Support NeoGAF

[Zapages]

There should be no place for dictators and aristocrats in Pakistani politics.

It looks like the crowd rather have dictator ruling a country that is killing her own people and abducting/selling them around for money. But I refuse support any dictator or any aristocrat ie. Bhutto/Zadari/Sharifs/etc that don't care for the people but their own pockets.

Pakistani need to start to get their act together in terms of actually start caring about the politics instead of being so apathetic about it. Because of our leaders' decisions we are in this terrible situation in the first place as of right now.

If you believe calling Balochi that, he should be killed! Is going to make him be with Pakistan a bit more then I really don't think so. Wat Musharaf showed and most military dictators show is that they don't think with their brains but with their muscles. Therefore they are unfit to run any country. Also they are too afraid to stand up to the big powers just like our fellow aristocratic leaders. They put their pockets in place before their own country.

Michael Schaffer: Musharraf lets loose in Baltimore

Source: The New Republic (10-22-09)

[Michael Schaffer is the author of One Nation Under Dog.]

Some simple rules of thumb for the foreign ex-dictator out to make a mint on the U.S. lecture circuit: Get yourself included in a speakers’ series that features non-controversial names like Laura Bush and Jean-Michel Cousteau. Promise your “august audience” a “frank exchange.” Maybe drop the names of one or two revered American leaders who are your close friends. And perhaps it is best not to admit that you wish you still had the power to “sort out” an impolite member of the audience.

That last nugget seemed to trip up Pervez Musharraf, the former Pakistani president, when he brought his coast-to-coast road show to Baltimore one recent evening. Musharraf was methodically explaining America’s pre–September 11 foreign policy failures to a crowd of about 2,000 well-heeled locals when unintelligible catcalls started ricocheting through the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall. At first, Musharraf ignored the shouts, but the refrain, in a heavy South Asian accent, eventually grew clearer: “Dictator!”

For many speakers, responding to this sort of interruption might involve that most basic maneuver of war and politics: seizing the high ground. The audience, after all, had paid between $265 and $395 for a series of lectures from prominent people, not taunts from anonymous hecklers. A few words about civility and politeness and respect might have gone a long way--especially for a guy determined to recast himself as a statesman. Musharraf, alas, rose to the bait.

“Yes, I was,” Musharraf shot back at the man who called him a dictator. “I wish you were there so I could have handled you also.” After some murmuring, things settled back down, but the distractions started up again a few minutes later. Eventually, as talk turned to Pakistan’s relations with India, the general decided to engage again. “Maybe the gentleman who’s talking belongs to India,” he said of the Joe Wilson figure in the upper balcony.

This was apparently too much for the gentleman, who shouted back that he was in fact from Baluchistan, the perpetually restive southwestern province that borders Afghanistan and Iran. “In Baluchistan, people like you who want to get away from Pakistan need to be sorted out,” Musharraf thundered. “That is what I did. . . . If you were there, you would have been sorted out by me. He thinks I’m a dictator. I’m a dictator for people like you!” Tonight, at least, the line worked: The crowd applauded as the heckler was silenced...

... This image is no small thing. In Islamabad, the opposition Pakistan Muslim League wants Musharraf tried for treason, which carries the death penalty. But, as the old cliché has it, Pakistani politics revolves around the three As--America, Allah, and the Army. So publicizing the news that Americans pay $100,000 a pop to listen to the ex-president serves as a significant deterrent: The prospect of bien-pensant lecture attendees in Pittsburgh and Providence implies that the first A still has Musharraf’s back. (As for the second A, Musharraf also got coverage for a recent visit with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia; the king reportedly promised to lobby against a trial, too.)

Musharraf is hardly the first ex-leader to pad his income via a trip around another nation’s lecture circuit--Bill Clinton has done quite nicely, as did Ronald Reagan. And the London resident is not even the first Pakistani exile to use friendly Americans as a prop for the domestic market--something the late Benazir Bhutto, with her cadre of Harvard classmates, did exceedingly well. (Like Bhutto, Musharraf has also made less-remunerative stops at insidery haunts on Capitol Hill and think tanks.)...

Source: http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/118834.html

 

[reggieandTFE]

It's so fucked up that we propped this guy up for so long with so many billions of dollars and int'l support and yet the average American (liberal and conservative) seethes and rages at the mere mention of Hugo Chavez.

 

[SapientWolf]

It's so fucked up that we propped this guy up for so long with so many billions of dollars and int'l support and yet the average American (liberal and conservative) seethes and rages at the mere mention of Hugo Chavez.

You're giving the education system too much credit. The average American doesn't know who Hugo Chavez is.

All this proves is that people hate hecklers more than dictators.

 

[fortified_concept]

You're giving the education system too much credit. The average American doesn't know who Hugo Chavez is.

All this proves is that people hate hecklers more than dictators.

...or that they are idiots.

 

[Salty]

Musharraf being a dictator does not mean that Chavez is not a dictator. His seeming lack of "infamy" only means that he was on "our side."

 

[AAK]

Meh, looking at the situation right now, Pakistan was in a better situation under a Dictatorship.

 

[crazy monkey]

Meh, looking at the situation right now, Pakistan was in a better situation under a Dictatorship.

yep at least it looks like that from outside. Past couple of months have been though for them .

 

[grumble]

Musharraf being a dictator does not mean that Chavez is not a dictator. His seeming lack of "infamy" only means that he was on "our side."

See: Osama Bin Laden.

 

[cartoon_soldier]

Democracy is never easy.

Oh, and Pakistan is finding out how it feels when the monster you raised turns on you. Lets not forget, they were one of the biggest supporters of Taliban before 9/11 happened.

 

[crazy monkey]

Democracy is never easy.

Oh, and Pakistan is finding out how it feels when the monster you raised turns on you. Lets not forget, they were one of the biggest supporters of Taliban before 9/11 happened.

USA was also supporter of Taliban.

 

[cartoon_soldier]

USA was also supporter of Taliban.

Well, US funded Pakistan, which diverted funds to Taliban, but US did not actively support Taliban as it took control of Kabul in 1996. It did fail to denouce the Taliban rule, and did not actively turn against them until 1998.

Interestingly, Iran and Russia were the main supporters of anti-Taliban forces during those days.

For a period of seven years since their origin, Pakistan's government had been the Taliban's main sponsor. It provided military equipment, recruiting assistance, training and tactical advice that enabled the band of village mullahs and their adherents to take control of Afghanistan.

 

[crazy monkey]

Well, US funded Pakistan, which diverted funds to Taliban, but US did not actively support Taliban as it took control of Kabul in 1996. It did fail to denouce the Taliban rule, and did not actively turn against them until 1998.

Interestingly, Iran and Russia were the main supporters of anti-Taliban forces during those days.

USA was big supporter of Taliban because Taliban fought with Russia. Read little bit of history. Al quida and Taliban were not same thing till 2001.

 

[Atrus]

USA was big supporter of Taliban because Taliban fought with Russia. Read little bit of history. Al quida and Taliban were not same thing till 2001.

Sorry, but he is correct. The USA has never directly supported the Taliban. While members of the CIA funded mujahadeen did go on to become key members of the taliban theo-political organization and Al Qaeda, the former are not the latter.

 

[crazy monkey]

Sorry, but he is correct. The USA has never directly supported the Taliban. While members of the CIA funded mujahadeen did go on to become key members of the taliban theo-political organization and Al Qaeda, the former are not the latter.

direct or indirect does it matter? people do many thing indirectly it does not change facts.

 

[SRG01]

Well, US funded Pakistan, which diverted funds to Taliban, but US did not actively support Taliban as it took control of Kabul in 1996. It did fail to denouce the Taliban rule, and did not actively turn against them until 1998.

Interestingly, Iran and Russia were the main supporters of anti-Taliban forces during those days.

Iran has a stake in fighting against the Taliban, since they're Sunni extremists.

 

[freddy]

The king who is crowned by fools is most likely to be a fool himself.

 

[Atrus]

direct or indirect does it matter? people do many thing indirectly it does not change facts.

By that reasoning you could claim that the US also funded the anti-Taliban forces since members of the same Mujahideen waged a war against them after the US left.

While the US was and is guilty of indiscriminate spending and arming, it has never actually been a supporter of the Taliban.

 

[crazy monkey]

By that reasoning you could claim that the US also funded the anti-Taliban forces since members of the same Mujahideen waged a war against them after the US left.

While the US was and is guilty of indiscriminate spending and arming, it has never actually been a supporter of the Taliban.

yes.

 

[Atrus]

yes.

But what would your overall point be? That the US spends money to further it's geo-political interests? So do most nations and for various interests.