Demolition Man

People spoke, either admiringly or jealously, of Ronald Reagan as "the Teflon President," where corruption and scandal slipped off him like a fried egg from a skillet. It should be noted that the implication of the moniker is that Reagan was indeed a corrupt bastard whose lingering death was thoroughly justified, just as John "Teflon John" Gotti was among the most notorious gangsters this country has ever produced.

But far outclassing them all, I think, in terms of his Teflon coating is George W. Bush. To-wit:

Under pressure over impending impeachment charges, President Pervez Musharraf announced he would resign Monday, ending nearly nine years as the head of one of the United States’ most important allies in the campaign against terrorism.

By my count...Japan and England being among the largest coups... this now makes something like a half dozen world leaders who had closely allied themselves with Bush's Middle Eastern hegemonic ambitions who have now fallen on their swords partly because of it.

Yes, there are lingering corruption charges in Pakistan and Pakistan is not exactly a hotbed of good government, but Musharraf was considered a fairly benevolent leader prior to 2002, and was popular.

The moment he was basically blackmailed into partnering with Bush's ill-fated search for Osama bin Laden, his popularity began to spiral downward.

And yet, there's ol' Dumbya sitting there, just tearing pages off the calendar and packing boxes, waiting to leave office. Nothing seems to touch him despite the fact that he knew about the Plame affair, despite the fact he personally knew there were no WMDs in Iraq, despite the fact he received a Presidential Daily Briefing a month ahead of September 11, and did nothing,

This goes beyond minor internal corruption. This goes beyond the Constitutional violations of the Nixon administration. This certainly goes beyond consensual sex! This is the deliberate and negligent seditious behaviour of someone who at the kindest does not have his nation's best interests at heart, doesn't care, and at worst is raping the resources of this nation to benefit some private agenda.

That last alone ought to be an impeachable offense.

The trouble here now is that, between an unstable nuclear power, Pakistan, and an angry aggressive rival, Russia (Putin, who opposed the Iraq invasion, is still strongly in power. Wonder why...), Bush has left the fuse to the powder keg lying dangerously close to a sparking flame.

And it's getting warm in here...

(props to Memeorandum for tapping this)

The Bell Tolls Once More

When the dust settles and history has its say on the Bush administration's ill-conceived and tragically executed Middle East and South Asia policy, this one event may end up being the capstone, the signature event that ties together the utter abject lunacy of the warmongers in this nation:

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan (CNN) -- Pakistan former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has died after a suicide bombing that killed at least 14 of her supporters, ex-government spokesman Tariq Azim Khan and Pakistan's primary television networks said.

Bhutto suffered bullet wounds in the aftermath of the bomb attack, TV networks report.

The execution-style assassination speaks to a pretty clear plot, and the suspects are fairly likely: the military.

Finally, Bush has pushed an "ally" to the brink. Pakistanis are not oparticularly endeared to Pervez Musharraf, who was seen as caving into Bush's imperial hubris. The return of Bhutto, supported by the United States, put Musharraf in a bind and left him not a lot of wriggle room. It was clear the US wanted him defanged.

To be clear, he was never a staunch ally of US policy, just US money. The link between Pakistan's covert intelligence service, the ISI, and the terrorists who brought down four planes into two cities here in the United States are pretty clear, and it's pretty clear that Musharraf had at least condoned that funding.

While we've been hunting terrorists in southern Afghanistan, Musharraf has been cutting asylum deals with tribes in northern Pakistan, on the border of Afghanistan, that precluded searches in those regions for Al Qaeda and Taliban forces.

Indeed, it almost seems he has stood four-square against our interests. While we've been working hard to prop up the Karzai government in Afghanistan, he's been engaged in cross-border bickering over the tribal regions.

He has power, and he intends to keep it, and it's looking more and more by any means necessary. Earlier today, a rally for another more moderate former Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, was disrupted by bombs that killed 4 people. And now this. And all this comes on the heels of a deliberate and planned program to disrupt large political rallies, such as the one on October 18, when 136 people died and nearly 400 were injured, as Bhutto's triumphant return was marred by a suicide bomber.

This is a dangerous man with a nuclear bomb who's nation has a history of supporting terrorists that have attacked America.

You know, an ally.

Islamabad News For Musharraf

Developments in Pakistan keep one wondering how much longer Bush will wait to step in:

Pakistan's former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto says negotiations with the country's leadership have broken down and that she will announce the day she is coming home on 14 September.

Nawaz Sharif, another exiled former PM, has already fixed a date for his return - 10 September - and he will head a procession through Punjab province, the country's political heartland, to his home city of Lahore.

In case you're keeping score, that's three people with legitimate claim to lead Pakistan.

Bhutto and Musharraf had been negotiating, at first secretly then not-so-secretly, over a power sharing scheme. Musharraf is under pressure from the Pakistani judiciary, since the law states clearly that no one can be head of the state and head of the army at the same time.

It didn't help matters much that Musharraf has had run-ins with the Pakistani courts, trying to fire the equivalent of a SCOTUS judge earlier this year.

Too, Bhutto herself is under some heat, as she has corruption charges pending against her, from two separate administrations (no wonder Condi Rice likes her!)

Clearly, Sharif don't like it (sorry), this pending coalition. A Bhutto-Musharraf power sharing scheme would see a coalition of moderate Pakistani (mostly Muslim) created, although not without some major rifts to be patched over among followers.

Sharif was deposed by Musharraf, so a deal between those two factions would be even more unlikely than a Bhutto/Musharraf alliance.

Sharif is no picnic either. Although he was successful in passing a constitutional amendment that essentially put an end to the process that has seen ten prime ministers since 1990 (the president of Pakistan, the position Musharraf holds, could remove the prime minister, the more powerful post, by declaration), he also passed some pretty nasty legislation with regards to the legislative process, in that the parliament could not declare a vote of no confidence and all party members had to vote along party lines.

Kinda negates the whole democratic process, don't you think?

We're not talking about the lesser of three evils, in other words: on the one hand, in Musharraf you have a military leader, a dictator, who's loyalties lie with an army that has been notorious for aiding the Taliban and Al Qaeda. On the other hand, you have a deposed prime minister who has long-standing (and likely true) corruption charges hanging over her head, and on the other other hand, you have a deposed prime minister who's a bit tyrranical in his own right.

All this unfolds against the backdrop of a deadline of November for new elections, and a growing-but-small number of radical Islamists likely following the Hezbollah and Hamas models for gaining entree into the mainstream political process in order to co-opt a moderate Muslim nation (and for a very good explanation of this crisis, I recommend you pick up this month's National Geographic magazine).

This election in Pakistan could be the single most important development in the United States 2008 Presidential election.

Gaming Another "Ally"

The silence of the Bush administration regarding this recent story is interesting, to say the least:

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan's chief justice wanted President Pervez Musharraf to dissolve the national assembly and let him oversee the election months before he was suspended from office, the head of military intelligence said on Thursday.

The crisis over Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry's suspension three months ago has resulted in the most serious challenge to General Musharraf's authority since he took power in a military coup eight years ago.

Chaudhry's suspension has sparked a countrywide campaign by lawyers and opposition parties for restoration of full democracy.

The timing is bad for Musharraf, as he has controversial plans to be re-elected by the sitting national and provincial assemblies later this year.

God bless Reuters, because in four grafs, they explain the entire story in a nutshell, so I don't have to.

But I will, because I pay myself by the word. Think about this: Musharraf wants to be re-"selected" by the Pakistani people, who elect the assemblies directly, and those bodies then select the President. The Chief Justice for Pakistan mentions he would prefer, for the people's sake, presumably, to oversee the election directly.

Chaudhry, according to statements by Major-General Mian Nadeem Ijaz Ahmad, Director-General of Military Intelligence, had been cozying up to the Pakistani intelligence and security communities...you know, the same guys who helped fund Al Qaeda attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center?...in an effort to pressure Musharraf (and perhaps save his own hide).

Six of one, half a dozen of the other, if you think about it: neither Musharraf nor Chaudhry would have American interests completely at heart unless it was more expedient to their own political future to do so.

Interestingly, Chaudhry may end up winning by default:

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf has berated his coalition for leaving him isolated in a crisis that threatens to destabilize a country on the front line of a global anti-terrorism campaign, a newspaper reported.

Musharraf, who is also army chief, is facing the biggest challenge to his authority since he took power in 1999, over a crisis he precipitated by suspending Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry on March 9.

But his government backed off new powers to shut down broadcasters following widespread criticism of media curbs introduced since protests erupted over Chaudhry's suspension on misconduct accusations.

[...]"I bluntly say you always leave me alone in times of trial and tribulation," the paper, citing unidentified participants at the Wednesday meeting, quoted Musharraf as saying.

"I see the party nowhere. You people are not mobilized," he was quoted as telling ruling Pakistan Muslim League members.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, I guess. It seems astounding to me that, given the power this man yields, that his best bullying tactic is...whining?

Contrast that with the Bush administration, practitioners of the art of ruthless politics: "you're either with us, or with them" is not just a mantra for the Global "War" On Terror, you see, and it would be foolish to think otherwise.

In fact, one reason cited for the stunning Democratic victory in 2006 was the dilemma faced by moderate Republicans who were coerced into backing in lockstep the GOP agenda. You can't run from a vote, and as John Kerry's campaign proved, you can't even run from the "right" vote. Karl Rove's biggest blunder in this administration was not having the political savvy to realize that hegemonies of any stripe never last very long, and that his client would have been better served had he allowed even a modicum of dissent on issues that really didn't matter to the true base, like Terri Schiavo, like abortion, like gay marriage.

Like the Iraq invasion.

And yet, with his popularity in the toilet and the country literally turning its back on him and the page on his administration, Bush isn't whining.

Much.

He's certainly not whining about the Republican party, despite the fact that they are defecting (including their voting base) in droves now, and choosing their next poison for 2008.

Perhaps that's a benefit of a democracy just starting to decline, as opposed to a democracy in shadows already. Knowing we have at least the sham of free elections ahead of us next year, it likely makes office holders on their way out resigned to the facts on the ground, rather than making them more desperate to tighten their grip on power.

I was watching the Stanley Cup finals last night...good on you, Ducks...and as the game wound down, Mike Emrick started to talk about the feelings of players on both sides, and how do you get yourself up to playing out the last several minutes of the biggest game of your season, if not your life, knowing you've already lost?

I guess you try to find something you can build on next season, or salvage some dignity, if there is no next season for you.

Bush is trying to salvage some dignity, which is kind of like watching a small puppy try to drag a car with its teeth. His desperate attempts to form coalitions with Democrats to enact mealymouthed legislation so that his entire legacy isn't "Iraq, Iraq, and Iraq" is cute.

Musharraf is trying to find some moral victory, even if the game doesn't appear to be lost. He gambled on the US despite a large Islamic population, assisted us without assisting us, and pissed both sides off.

And that's just sad for him.