Killing Hope and Deterring Democracy

[Bar]

I know, I'm on a smilie diet - but you got the jist so alls good.

 

[i know nothing]

I wonder if the "amended draft law on how to share the country's oil wealth" will involve many US contractors and what their margin will be?

Well it has to doesn't it? If it doesn't then what will happen to all of those people who argued that it was all about oil? They can't exactly go claiming it was all about the oil getting to the market because the oil output was higher before the war than it is now.

But what if they don't benefit?

 

[anarchist]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6284718.stm

 

[anarchist]

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/D1B901E0-A9E5-4D3A-937B-7B5262BBE82C.htm

A very strange story. Al Qaeda (whoever they are) threatening to wage war on Iran for interfering in Iraq (if indeed they are) - even stranger because the guy making the threat was supposedly killed by US forces a couple of months ago!

 

[@if ®afiq]

even stranger because the guy making the threat was supposedly killed by US forces a couple of months ago!

There is nothing really suprising about that. How many time has the US killed people, only for them to reappear again?

 

[anarchist]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/6900368.stm

 

[Shackley]

President George Bush insisted yesterday that the US would kill Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaida leaders believed to be hiding in Pakistan if it had "actionable intelligence". He refused to say whether he would first seek permission for an attack from Pakistan's president.
. . .
Relations between the US and Gen Musharraf have deteriorated sharply over the last year as the Bush administration has put pressure on him to send troops into the tribal region of Waziristan, where Bin Laden is suspected of hiding.
. . .
Relations between [Afghan President] Mr Karzai and Gen Musharraf have also been strained, with the Afghan leader claiming repeatedly during the past year that Pakistan was providing a safe haven for the Taliban. The Pakistan government has denied this.
. . .
A notable split also opened up between Mr Bush and Mr Karzai over the alleged role of Iran in Afghanistan. The US administration claims that Iran has been arming the Taliban but Mr Karzai, in an interview on US television on Sunday, described Iran as a "helper" to his country. Guardian Link

US diplomacy is going completely down the pan; they are in grave danger of having Musharraf booted out of office (and probably executed by exiled Benazir Bhutto), Pakistan becoming another fundamentalist Islamic state and Afghanistan cosying up to Iran.

If only they had concentrated on Afghanistan and stopped their blind support of Israel, they might actually have done some good. However, Bush and his Military Industrial sponsored, Christian Fundamentalist chums simply couldn't resist the temptation to steal Iraq's oil and now they are on their way to starting another cold war.

 

[anarchist]

Good MediaLens recently about how biased the media is, as always, with regard to Iraq coverage... spending more time discussing the alleged (but not actual) difference in the "special relationship" between Brown and Bush, than the huge humanitarian catastrophe going on in Iraq...

This described how 8 million Iraqis - almost a third of the population - are in need of emergency aid. Forty-three per cent are living in "absolute poverty". Children are suffering the most: malnutrition rates have risen from 19 per cent before the 2003 invasion - a time when Iraq was being crushed by a UN sanctions regime described as “genocidal” by one senior UN diplomat - to 28 per cent now. Some 92 per cent of children show learning difficulties related to psychological trauma.

The number of Iraqis without access to adequate water supplies has risen from 50 per cent in 2003 to 70 per cent now. Eighty per cent of Iraqis lack effective sanitation. Most homes in Baghdad and other cities have two hours of electricity a day.

www.medialens.org/alerts/07/070802_bush_brown_summit.php

 

[@if ®afiq]

....than the huge humanitarian catastrophe going on in Iraq...

www.medialens.org/alerts/07/070802_bush_brown_summit.php

If Brown's speech at the recent summit was anything to go by, Iraq doesn't even register as a catastrophe, to paraphrase: "Sudan is the biggest humanitarian issue of the centuary" - in a nutsehll, the crimes we commit and the suffereing that we cause is never mentioned, let alone thought about.

 

[anarchist]

If Brown's speech at the recent summit was anything to go by, Iraq doesn't even register as a catastrophe, to paraphrase: "Sudan is the biggest humanitarian issue of the centuary" - in a nutsehll, the crimes we commit and the suffereing that we cause is never mentioned, let alone thought about.

Also from MediaLens...

Noam Chomsky recently responded to the argument that the guilt of Western governments is lessened by the fact that they do not intentionally set out to kill civilians in their attacks on Third World countries. Chomsky proposed a case that was “far more depraved than massacring civilians intentionally”:

“Namely, knowing that you are massacring them but not doing so intentionally because you don't regard them as worthy of concern. That is, you don't even care enough about them to intend to kill them. Thus when I walk down the street, if I stop to think about it I know I'll probably kill lots of ants, but I don't intend to kill them, because in my mind they do not even rise to the level where it matters. There are many such examples. To take one of the very minor ones, when Clinton bombed the al-Shifa pharmaceutical facility in Sudan, he and the other perpetrators surely knew that the bombing would kill civilians (tens of thousands, apparently). But Clinton and associates did not intend to kill them, because by the standards of Western liberal humanitarian racism, they are no more significant than ants. Same in the case of tens of millions of others.

 

[Shackley]

Iraqi interpreters who have risked their lives to help UK forces will not get asylum, a report has claimed.
. . .
BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner says interpreters are marked men who "face a horrific death". BBC Link

Seems to remind me of the British Government response to the Gurkhas who went to court fighting for the right of the Nepalese veterans to settle in Britain.

Put your life at risk working for the invaders and then they throw you to the wolves - that'll learn 'em!

 

[i know nothing]

There's a massive difference between an enlisted man and these guys. They should receive protection though.

 

[stockhausen]

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, who is facing impeachment by parliament, says he will resign.
...
The president's public standing suffered a huge setback in 2007 when he sacked Pakistan's chief justice and nearly 60 judges to prevent them from overturning his re-election as president.
...
He has been one of the United States' strongest allies in its war against Islamist extremism - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7567451.stm

President Pervez Musharraf took over in a military coup in 1999, has allowed corruption to flourish and in 2007 suspended the constitution and decided that the legislative process was incompatible with his dictatorship.

It's going to be interesting to to see how exactly America's declared enthusiasm for "democracy" will cope with this little setback

 

[B&W]

President Pervez Musharraf took over in a military coup in 1999, has allowed corruption to flourish and in 2007 suspended the constitution and decided that the legislative process was incompatible with his dictatorship.

It's going to be interesting to to see how exactly America's declared enthusiasm for "democracy" will cope with this little setback

He's done more for Pakistan then the other lot before him, you think he was bad?

Just watch what those criminals zardari and sharif will do. Pakistan is on a downhill slope now, the only thing that will save it will be another military coupe, mark my works.

 

[stockhausen]

He's done more for Pakistan then the other lot before him, you think he was bad?

Just watch what those criminals Zardari and Sharif will do. Pakistan is on a downhill slope now, the only thing that will save it will be another military coup, mark my works.

I have no reason to believe that those that follow Musharraf will be any less corrupt than he is - however, they do appear to have been democratically elected.

By the same token, I expect that the Americans will do everything they can to engineer another military coup, imposing a new undemocratic dictator more to their liking

 

[Tefal]

Just watch what those criminals zardari and sharif will do. Pakistan is on a downhill slope now, the only thing that will save it will be another military coupe, mark my works.

Just gotta hope they don;t do somthing stupid with regards to thier nuclear arsenal, or Inda.

 

[B&W]

I have no reason to believe that those that follow him will be any less corrupt than he is - however, they do appear to have been democratically elected.

By the same token, I expect that the Americans will do everything they can to engineer another military coup, imposing a new undemocratic dictator more to their liking

Corrupt? lol, you dont know how Pakistan works, its based on corruption. To get past a police checkpoint without harassment you have to give them a 100 rupees or so.

He was far less corrupt then many and actually did try to make pakistan better then before, he was a military man and as such he wasnt great at diplomacy or the diplomatic methods.

At the same time he was free of the problem politicians suffer which is there constant bickering, ignoring ground realities and failure to act decisevely.

Pakistan is facing terrorism from its own citizens and somtimes foreign countries aid this to there own advantage. Add to this a hard war in the NWFP, unfriendly countries such as India and Afghanistan on its borders, nuclear weapons capability then you should understand that pakistan needed a military dictator.

By your last sentence are you inferring that America engineered the coup of 1999?

 

[scorza]

President Pervez Musharraf took over in a military coup in 1999, has allowed corruption to flourish and in 2007 suspended the constitution and decided that the legislative process was incompatible with his dictatorship.

It's going to be interesting to to see how exactly America's declared enthusiasm for "democracy" will cope with this little setback

Huh? The USA has repeatedly called for democracy to be re-established in Pakistan. If anything, Al-Queda is to blame for the extended length of Musharraf's reign, since they effectively forced the US to deal with Musharraf as an ally. Prior to that the US was quite adamant that elections should be held in Pakistan ASAP, and were again a few years later.

 

[stockhausen]

Corrupt? lol, you dont know how Pakistan works, its based on corruption. To get past a police checkpoint without harassment you have to give them a 100 rupees or so.

Yes, there is much corruption in Pakistan - I wasn't aware that Musharraf was doing so much as you suggest to stop it. Perhaps you could enlighten me on how he was going about this?

At the same time he was free of the problem politicians suffer which is there constant bickering, ignoring ground realities and failure to act decisevely.

One of the joys of dictatorship - you don't have to listen to anyone.

Pakistan is facing terrorism from its own citizens and sometimes foreign countries aid this to their own advantage. Add to this a hard war in the NWFP, unfriendly countries such as India and Afghanistan on its borders, nuclear weapons capability then you should understand that Pakistan needed a military dictator.

I don't think so; so far as I am aware, India for instance doesn't have a dictator?

By your last sentence are you inferring that America engineered the coup of 1999?

Maybe they did, maybe they didn't. For all I know, the CIA were asleep on the job and knew nothing about it.

Certainly, the Americans have never been reluctant to support coups de etat in South America or the Middle East or to oppose democracy where it suits them - why not in Pakistan?

 

[B&W]

Yes, there is much corruption in Pakistan - I wasn't aware that Musharraf was doing so much as you suggest to stop it. Perhaps you could enlighten me on how he was going about this?

It takes time but he did have anti corruption program going and two people, benazir and sharif were both indited in it. Thats just the famous people, many more must have been indited too.

http://www.pak-times.com/2007/08/30/musharraf-agrees-to-drop-corruption-cases-against-benazir/

He had to drop it though due to stupid politics, and look how that turned out..

One of the joys of dictatorship - you don't have to listen to anyone.

Yes its true and it is what is needed when a country is in crisis.

I don't think so; so far as I am aware, India for instance doesn't have a dictator?

lol, your trying to compare indias situation to pakistan? India is 10 times bigger, and due to its size the problems that face it are nowhere near as bad as those that face pakistan.

India's government is maturing quite well too, unlike that of pakistans which is quite infantile and full of corruption.

Maybe they did, maybe they didn't. For all I know, the CIA were asleep on the job and knew nothing about it.

Certainly, the Americans have never been reluctant to support coups de etat in South America or the Middle East or to oppose democracy where it suits them - why not in Pakistan?

What kind of logic is that, because america supported a coupe in south america it means they supported the 1 in pakistan? Were you hiding in a cave when musharraf was told off by the yanks and they had sanctions placed on em? where have you been all years..

The coup was welcomed in pakistan, sharif is a pillock and hopefully one day he will get whats coming to him.

You just watch, Pakistan is on a downshill slide and in the next few years you'll see just how "good" sharif and zardari were for Pakistan.

People yell about democracy thinking its the cure for all evil, so naive and childish. Democracy is great but it is only suitable in countries that have educated populaces not uneducated countries like Pakistan.