Pakistani dictator Pervez Musharraf sits down with the New York Times and posits a novel excuse for suspending his country's constitution and firing the members of Pakistan's high court so they couldn't rule his continued rule illegal: he's doing it for the sake of democracy !!! (and because the terrorists hate our freedoms...) Grey Lady: hold forth!
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Nov. 13 — Pakistan’s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, on Tuesday rejected an appeal by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to lift his state of emergency, insisting in an interview that it was the best way to ensure free and fair elections.
He vigorously defended the emergency decree issued 10 days earlier that suspended the Constitution, dismissed the Supreme Court, silenced independent news stations and resulted in the arrests of at least 2,500 opposition party workers, lawyers and human rights advocates.
“I totally disagree with her,” General Musharraf said in an interview with The New York Times at the presidential building here in the capital. “The emergency is to ensure elections go in an undisturbed manner.” He said Sunday that elections would go ahead by Jan. 9.
In other words, he had to suspend the rule of law for the sake of democracy. Very Bushie...
Dressed in a dark business suit rather than his military uniform, General Musharraf spoke in a confident tone, saying the decree was justified because the Supreme Court had questioned the validity of his re-election, and because of the seriousness of threats from terrorists.
Very nice ... he's taking Dubya's fashion advice, AND ... he's fighting the "terr'rists...!"
He refused to say when he would step down as army leader and become a civilian president, a demand that President Bush has made publicly and, in a telephone call last week, privately. “It will happen soon,” he said.
Ok but the other Bush advice? ... not so much...
General Musharraf, who has been criticized as being increasingly isolated and receiving poor advice from a shrinking circle of aides, insisted he was in touch with the mood of Pakistanis.
Dismissing consistent reports that a vast majority of Pakistanis oppose his emergency decree, he said he had information from “several organizations” and feedback from politicians and friends that the move was popular.
“I know what they feel about the emergency when all these suicide bombings were taking place,” he said, speaking of the rising number of suicide bombings in Pakistan. “Their view is, Why have I done it so late.”
Oh my god this guy is as nutty as the wack-jobs at the Weekly Standard and the National Review! He probably thinks the Iraq war is going gangbusters, too!
He sharply criticized the opposition leader Benazir Bhutto...
Oh, here we go...
... saying she was confrontational and would be difficult to work with. Ms. Bhutto returned to Pakistan last month in a deal brokered by the Bush administration, which hoped that the two could find a way to share power, in order to increase public support for General Musharraf’s increasingly unpopular military government.
The understanding was that she would take part in elections that could make her prime minister, while he would run for re-election as president. Instead, they have engaged in increasingly public sparring, and Ms. Bhutto has come in for criticism that she is an American pawn who is not mounting serious opposition to the general.
Early Tuesday, 900 police officers surrounded the house where Ms. Bhutto was staying in the eastern city of Lahore, preventing her from leading a march to Islamabad to protest what opposition groups say is martial law. After waiting for more than a week, on Tuesday she joined other opposition leaders and called for General Musharraf to resign.
“You come here on supposedly on a reconciliatory mode, and right before you land, you’re on a confrontationist mode,” he said in the interview, conducted in English. “I am afraid this is producing negative vibes, negative optics.”
Damn you, Bhutto and your negative optics!!!
Oh, and the article goes on to point out that Pakistan has received more than $10 billion in mainly military aid from the Bush administration. The new, obedient Supreme Court in Pakistan is expected to ratify his illegal election soon, which Musharraf apparently can't say will end his "emergency rule" (funny that the emergency seems to be the fact that the court ruled against him...)
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"[T]he practice of arbitrary imprisonments, have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny.' Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 84, August, 1788
