and the Indus runs lower and more silted ever year–can’t supply enough food and goods to maintain its burgening population and then we’ll see these smouldering embers burst into flame.
[QUOTE=ShibbOleth]
Her murder may be a setback, but sometimes martyrs can be more powerful than they were in life.
[/QUOTE]
Only if their supporters are a bloodthirsty hate-consumed mob.
[QUOTE=Beware of Doug]
Only if their supporters are a bloodthirsty hate-consumed mob.
[/QUOTE]
That’s a bit of an overgeneralization. Taking the Bhuttos as an example, it seems to me that Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s execution was instrumental in fueling Benazir Bhutto’s pro-democracy movement. It remains to be seen whether that will work out in the long term, but it isn’t as unambiguous as you imply.
[QUOTE=Beware of Doug]
Only if their supporters are a bloodthirsty hate-consumed mob.
[/QUOTE]
I respectfully disagree.
Remember Corazon Aquino (sp?) was able to displace Marcos in the Philippines after her husband was assassinated, which spurred mass protests. It’s not unprecedented.
This was before my time…were there riots after JFK’s assassination? I know there were after Dr. Martin Luther King was murdered…are there always riots after a political assassination?
[QUOTE=ivylass]
This was before my time…were there riots after JFK’s assassination? I know there were after Dr. Martin Luther King was murdered…are there always riots after a political assassination?
[/QUOTE]
AFAIK, there weren’t any riots after JFK died. His death was a bit different, in that he was killed by a lone nutjob and not by a member of a “political” organization. If Oswald had been a highly placed member of the GOP, or if there had been numerous threats against JFK’s life, things would undoubtedly have been different after he was killed.
MLK had been subject to numerous death threats and there had been several murders of his followers, so his death is closer to Bhutto’s than JFK’s was.
My CACT (Crazy-assed Conspiracy Theory): Bhutto was not killed by the suicide bomber but assassinated in the ambulance. Sharif, being wily-er, declined his ambulance ride to death.
[QUOTE=Biggirl]
My CACT (Crazy-assed Conspiracy Theory): Bhutto was not killed by the suicide bomber but assassinated in the ambulance. Sharif, being wily-er, declined his ambulance ride to death.
[/QUOTE]
What confused me was CNN’s analysts saying that the Bush administration (not to turn this into a partisan platform) “knows” that Pakistani security companies (sounds like maybe they’re privately owned?) aren’t really safe, they’re full of infiltrators.
So why, if we wanted Bhutto to succeed, would we encourage her to reenter the country? Particularly when Musharraf didn’t want her there? And we’re backing him, too, right?
Does this tie into any plans to partition Iraq by ethnicity? Maybe I’m thinking of the Turkish Kurds.
[QUOTE=fessie]
What confused me was CNN’s analysts saying that the Bush administration (not to turn this into a partisan platform) “knows” that Pakistani security companies (sounds like maybe they’re privately owned?) aren’t really safe, they’re full of infiltrators.
So why, if we wanted Bhutto to succeed, would we encourage her to reenter the country? Particularly when Musharraf didn’t want her there? And we’re backing him, too, right?
Does this tie into any plans to partition Iraq by ethnicity? Maybe I’m thinking of the Turkish Kurds.
[/QUOTE]
I think the reasoning was that Musharraf needs an opposition party to run against in order for him to have any legitimacy.
[QUOTE=fessie]
Does this tie into any plans to partition Iraq by ethnicity? Maybe I’m thinking of the Turkish Kurds.
[/QUOTE] What on earth does this have to do with anything?
[QUOTE=acsenray]
So far as I know Musharraf, Bhutto, and Sharif do not have control of the support of any specific ethnic group.
[/QUOTE]
Musharraf is a, hmm, I forget the word. Descended from Indian muslims who entered Pakistan at the time of or post-Partition. I understand it’s a much lower social order than Bhutto’s family. His low social origin was presumed to be part of the reason he was given such latitute with the higher ranks of the Army: no one ever expected someone of his background could win the loyalty of the officer corps. He was a safe choice. They underestimated him and he launched his coup, and retains enough support to remain alive today.
Bhutto, of course, was from the highest background. The ethnic and socio-economic differences between the two leaders were thought to be the primary reason for the lack of cooperation between them, a lack of cooperation that now sees Bhutto dead, regardless of which faction ordered it done.
What these differences translate into vis a vis modern Pakistani society I have no idea, but they were substantial eough to have crept into the English press over the years.
[QUOTE=Grossbottom]
Musharraf is a, hmm, I forget the word. Descended from Indian muslims who entered Pakistan at the time of or post-Partition.
[/quote]
Those who immigrated to Pakistan from India during Partition are called Muhajirs.
Simply being a Muhajir doesn’t automatically make you part of a “lower social order.” There have been conflicts between Muhajirs and non-Muhajirs, but the issue is far more complicated than relative social rank.
In any case, this doesn’t explain fessie’s comment about Iraq and Turkish Kurds. So far as I know, there is no socio-political parallel in Pakistan to the Kurds.
[QUOTE=ascenray]
Those who immigrated to Pakistan from India during Partition are called Muhajirs.
[/QUOTE]
Right, that’s it.
[QUOTE=ascenray]
In any case, this doesn’t explain fessie’s comment about Iraq and Turkish Kurds.
[/QUOTE]
No, but it explains some of the differences between the two leaders, and why they might indeed have the support of different ethnicities or other groups within Pakistan. But I don’t have any idea what fessie is talking about either, I was just responding to your observation.
[QUOTE=fessie]
Well, wasn’t there concern that splitting Iraq into factions would destabilize the region and piss off all their neighbors?
~slinking off
I’ll just shut up now.
[/QUOTE]
Iraq and Pakistan are not neighbors. Iran sits between them.
Partitioning Iraq would piss of Turkey, our ally, because it would encourage Kurdish (who are Indo-European and neither Turkic nor Arabic) separatists, but would be welcomed by Iran (who are also Indo-European), our antagonist, because it would increase their influence on Shiite sections of Iraq. It would have little effect on Pakistan, which has no Kurds nor Arabs among its major ethnic groups, and is far enough from Iraq that it would not be directly affected.
What on earth does this have to do with anything?