Laura Doty @ 95

…
A colleague of Juan Cole’s, Barnett Rubin, has been in Islamabad (leaving today). Here’s a very interesting post of his from over the weekend about Musharref, Cheney and “lawfare”. positively chilling. (text).

Peace.

Laura, thanks for the link. No one could make this shit up and sell it for fiction.

From the chilling article,

“Mr. Bush said that while he commended General Musharraf’s impulse to eliminate democratic institutions, he felt that the military strongman was going about it the wrong way: “When you’re getting rid of democracy, the last thing you want to do is tell people you’re doing it.”

This quote needs to be verified.

mc @ 13

Whew, I thought I was the only one wearing a hat today.

I guess me too….My first thought last week when the “terror” attack on Bhutto’s convoy went off was “false flag” attack. How long before martial law is declared? God, I’m getting too good at this…

I suspect Bushies told Bhutto we’d support her (or even that a deal had already been worked out for power-sharing) and then when she went back the hammer came down. It’s pretty clear they were trying to kill her, so Musharraf would be in the clear to take care of his Supreme Court (as he has) and continue in power.

But, Bhutto escaped, so the future isn’t so clear. In a strange way it resembles Myanmar where there is a military dictator and the democratic opposition is represented by a woman limited to home confinement.

Will Democracy win out? Time will tell, but Bhutto had better continue to be very very careful.

Ok it is official, Osama bin Laden must work for the CIA. Because if we are coddling people supposedly helping him…well that is where it leads me logically.

Bushco = Foreign Policy Rediculousness

Our good buddy Darrell Issa is helping to finance the electoral change in California.

Can’t have fair elections.

Is he a slow learner or what? The recall campaign he led kinda backfired on him, dinnit?

There has been quite a bit of discussion of the Ron Paul phenomenon. So, FWIW, here are some resources:

This is by Glenn Greenwald and focuses mostly on what’s right with Paul and his campaign:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/g…..index.html

Here’s one by Kos that focuses on what’s successful about Paul’s campaign:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyo…..11258/6081

Here is the first of a four-part article that focuses on what is wrong with Ron Paul:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/5/15/124912/740

Interesting articles.

But how can one be a strict Constitutionalist (as Paul asserts he is) and ignore that the Constitution defines a natural-born citizen as well “BORN”…not “CONCEIVED”. The Constitution has no mention of embryos having any sort of Constitutional protections at all. Persons are BORN.

As for Paul being “new”, I actually find him quite “old”. There were many anti-immigration, laissez-faire free-market, isolationist types from about 1880-1940. These groups railed against immigrants from every ethnic group conceivable (Irish, Catholic, Italian, Easter European, Chines, Japanese, Hispanic, etc.). They were generally anti-Union, because, they argued…collective groups of workers impaired the free market. They opposed involvement in the first and second World War, and the Spanish-American War…asking why the US should take sides in foreign “entanglements”. They also opposed efforts by the Federal Government to expand its involvement in State activities. These were, of course, the States Rights movements that argued that the Constitution also limited the activities of the Federal Government to those specifically enunciated by the Constution. Schools, roads, highways, healthcare, dams, parks, hospitals, and a bevy of other Federal mandates and activities were unConstitutional. I don’t know where Paul sits on the gold-standard!

So the Ron Paul phenomenon is actually not so different from these movements. It is appealing to progessives because Paul represents a counter to the authoritarian state and imperialistic war. But it would be dangerous to support such a movement that would move on to other agendas when the Iraq War was over. As has been pointed out, the Bush Administration was born through the support of people like Grover Norquist, whose intent was to destroy government through running into the group.
Bush succeeded with the first stage. Ron Paul is the second.

This time, Cheney might not be able to bail Musharraf out of his current predicament:

Under the surface, though, the president, who had suspended the constitution for the second time (the first was in 1999 when he took power in a bloodless coup), barred the Supreme Court from making any ruling against his administration, and curbed the media, is a very worried man.

Extensive protests in many parts of the country, especially in Lahore, where they were ruthlessly dealt with, took Musharraf and his inner circle by surprise, Asia Times Online contacts confirm.

On Monday, Musharraf presided over a meeting that included Vice Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kiani, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and the director general of Military Intelligence, Major General Nadeem Ejaz. They acknowledged a few home truths, notably that in the present highly charged political climate, Musharraf’s government cannot afford to open up any new fronts against militants in the Waziristan tribal areas, or elsewhere.

This means that Musharraf’s support (read money) in the West, especially from Washington, will be placed on the line as he will not be able to deliver on his pledges to go hard against Taliban and al-Qaeda militancy in the country. US President George W Bush and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown have already said as much.

What I want to know is, Why don’t they give a damn what the rest of the world–let alone the people of Pakistan–are going to think of us for propping up Mushareff and checking Bhutto? They know the world is going to hate us and rally behind bin Laden.

Same thing with Iran. BushCo want to unite the Moslem world against us. The “us” he represents isn’t you and me, it’s interests who can’t vote and rely on fear and smear to sway the public into following their agenda.

Whether Pakistan was an officially sanctioned “dry run” for our own crackdown, or whether Musharef is acting independently of Cheney’s office, I think we can all be sure the neo-cons are taking diligent notes.

I am becoming gravely concerned right now. Despite all my gallows humor, until today, I’ve really felt that we would be able to head off any serious challenges to democracy before matters got too serious, but I’m starting to feel we’re already past the tipping point and our own Night of the Long Knives is immanent.

As if to punctuate my fears I saw an actual skinhead couple at the Dollar General while on my lunch hour. They each had Confederate Flags embroidered on the back of their jean jackets, and coincidentally they were parked next to me and as I got into my car I noticed a shiny silver swastika medallion hanging from their rear view mirror.

I’ve never seen anything like that in this small, rural town.

Ron Paul supporters; no snark intended.

I am becoming gravely concerned right now. Despite all my gallows humor, until today, I’ve really felt that we would be able to head off any serious challenges to democracy before matters got too serious, but I’m starting to feel we’re already past the tipping point and our own Night of the Long Knives is immanent.

As if to punctuate my fears I saw an actual skinhead couple at the Dollar General while on my lunch hour. They each had Confederate Flags embroidered on the back of their jean jackets, and coincidentally they were parked next to me and as I got into my car I noticed a shiny silver swastika medallion hanging from their rear view mirror.

I’ve never seen anything like that in this small, rural town.