Today's
Stories
July 29, 2009
Franklin C. Spinney
Winning Hearts and Minds, Pentagon Style
July 28, 2009
Jean Bricmont
Bombing for a Juster World?
Uri Avnery
Obama, Netanyahu and the Settlements
Dean Baker
Right to Rent: a Remedy for the Foreclosure Crisis
Heather Gray
Stupid Cop Tricks: Driving Too Close to a White Female and Other Episodes in Racist Policing
Jonathan Cook
Can an "Arab Soul" Yearn for Israel's Anthem?
Winslow T. Wheeler
Beyond the F-22: the Future of Pentagon Reform
Belén Fernández
Thomas Friedman Does Afghanistan
Carl Finamore
The Hotel Workers' Kickass Local 2
Eli Jelly-Schapiro
Striking the World Cup
Harvey Wasserman
We All Stand Before Peltier's Parole Board
Website of the Day
Behind the Wheel
July 27, 2009
Ishmael Reed
Gates: Post-Race Scholar Yells Racism
Patrick Cockburn
Elections Shake Kurdistan
Roger Burbach
Hillary and Obama Nix Change in Honduras
Steve Breyman
Bomber Joe and Russia:
Why is Biden Channeling Cheney?
Ramzy Kysia
Gaza: On the Right of Resistance
Stephen Soldz
Will the American Psychological Association Renounce the Nuremberg Defense?
Raymond J. Lawrence
Sexual Hocus Pocus in the Episcopal Church
Greg Moses
The Color Line is Black
Binoy Kampmark
Swine Flu Panic
Kim Ives
Lavalas and Haiti's Student Union Unite
Website of the Day
Meet the Paid Assassins of Health Care
July 24-26, 2009
Alexander Cockburn
"A Damned Murder, Inc."
Clifton Ross
Surreal Honduras
Patrick Cockburn
Party of "Change" Challenges Old Guard in Kurdistan
William Polk
Report Card on Obama From a New Frontiersman
David Sterritt
Screening the Politics Out of the Iraq War
Ray McGovern
Hooded in Bush's Hood
David Lindorff
Cops Gone Wild
Hannah Mermelstein
"The War is With the Arabs"
Carl Ginsburg
The Actually Existing Health Care System
Helen Redmond
The Selling of Single-Payer Features
John Ross
The Song of the Guerrilla
Bill Simpich
Fair Play for Cuba and the Cuban Revolution
Mark Weisbrot
Learning From China on How to Beat the Recession
Lee Sustar
U.S. Labor in Crisis
David Macaray
Union Workers Forced to Accept Massive Cuts
Felipe Matsunaga
Obama's Slow (and Familiar) Dance With Cuba
Sara Mann
Why Health Care Will Kill My TV
Martha Rosenberg
Which is Worse? Germs in Our Food or the Antibiotics That Kill Them?
Missy Beattie
Cha-ching Culture
David Ker Thomson
Empty Nest: a Natural History of Now
Ron Jacobs
United4Iran, a Footnote
Stephen Martin
The Crying of Lots 1 Thru 50
David Yearsley
Psst, I Show You a Feelthy Gluck
Gilad Atzmon
Bruno: a Glimpse Into Zionism?
Kim Nicolini
Guilty Laughter in the Dark: Seeing Brüno Twice
Poets' Basement
Kakak and McLellan
Website of the Weekend
Dead Prez: Summertime
July 23, 2009
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Masters of Perfidy: AIG and the System
Saul Landau /
Nelson Valdés
Hypocrisy and the Honduran Coup: Term Limits Only Apply When Governments Help People
Jonathan Cook
The Reality of Israel's "Open" Jerusalem
Nadia Hijab
Israeli Warships in the Red Sea
Dave Lindorff
Living in a Police State: the Gates Incident
Laura Carlsen
21st Century Coups d'Etat
Steve Breyman
Bankers Beware?
Ellen Brown
How California Could Turn Its IOUs Into Dollars
Norman Solomon
Spinning Health Care
Jorge Mariscal
Youth Activists Demand Military-Free Schools
Website of the Day
Copy-Editing Sarah Palin
July 22, 2009
Bernard Chazelle
How to Argue Against Torture
Nikolas Kozloff
The Coup and the U.S. Airbase in Honduras
Carl Ginsburg
The Recovery, Phase Two
Clifton Ross
Back to the Future? Return to El Salvador
Anthony DiMaggio
Health Care, Media and the Case for Socialized Medicine
Michael Donnelly
The Whoppers Behind WOPR
Nadia Hijab
Memoirs of a Lost Arab World
Dedrick Muhammad
Structural Inequality: News Not Fit to Print?
Charles Thomson
Cronyism at the Tate
Alan Farago
Ted Williams and the Florida Keys
Website of the Day
Himmelstein: Howard Dean is a Liar
July 21, 2009
Sasan Fayazmanesh
The Iranian Election and Its Aftermath
Uri Avnery
Breaking the Silence on Israeli War Crimes
Dean Baker
Séance on Wall Street
Jonathan Cook
Team Twitter: Israel's Internet War
Dave Lindorff
Saving Private Bergdahl
Andy Worthington
Interrogating the Uighurs
David Macaray
Heat, Dust and OSHA
Carl Finamore
The Deferential Party
Harvey Wasserman
Cronkite and Three Mile Island
Walter Brasch
The Marie Antoinettes of Health Care
Website of the Day
Linebaugh: Magna Carta and the Commons
July 20, 2009
Pam Martens
Judicial Apartheid
Nikolas Kozloff
Honduras and the Big Stick: Obama's Bullish Behavoir in Latin America
Paul Craig Roberts
Threatening Iran
Deepak Tripathi
Obama's Policy on China and Iran
Ira Glunts
Netanyahu's Time Bomb: Building in the Vineyard of the Mufti
P. Sainath
Put Your Money Down, Boys
Binoy Kampmark
The Moon Landing and the Cold War
Stephen Fleischman
The First Anchorman
Norman Solomon
Cronkite and Vietnam: Beyond the Hype
Andy Worthington
Predictable Chaos as Gitmo Trials Resume
Ron Jacobs
Out of the Haze, Into the Darkness:
Recalling 1979
Website of the Day
Why Publishing Can't be Saved (as it is)
July 17-19, 2009
Alexander Cockburn
"Watch What We Do, Not What We Say"
Nikolas Kozloff
Chiquita in Latin America: From Arbenz to Zelaya
Joanne Mariner
CIA Apples: Bad at the Top of the Tree
Joe Bageant
America's White Underclass
Jonathan Cook
Israeli Road Signs: Wiping Arabic Names Off the Map
Saul Landau
Why So Much Sympathy for Madoff's Dupes and So Little for the Poor?
John Ross
Jurassic Fallout in Mexico
Sue Sturgis
Senator Sessions, Race and Impartiality
Anita Sinha /
Daniel Farbman
The Ricci Case and the Myth of Special Treatment
Peter Morici
Obama's Donut Economics
Pervez Hoodbhoy
Whither Pakistan? A Five-Year Forecast
Ramzy Baroud
Gaza and the Language of Power
Greg Moses
The Real Demand Crisis
Kia Mistilis
The Niger Delta Crisis
Missy Beattie
The Placebo President
David Ker Thomson
How Not to See: Things to Tell Your Eyeballs
James G. Abourezk
Evil Spirits: the Booze Strip in Indian Country
Paul Richards
Why Does Jon Tester Want to Log Wild Montana?
Dave Lindorff
Dark Days for Working People (With Three Small Rays of Light)
Marc Levy
Just Like Hanoi Jane
Matt Siegfried
The Good War Goes Hot
Stephen Martin
Panopticon Blues
Ben Sonnenberg
Sembène's Faat Kiné
David Macaray
Casablanca: When Melodrama Trumped History
Charles R. Larson
A Pakistani, Victorian Novel Celebrating Women
David Yearsley
That's Women for You: Abbas Kiarostami's Così
Lorenzo Wolff
Death Rattle and Roll: the Sound From England's Gutters
Poets' Basement
Payne, Anderson and Williams
Website of the Weekend
Hitler Learns of Sarah Palin's Resignation
July 16, 2009
Paul Craig Roberts
What Economy?
Afshin Rattansi Iranian Planes and the Hidden Toll of Economic Sanctions
Gregory V. Button
The Search for Environmental Justice in Perry County, Alabama
Evan Knappenberger
Profile of a Deserter
Michelle Bollinger
Why is Leonard Peltier Still in Prison?
Russell Mokhiber
White House to ABC News:
No Obama Single-Payer Doc
Belén Fernández
Iranian Penetration, Oh My!
Alice Walker
What is Torture Like? A Letter to Obama
Nicholas Dearden
Paying the Climate Debt: the G-8's Troubling Model
Albert Osueke
Sotomayor and the Identity Mountain
Website of the Day
Sotomayor for the Prosecution
July 15, 2009
Manuel Garcia, Jr.
The Assassination Bureau
Vijay Prashad
A Political Recession
Dean Baker
Stimulus Arithmetic
Ray McGovern
Cheney Sweating Bullets
Jonathan Cook
Jenin's Model of "Economic Peace"
David Rosen
Shouts From the Gallery: the Sotomayor Hearings and the Culture Wars
Eric Walberg
Uighurs vs. Afghans: a Study in Contrast
Greg Moses
Three Dimensions of a Complete Stimulus Plan
Sousan Hammad
Decolonizing Israel
Binoy Kampmark
The Trial of Charles Taylor
Tracy McLellan
The Story of My Arrest
Website of the Day
11 Days in Saudi Gitmo
July 14, 2009
Eamonn McCann
The Emperors of Bombast: Bono, U2 and the Crisis of World Capitalism
Joanne Mariner
Obama's New Euphemism
Franklin Spinney
The Taliban Rope-a-Dope
Steve Heilig
Walking Mount Tam: an Interview with Gary Snyder
Ali Abunimah
Hamas' Choice
Dave Lindorff
The End of "Nice" Health Care Reform
Nikolas Kozloff
The Politics of Destabilization: McCain and Honduras
Ellen Brown
From Golden State to Subprime State
Alice Slater
How US Missile Defense Plans Sabotaged Nuclear Disarmament Talks With Russia
Ron Jacobs
Protest U.S. Aggression
Joe Allen
The Fight to Save James Hickman in Jim Crow-Style Chicago
Website of the Day
Mel Brooks Does the French Revolution
July 13, 2009
Uri Avnery
The Essence of the Regime
Mike Whitney
The Deflating Economy
P. Sainath
How the World Depression Hits Orissa
Gareth Porter
A US / Iraq Conflict on Iran
Paul Moore
Rap in the Streets, Rap in the Suites
Tim Wise
Off the Deep End: Private Clubs, Public Prejudice
Andy Worthington Former Insider Shatters Credibility of Military Commissions
David Macaray
Cartoon Voices:
Serf's Up in Hollywood
Cal Winslow
The Healthcare Worker War
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Spring in the Time of Obama
Website of the Day
Washington's Deep Game with China
July 10-12, 2009
Alexander Cockburn
Obama's Biden Problem
José Pertierra
The Cuban Five: a Cold War Case in a Post-Cold War World
John Ross
After the Honduran Coup
Conn Hallinan
The Settlements and the Quartet
Nikolas Kozloff
C Street Band: Sex Scandals, Moral Hypocrisy and the Far Right Agenda in Latin America
Clifton Ross /
Marcy Rein
U.S. and Honduras:
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Good Neighbor
Carl Ginsburg
Summers' Clouded Crystal Ball
Michael Neumann
Say It Loud, Say It Proud: There is No God!
Gilad Atzmon
The Left and Islam:
Thinking Outside of the Secular Box
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Parable of the Golden Parachute
Ellen Hodgson Brown
California Dreamin': How the State Can Beat Its Budget Woes
Jim Goodman
Rural America Needs More Than Listening Sessions
Christopher Bickerton
Europe's New Politics of Hard Times
Wendell Potter
Health Care Industry Adopts Tobacco Lobby's Tactics
Dave Lindorff
CIA Lies: Why Isn't Congress in Open Revolt?
David Ker Thomson
Switchbacking Toward Bastille Day
Anthony DiMaggio
The Michael Jackson Feeding Frenzy
Raymond Lawrence
Michael Jackson as Sexual Pervert: the Calumnies of Peter King
Walid El Houri
Neda and Marwa: a Tale of Two Murdered Women
Stephanie Westbrook
Yes, We Camp
Roger Gaess
The Shades of Highgate Cemetery
David Yearsley
Tara, America's Dream House
Kim Nicolini
Caution: Men at Work, Robbing Banks
Poets' Basement
Five Poems From the Japanese
Website of the Weekend
Free Tiga and Hugh!
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July 29, 2009
Will the General be Relaunched?
Musharraf, Imran Khan and Overseas Pakistanis
By AYESHA IJAZ KHAN
Although their politics is polls apart, there is one thing that Musharraf and Imran Khan have in common. Both have more support abroad than within Pakistan . Pakistani expatriates, often disturbed by the poverty, lacking social welfare infrastructure and corruption they find on annual trips home, come back pining for “radical change,” a familiar refrain of Imran Khan’s support base. It was this yearning for radical change in fact that led many overseas Pakistanis to initially back Musharraf’s military coup against Nawaz Sharif’s elected government in October 1999.
To be honest, by late 1999, Nawaz Sharif had alienated most of his voters, in spite of the fact that in February 1997 he had swept the polls with a formidable majority. Draconian press controls, a dollar freeze that led the rupee to tumble, constant changing of army chiefs and a desire to become the ameer ul momineen (ruler of the faithful) which smacked more of an archaic kingship than a modern day democracy led few to shed tears for Nawaz Sharif when Musharraf announced a coup in mid-air and took over the reins of power.
Nevertheless, it was during the eight years of Musharraf’s military rule that Pakistanis realized the importance of well-functioning democratic institutions and the rule of law. A courageous two-year lawyers’ movement led to the restoration of a judiciary that now works independent of pressure from the executive and legislature. A vibrant and free press, initially supported by Musharraf’s government, was thwarted when it criticized the ruling regime. But the media, like the lawyers, refused to comply with unreasonable restrictions and fought for their freedom. Most importantly, for the first time in Pakistan ’s history, the military was openly blamed for the ills of society. A new and fresh transparency within Pakistan led many to conclude that democracy, with all its ills, is the best alternative and that in order to benefit from it fully Pakistanis would have to develop mechanisms to hold their leaders accountable. Thus, reform-minded Pakistanis have focused their energies on attaining an independent judiciary, a free press and a neutral army.
Yet, overseas Pakistanis, often unaware of how rapidly democratic institutions are evolving within Pakistan and how quickly the politics is maturing, are still searching for one-man saviours. A newly-formed London-based group called the “lovers of Musharraf” is looking to re-launch the retired general into politics. Comprising mostly of well-connected businessmen who had financially benefited from investing in real estate and the stock market during Musharraf’s time and are entirely unaware of the large sections of society who never saw the trickle down effect of his economic policies, not to mention the looming charges of treason against Musharraf for imposing a second martial law on November 3, 2007, think that Musharraf was the best thing that ever happened to Pakistan and must be brought back into power.
On the other end of the spectrum, are the Imran Khan supporters. For them, nothing in Pakistan has ever gone right. In spite of the fact that in a recent poll eighty percent of the country is supporting the military in its fight against the Taliban, the Imran Khan supporters continue to refer to it as “ America ’s war” and Mr. Khan insists that the Pakistani army is playing a mercenary role. His supporters deride the VIP culture of the politicians in power and constantly blame the west generally, and America in particular, for propping up corrupt leadership that does not think in the national interest because their own assets and children are abroad. Conveniently, they overlook the fact that Mr. Khan’s own children are also abroad and are, in all likelihood, being funded by assets abroad, even if those assets do not belong to Mr. Khan himself.
Within Pakistan however most potential voters are looking to the mainstream political parties to reinvent themselves. In addition to an assertive judiciary and vigilant press, several politically active pressure groups are organizing for change and yielding positive results. A few days ago, for the first time in Pakistan ’s history and owing to the efforts of some dedicated activists, a feudal lord, who had illegally appropriated village land, was forced to return it to its rightful owners, the Kashkeli peasants. In other news, President Zardari’s handpicked nominee for the Ambassador to Paris post was collectively rejected by the Foreign Office and several retired ambassadors. Since the members of the Foreign Service refused to accept the President’s choice, the Prime Minister intervened and reversed the President’s decision.
The Prime Minister, Yousaf Reza Gillani, is slowly but surely asserting himself. A conciliatory personality and not a beneficiary of the controversial National Reconciliation Ordinance that has pardoned other allegedly corrupt politicians (including President Zardari), Prime Minister Gillani is trying to be responsive to the critiques of the press and the needs of the people. In a recent interview, he declared that he wanted to make appointments based on merit, and not on the liking of any one individual, hinting at President Zardari’s nepotistic style. Gillani also spoke out against a recent law initiated by President Zardari’s cronies that sought to punish those who poked fun at Zardari through text messages and emails. If there is one thing that can bring a government down in Pakistan , it is restricting free speech. It contributed to both Nawaz Sharif and Musharraf’s downfall. The late Benazir Bhutto never attempted to curb freedom of expression and yet President Zardari is slow to learn, but Gillani is an older hand at politics and were he to assert himself further, he would find support from many corners.
Neither is the close scrutiny of the public representatives limited to those in government. The opposition has also felt the heat lately, as one prominent Pakistani recently confided to me, “It has become very difficult to be a politician in Pakistan .” Four members of Nawaz Sharif’s party have recently been the subject of public disdain and there is considerable pressure on Mr. Sharif to expel them from his party. One of his party members has been accused of rape, another of harassing customs officials, and a third, a female member of the national assembly, has been caught on CCTV buying jewellery on a stolen credit card. While previously the rich and powerful could get away with much in Pakistan . Things are different today. With a media able and willing to disgrace and a judiciary with a mind of its own, the threat of accountability is far more real than it used to be.
The future of Pakistan ’s politics thus belongs to men and women from the mainstream political parties who are able to distinguish themselves from their colleagues and demonstrate that they really have the people’s interests at heart. It does not belong to fringe politicians like Musharraf and Imran Khan, both of whom claim to represent the silent majority but cannot prove it at the polls.
The writer is a London-based lawyer turned political commentator. Website: www.ayeshaijazkhan.com
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