Lunatics running the asylum that Pakistan has become

What a ghastly story of an assassination it was when Salman Taseer was killed by his own bodyguard, all because Taseer had advocated for clemency for a woman who expressed her thoughts, and happened to be a Christian.  The killer is now being celebrated by ignorant fundamentalists, who have increased their ever tightening grip on the political arteries:

The funeral of his victim was sparsely attended: a couple of thousand mourners at most. A frightened President Zardari and numerous other politicians didn’t show up. A group of mullahs had declared that anyone attending the funeral would be regarded as guilty of blasphemy. No mullah (that includes those on the state payroll) was prepared to lead the funeral prayers. The federal minister for the interior, Rehman Malik, a creature of Zardari’s, has declared that anyone trying to tamper with or amend the blasphemy laws will be dealt with severely. In the New York Times version he said he would shoot any blasphemer himself.

Tariq Ali, while reminiscing fond memories of Taseer, warns about the increasingly loud chants within Pakistan that clamor for a military coup, yet again.  Everything is going the wrong way for this country, which seems to have been cursed at birth. The decade-long US presence in Afghanistan is further precipitating the internal crisis:

Take the Af-Pak war. Few now would dispute that its escalation has further destabilised Pakistan, increasing the flow of recruits to suicide bomber command. The CIA’s New Year message to Pakistan consisted of three drone attacks in North Waziristan, killing 19 people. There were 116 drone strikes in 2010, double the number ordered in the first year of the Obama presidency. Serious Pakistani newspapers, Dawn and the News, claim that 98 per cent of those killed in the strikes over the last five years – the number of deaths is estimated to be between two and three thousand – were civilians, a percentage endorsed by David Kilcullen, a former senior adviser to General Petraeus. The Brookings Institution gives a grim ratio of one militant killed for every ten civilians. The drones are operated by the CIA, which isn’t subject to military rules of engagement

What a mess!  I wonder how this story will end--will the lunatics win, or will we be able to take control?

The American military coup of 2012

Maybe this award-winning essay is worth a second-read, for those of you who have forgotten it.  For the rest, well, read it and weep!

Pakistan: Regime change in the offing?

If Pakistan did not have General Musharraf as its president, then I would suggest that it is on the verge of yet another military coup, which would throw out the elected government. But, Musharraf is there as its president, and his handpicked man is the military chief. So, I am sure he does not want to reinforce his reputation as some power-crazy dictator. Maybe things will get so bad that Pakistanis will launch protests to bring back dictatorship?

Here is what an opinion in The Hindu says (it does not list the 35% stock market dive in two months, and the stone-throwing riots as a result!):
Pakistan’s nearly four-month-old government is struggling hard to dispel the impression that it is floundering, but it’s a losing battle so far. There is a crisis on almost every front — runaway prices, the rupee in free fall, food shortages, power outages, the tightening grip of the Taliban in the northwest, panic that the United States is about to invade the country, and a shadow on India-Pakistan relations following the Indian Embassy blast in Kabul.

And, if Pakistan descends into chaos? This is the scenario that is likely to unfold. Not pretty!