Not really. If he’s popular with the military (ie, the generals), they’ll back him whether he’s in the military or out of it. If he’s not popular, they won’t.
I remember reading (not sure where, so no cite) that a military officer must wait some period of time (five years?) before running for civilian office. So if he resigned, he would basically be admitting that the law is valid and would then have to step down and wait. The gambit he was taking (before this latest power grab) was that the law didn’t apply to him for whatever reason.
Except that he is at this moment very unpopular with the public, probably more so than at any time since 1999. Any ambitious general, even if he admires Musharraf, might, if appointed to the Chief of Staff post, see that as an opportunity.
What do you suppose Bush/US should do about this situation BG? Send in the marines? Use the CIA too direct the outcome? Use harsh language? Maybe point out Pakistani genocide that occurred during the Ottoman empire or something?
Thought this article might help in the discussion:
This is one of those ‘lesser of two evils’ kind of thing that the US often finds itself embroiled in. I know it’s hard for some people too grasp, but sometimes when you are a superpower you have too hold your nose and work some folks who are in power in other countries who you wouldn’t normally associate with. This seems too be one of those cases. We can work with Musharraf, who is a dictator…or we can take the chance that someone better might come up if Musharraf gets the axe (literally). Of course, chances are that we would simply get a situation like Iran. Bad as the Shah was, our relations with Iran haven’t exactly been great since he was ousted.
Cut all aid to Pakistan while still demanding the right to use their airspace (not land routes) to reach Afghanistan. If they balk at that . . . we’ll cross that when we come to it.
Ah, very different question. Have the CIA assassinate Musharraf and frame the Taliban.
:rolleyes: Our relations aren’t good in large part because “realistic” people like you decided that the Shah was the lesser evil. And, predictably, in the long run that hurt us more than we gained. These deals with the devil almost never work, and are almost never justified; I don’t see this as one of the exceptions. We’ll just end up with yet another regime that rises to power largely based on the hatred of America and the dictator we propped up.
Collaborating with or supporting a dictator just means that we share the blame for his evils, and that when he loses power the hate the people had for him will largely transfer to us, justly. America is widely hated around the world for perfectly good reasons, and this sort of thing is one of them.
We didn’t decide to back the thug because we thought it would be good for Pakistan, so why would anyone expect us to stop backing him because he turned out not to be good for Pakistan? So far he did what we paid him to do. He let us bomb his neighbors without squawking about it. This is about American interests, as defined by the American President, or his avatar. Democracy never entered into the decision.
I am unable to consider shock and outrage to be genuine coming from anyone on this turn of events.
Brainglutton, as usual, you cite articles which ignore the fact that reality sometimes makes unpleasant facts. We had no possibility of removing Musharraf, even if he was a jerk. Without any militarized domestic opposition (what the Taliban faced) and no way to reach it with troops, and the fact that he had the nukes from some time ago, there was not slightest option of pushing against Musharraf. He doesn’t even have a coastline. We paid little attention to him, which would have been happy all around, until we took out the Taliban. Many of them fled and are trying to same in Pakistan’s backcountry, and they were already making attempts on Musharraf’s life.
Not that our diplomacy has been ineffective. So far, he has been forced to allow Bhutto back, and is already retreating on the current declaration. The progress isn’t always successful, and it’s slower than I’m sure you’d like, but I get the distinct feeling that nothig less than the Earth becoming Happy Kitty Puppy Ice Cream Land would ever satisfy you, and you’d still find a way to say that America was screwing things up. Sometimes, things don’t happen on the schedules you dream up. It might take, y’know time, and the fact that Musharraf ever let things get this far at all is amazing.
No, of course not, but we had no reason to support him either, except for the necessity of crossing Pakistan to reach Afghanistan. And at this point, that venture has been fucked up so badly (owing to the drain Iraq put on our strength and resources) that we might as well write it off as an unrecoverable loss. So, really, why keep sending Musharraf any aid?
So, now, referring back to post #8 from Quartz, Musharraf was denying that Bhotto was under house arrest, not that he was. He has shut down the TV and radio stations, but he didn’t count on the internet. The Pakis know exactly what is happening, and they are pisto. Unless somebody persuades him to flee, things will get uglier.
The thing that had my head spinning was reading that Mr. Bush called up Pervy to say he couldn’t be president and head of the military, too. This, from a guy who is president and C in C of his own military.
Yes, but the POTUS remains a civilian. Musharraf is a general and would not be president if he were not. And that is not because, like Eisenhower, his military record made him electable.
