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Today's Stories January 10, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Now Nader Claims He Didn't Endorse Edwards January 9, 2008 Cockburn / St. Clair The Empire Strikes Back Dave Lindorff The Bad News from New Hampshire: Death By Triangulation John Chuckman Pardon My Laughter: Watching the US Primaries from Canada James Bovard Stomping Freedom: Inside the Martial Law Act of 2006 Alan Farago As Florida Sinks: the View from the Titanic Russell Mokhiber Why Picket the New York Times in DC on Friday? William S. Lind Kicking the Can Down the Road in Iraq Peter Morici Beyond the Sophistry: Why the Trade Deficit Matters Josh Reubner Sudan vs. Israel: Double Standard on Divestment Mike Roselle The Pursuit of Happiness Website of the Day Bottles of Tears on the Wall: Steve Perry on NH   January 8, 2008 Paul Craig Roberts No Jobs for the New Economy (or the Old) Russell Mokhiber The Black Hillary: Obama is Just Another Political Sedative Robert Fantina The Gulf of Tonkin and the Strait of Hormuz Dave Zirin Butts on Parade Shamako Nobel I Am an Emcee: the Politics of Hip Hop John Ross Zapatista Women Encounter Themselves Brenda Norrell Apaches Defend Homeland from Homeland Security Laura Carlsen Why Bolivia Matters Patrick Irelan Remember the Maine! Evelyn J. Pringle The Holes in Bush's FDA Jonathan M. Feldman After Iowa and New Hampshire: a Strategy for Rebuilding the Peace Movement Michael Dickinson Playing Soldier Website of the Day Sean Hannity on the Run!   January 7, 2008 Chris Floyd There Will Be Blood: But No Justice for Iraq Atrocities John Blair Remove That Man! Creeping Fascism in Indiana Uri Avnery The Case of the White Bird Andy Worthington Who Are the Gitmo Saudis? Binoy Kampmark Needling the Convict: Lethal Injection and the Supreme Court David Macaray Women on Strike Ralph Nader Obamarama: the Politics of the Smooth Mood Michael Donnelly It's the War Vote(s), Stupid! Ron Jacobs Ron Paul's Run: Is Being Against the War Enough? Gideon Levy The Hostile President Dave Lindorff A Real 9/11 Cover-Up? Sibel Edmonds, Turkey and the Bomb Website of the Day Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea   January 5 / 6, 2008 Douglas Valentine Good Guys in Black Hoods Kevin Young The US Occupation and Popular Opinion in Iraq Richard Rhames Saddam Who? Saul Landau Bush Snatches Defeat from Victory Marc Lynch Why Bush's Iran Strategy is Failing Robert Fantina Iowa, Democrats and the Iraq War Donna Volatile Antiwar Soldier: an Interview with Jonathan Hutto, Sr. Jelle Bruinsma Norman Finkelstein in The Netherlands Bob Sutcliffe Remembering Andrew Glyn, Rebel Economist Harvey Wasserman Anti-Nuclear Renaissance Missy Beattie Why Obama Can't Save Us David Swanson Remembering the Separation of Powers Jacob Hornberger The Importance of the Padilla Case Shepherd Bliss Survival Tools from Kokopelli Farms Ron Jacobs Bleeding Kansas Poets' Basement Patti Smith, B.R. Gowani and Peter Buknatski Website of the Weekend Jimmy Dean Sausage Call Complaint   January 4, 2008 Cockburn / St. Clair A Good Night in Iowa Jonathan Cook War Crimes Airbrushed from History Paul Craig Roberts Thinking for Yourself is Now a Crime Stan Goff Ron Paul's Monkeywrench Dave Lindorff Clinton's Iowa Flop Exposes DLC Myths as Frauds Niranjan Ramakrishnan To Pindi Station Allan Nairn U.S. Elections Over Before They Began Joshua Frank The Failures of Sectarianism Peter Morici Economy on the Skids Mary McInnis Iowa Cocky-Us: How to be a Caucus Tease Website of the Day The Return of Obama Girl   January 3, 2008 Fatima Bhutto Farewell to Wadi Bua Pam Martens The Free Market Myth Dissolves into Chaos Joanne Mariner The Presidential Candidates and Torture Zoltan Grossman Remember the '80s: Social Movements Between Woodstock and the Web David Domke The Echoing Press and Huckabee Norman Solomon Edwards Reconsidered Nikolas Kozloff Return of the Faux Liberal Jacob G. Hornberger The Padilla Case and the Future of Habeas Corpus Martha Rosenberg Quit Picking on Huckabee's Son, Michael Vick Russell Means This Property is Condemned: a Notice to Those Occupying Lakotah Lands Website of the Day WolfQuest   January 2, 2008 Jeff Taylor The Left and Ron Paul M. Shahid Alam The Life and Death of Benazir Bhutto: a Pakistani Tragedy Gary Leupp Madness Compounding Madness: Calls for Intervention in Pakistan Paul Craig Roberts Criminals with Badges Heather Gray Georgia's Racist Death Penalty Fred Gardner and Shobhit Arora Dr. Strangelove's Nemesis David Macaray Labor Unions and Taft-Hartley Benjamin Dangl Fear and Loathing in Bolivia     January 1, 2008 Iain A. Boal City of Disappearances B. R. Gowani Benazir's Death in Crisistan Shahid Mahmood Bhutto and the Press Linn Washington, Jr. Old Injustices Endure: From Crack Sentences to Racial Profiling Harvey Wasserman Taking Leonard Peltier to Iowa: the Moral Low Point of the Clinton Era John Ross 2008, Already a Year to Forget Website of the Day The Thrill is Gone: BB and Gladys   December 31, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Goodbye 2007 and Good Riddance! Tariq Ali Pakistan, the Aftermath Liaquat Ali Khan The Perfidy of Pakistan's Rulers Wajahat Ali After Bhutto, a Nuclear Pakistan? Robert Fisk Who Killed Bhutto? Ajai Sahni Myths and Realities About Benazir Bhutto and Pakistan's Dark Future Marwan Bishara You Say Talk, I Say Attack: The Middle East and the US Presidential Election Campaigns Uri Avnery The Beilin Syndrome Mark T. Harris Does This Happen in Canada? Brenda Norrell Resistance and Censorship Website of the Day A People United Will Never Be Defeated   December 29 / 30, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Options in America: Kill Yourself or Have a Baby Tariq Ali Indignation and Fear Stalk Pakistan Fawzia Afzal-Khan My Encounter with Benazir Bhutto Gary Leupp The U.S. and Pakistan After 9/11: Blowback from an Unholy Alliance China Hand Pakistan Stares Into the Abyss Jacob Hornberger Stop Medddling in Pakistan John Chuckman Pakistan and the Failure of Quick-Fix Politics Missy Beattie Evaluating Bush with the Bhutto Corruption Standard Ralph Nader Who Will Take the Next Step? Fidel Castro There Hasn't Been a Day in My Life When I Haven't Learned Something Robert Fantina The Sham of Homeland Security Greg Moses Beauty from the Heart of Texas Catherine Lutz What We Can Not See: Art and Bombing Kristin Van Tassel Seeing in the Dark Kim Nicolini Redacted: Brian DePalma's Scream of Outrage Phyllis Pollack Keith Richards Runs With Rudolph Once More Poets' Basement Landau, Gibbons and Davies Website of the Weekend Driving Karachi in Search of the Perfect Naan   December 28, 2007 Farzana Versey The Complex Electra Wajahat Ali A Pakistani Requiem Binoy Kampmark Death in Rawalpindi: Bhutto and Her Legacy Ayesha Ijaz Khan Not Dead Yet: The Pakistan People's Party Still Survives Anthony DiMaggio Turkey's Bombing of Iraq Ray McGovern Creeping Fascism Jim Goodman Biofuels, the Biggest Scam Going Ron Jacobs Transcending the Colonizer's History: Iran, a People Interrupted Russell Hoffman Mini-Nukes by Toshiba John Murphy Greens Gone Wild Website of the Day Guiliani Campaign Official: "Only Rudy Can Defeat the Muslims"   December 27, 2007 Dilip Hiro A Tragedy Foretold: Will Bhutto's Death be a Boost for Her Party? Murtaza Shibli Who Killed Bhutto? Stephen Soldz Fallujah, the Information War and U.S. Propaganda Bill Quigley Locked Outside the Gates Paul Craig Roberts The Great American Lock-Up Omer Subhani Killing Bhutto: What Happens Next in Pakistan? Marjorie Cohn The Torture Tape Cover-Up: How High Does It Go? Allan Nairn Cataclysm By Money Whim Jacob G. Hornberger Smearing Ron Paul: Shame on the NYT Norman Solomon Channeling Suze Orman Patrick Irelan Rumsfeld Spills the Ink Ben Tripp Pass the Razor Blades Website of the Day Quagmire, For What It's Worth   December 26, 2007 Charles Tripp From One Saddam to Fifty Paul Armentano No-Knock, You're Dead Rannie Amiri Lebanon in Search of a Government Stanley Heller Brzezinski and Charlie Wilson's War John Walsh Two Unreasonable Men Martha Rosenberg The Strange Career of Scott Gottlieb Norman Madarasz Bolivia Amends New Constitution and Faces Mutiny from Within Website of the Day Cockburn at the Battle of Ideas   December 25, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Conscience and Empire December 24, 2007 Andrea Peacock A Dark Ride on the Border Tariq Ali Thinking of Edward Said Uri Avnery Help! A Ceasefire! Jill Jameson Burma is Not Back to Normal: A Trip from Rangoon to Mae Sot Steve Melendez Russell Means Goes to Washington Mike Whitney The Big Fix Chuck Munson Not Getting It About New Orleans John Walsh Clueless Crusaders Farzana Versey Tony Blair and the Hawking of Religion Richard Neville Dreaming of a White House Christmas Website of the Day Back in the USSR December 22 / 23, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Mike Huckabee's Ascending Chariot Ralph Nader Politics and Profits: How the Oil Cartel Gets Its Way Andy Worthington Intelligence Failures, Battlefield Myths and Unaccountable Prisons in Afghanistan Ahmad Faruqui The Comedian of Pakistan Bill Moyers Society on Steroids Rev. William E. Alberts Blessed are the Peacemakers Timothy J. Freeman From Kant to Lennon: Can War Really be Over? Anthony DiMaggio Democrats Continue to Capitulate on Iraq Fred Gardner Molecule of the Year, Cannabiodiol Paul Krassner Enhanced Hazing Techniques Seth Sandronsky 17 Years of Meanness: Repealing California's Three Strikes Law William Loren Katz Christmas Eve Freedom Fighters: Recalling the Battle of Lake Okeechobee Michael Dickinson In the Dungeon of the Zabita Ron Jacobs Why Leon Russell Still Matters David Vest Doyle Bramhall's "Is It News?" Poets' Basement Orloski, Davies and Ford Website of the Weekend George W. Hates Santa   December 21, 2007 John Ross New Massacres Loom in Mexico Jacob Hornberger Nothing Can Morally Justify the Invasion of Iraq Dick J. Reavis A Way Out of the Newspaper Abyss Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon The 2007 P.U.-litzer Prizes Peter Morici Business as Usual as Recession Looms Jack McCarthy Let Us Now Praise Judith Regan (Even If She Did Sleep with Bernie Kerik) Raúl Zibechi Sex and Revolution Steve Early How the Presidential Candidates Made Me an Atheist David Macaray Union Aftermath Patrick Bond Zuma, the Center-Left and the Left-Left in S. Africa Lakota Freedom Delegation A Declaration of Independence from the USA Website of the Day Solomon v. Beck: Tale of the Tape   December 20, 2007 David Rosen Mitt Romney's Secret Life as a Pornographer Alan Farago The Huckster and the Wreckage: Jeb Bush and the Subprime Mortgage Crisis Laura Carlsen Standing Up to NAFTA Ashley Dawson The Return of the Bread Riot Wayne Smith and Jennifer Schuett Cuba Changes, US Policy Stagnates Website of the Day How to Talk to a FoxNews Reporter   December 19, 2007 Saul Landau Is the NIE Bush's Watergate? Paul W. Lovinger Hillary the Hawk Norman Solomon The Mad Corporate World of Glenn Beck Dave Zirin George Mitchell's Drugs of Choice Marjorie Cohn Bush Still Spinning Iranian Nukes Sen. Russell Feingold The Iraq War is Exhausting Our Nation Sonja Karkar A Christmas Reflection on Palestine Anthony Papa Open the Drug Gulags Christopher Ketcham Pave the Holy Lands with Good Intentions Davey D Britney's Little Sister is Pregnant: Should We Blame Hip Hop? Website of the Day When Republicans Use the F-Word on TV   December 18, 2007 R. F. Blader The Politics of Teen Pregnancy George Wuerthner Gunning for Wolves in Idaho Steven Higgs Can the NAFTA Superhighway be Stopped? Vijay Prashad Encounters with Ghadar David Macaray The Free Rider Problem Ralph Nader Nine Books That Make a Difference: a Reading List for the Holidays Eva Liddell Privatizing War Abroad, Invading Privacy at Home Martha Rosenberg While the Bodies are Still Warm: Drugs, Shrinks and Shooters Dave Lindorff When Impeachment is Out of Print Peter Morici The Consequences the Trade Deficit Website of the Day Ron Paul: How Fascism Will Come to America   December 17, 2007 Mike Whitney Staring Into the Abyss Tom Barry Planning the War on Immigrants Uri Avnery A Gaza Masada? Greg Moses Crossing the Line in Texas Allan Nairn Terrorism; Counter- Terrorism: Excuses for Murder Patrick Bond South Africa's Fight Between Hostile Brothers Stephen Lendman Police State America Charles Jonkel Grizzly Right of Way Laray Polk An Inside-Out Crisis in Gaza Stephen Fleischman Pawns in Their Game December 15 / 16, 2007 Peter Linebaugh A People's Penny for the Magna Carta Howard Zinn Bomb After Bomb Standard Schaefer The Greening of Big Tobacco Raymond J. Lawrence Let's Take Christ Out of Christmas Alan Farago Down on Desolation Row: the Vultures and the Growth Machine Saul Landau Lord Byron and the Bad Tourists Jenna Orkin Lying to "Reassure" the Public: Bush's EPA and the Post-9/11 Toxic Air Cover-Up Ahmad Samih Khalidi Why a Palestinian "State" is a Punitive Construct Robert Fantina Politics By Photo-Op Missy Comley Beattie Resistance Amid the Ruins Ramzy Baroud Of Mormons and Muslims James L. Secor A Vision for China's Future Elijah Wald Ike Turner's Music Won't be Forgotten Website of the Weekend The Alliance for the Wild Rockies Needs (and Deserves) Your Support   December 14, 2007 JoAnn Wypijewski The Dirty Cad: What Giuliani's Sex Life Tells Us About Him John Ross Iraqi Refugees Return: One Cruel Hoax Jacob Hornberger Terror Suspects Belong in Federal Court Andy Worthington Guantánamo and the Supreme Court: What Happened? Allan Nairn "Shoot Them on the Spot": Rewarding War Crimes Dave Zirin The Mitchell Report: Absolving the Owners Dave Lindorff The First Cut is the Deepest Misty MacDuffee Toxic Grizzlies Ben Terrall What Happened to Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine? Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi Prerequisites for Peace Website of the Day Sen. Kit Bond: "Waterboarding is Like Swimming"   December 13, 2007 Paul Craig Roberts Shrinking the Dollar from the Inside-Out Mike Whitney Dershowitz for the Defense--of Waterboarding Ron Jacobs Blank Check DemocratsL the Great War Funding Conspiracy Norman Solomon The USA's Human Rights Daze Peter Morici The Dragon and the Toothless Dog: China Doesn't Flinch Sandy Mayes Blocking the Strykers: 13 Days of War Resistance at Port Olympia Franklin Lamb The UN in Lebanon: Whose Mission Is It Fulfilling? Jacob Hornberger Don't Reform the CIA, Abolish It Nadim Rouhana An Interloper in My Own Land Dave Zirin On Pigskin and Petrol Website of the Day Rachel's Needs (and Deserves) Your Support! December 12, 2007 Allan Nairn US Intelligence is Tapping Indonesian Phones Alan Farago How Sprawl Eats Its Young Ray McGovern Torture, Lies and Videotape Winslow T. Wheeler The Phony Pentagon Budget Cuts Evan Jones The Raid on Great Western: Why an Australian Bank Might Spell Doom for the US Farm Belt James Petras An Open Letter to Sarkozy on the Exchange of Political Prisonsers Joel Hirschorn The Horserace Fiction: Clinton, Obama and the Democratic Machine Joshua Frank Why Ron Paul Deserves Our Attention Sherry Wolf Why the Left Should Reject Ron Paul Dan Bacher Survey of a Fish Graveyard Website of the Day Men Eating Bugs                 Subscribe Online

January 10, 2008 Dumbageddon Bush's Delusional Policy Pushes Pakistan to Brink of Catastrophe By CHINA HAND How's that U.S. plan to stabilize Pakistan working out? Not too great. And not all the troublemakers are inside Pakistan. In fact, a lot of them are right here in the U.S.A. It's not just Islamist extremists who see U.S. meddling as the source of Pakistan's problems. Liberal, secular opinion inside Pakistan increasingly sees U.S. interference in Pakistan's politics on behalf of military rule and in pursuit of its own misguided and dangerous security priorities as the root cause of that country's miserable political instability. Recent events make it easy to see why. Acting on their unofficial motto "Where there's death there's hope", the enthusiasts for military action constellated around Dick Cheney are doing their best to take advantage of the unrest in Pakistan triggered by Benazir Bhutto's assassination-and the resultant disarray in the State Department-to push their own plans to broaden the hot war on terror with a third front in West Pakistan. From the New York Times: "...at the White House and the Pentagon, officials see an opportunity in the changing power structure for the Americans to advocate for the expanded authority in Pakistan, a nuclear-armed country. "After years of focusing on Afghanistan, we think the extremists now see a chance for the big prize - creating chaos in Pakistan itself," one senior official said." Aah. The sweet smell of opportunity...and chaos. "The new options for expanded covert operations include loosening restrictions on the C.I.A. to strike selected targets in Pakistan, in some cases using intelligence provided by Pakistani sources... ... if the C.I.A. were given broader authority, it could call for help from the military or deputize some forces of the Special Operations Command to act under the authority of the agency." And, in a series of nice hmmm-inducing asides: "Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and a number of President Bush's top national security advisers met Friday at the White House to discuss the proposal ... The meeting on Friday, which was not publicly announced, included Stephen J. Hadley, Mr. Bush's national security adviser; Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and top intelligence officials ... Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who was on vacation last week and did not attend the White House meeting ... " Hmmm. It doesn't take a lot of reading between the lines to guess that Condoleezza Rice doesn't like this plan, since unleashing the CIA and Special Ops to slaughter and abduct suspected terrorists in the border areas in unilateral paramilitary operations would be wildly unpopular within Pakistan, accelerate Musharraf's political collapse, and contribute mightily to the deadly instability she would like to avert. Although Secretary Rice was forced to take the meeting bereft of reinforcement from her most effective realist ally, Robert Gates, she has thankfully taken steps to spike the initiative through the press. Rice's minions leaked the news of the meeting to the New York Times, and the article concludes with a plethora of, to my mind, completely accurate predictions of disaster from two on-the-record think tankers and that ubiquitous but circumspect presence, Mr. Officials Say: "[O]fficials say, some American diplomats and military officials, as well as outside experts, argue that American-led military operations on the Pakistani side of the border with Afghanistan could result in a tremendous backlash and ultimately do more harm than good. That is particularly true, they say, if Americans were captured or killed in the territory." For good measure, the Pakistanis don't like the idea either. Here's what Dawn, Pakistan's major English-language media outlet, had to say in an editorial: "AMERICAN threats to intervene in Pakistan militarily have become a routine affair. This time, however, the threat ...has evoked the usual response by the Foreign Office spokesman. Islamabad, he said, would not allow America to intervene militarily in Pakistan, because fighting terrorism in Fata and elsewhere was the government's responsibility. One does not know who to pick up first for some plain speaking. The naivety being show by the Bush administration is amazing. "The second absurdity is the Bush administration's belief that it knows something about guerilla war. Actually, going by the mess they have created in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Bush aides are the last people on earth to claim anti-insurgency expertise." So far so good. And, if Secretary Rice can steer President Bush's force-infatuated and success-averse attention away from this plan, Pakistan will be better off. However, it looks like we can't expect anything good to come out of Secretary Rice's shop either. Having announced in oblivious "it's not a bug it's a feature" style that we have no Plan B for Pakistan, the State Department has redoubled its efforts to push through the elections and the coalition between Bhutto's PPP and Musharraf's creatures in Pakistan's parliament, the PML-Q. This unavoidably means trashing Nawaz Sharif and his PML-N, the only opposition politician with national organizational reach and stature after Bhutto's death. Because Nawaz Sharif might be good for Pakistan, but he's not good for the U.S. State Department. If the PML-N and the PPP, which will probably both do well-but not too well-in the elections, went ahead and formed a ruling coalition, parliament could push for sanctions of every conceivable kind against Musharraf, such as invalidating his blatantly illegal presidency ... ... and undoubtedly cleave to Sharif's popular anti-American and cautious line in dealing with Pakistan's Islamicist/Taliban/al Qaeda problem. That means that the U.S. takeaway from Pakistan will be zero in terms of shoring up the eastern front against the Taleban resurgence in Afghanistan and Pakistan's tribal areas ... ... and less than zero if one factors in the inadvertent political destruction of Musharraf, the wayward U.S. client we meant to rescue... ... not to mention the slaughter of Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan's most prominent pro-Western politician... ... and the descent of Pakistan into political crisis and, in some areas, near anarchy. Not the kind of legacy-building Secretary Rice was looking for in the last year of her dismal term at State. So we are left with a policy of support for the PPP + Musharraf that is, clinically speaking, insane. Let me count the ways. First, the U.S. is openly committing to keeping Musharraf in power. We are allying with the most despised political force in Pakistan. Second, U.S. patronage is distorting the political activities of the PPP-to its and our detriment. Unconditional support of the PPP brings with it unconditional support for Benazir Bhutto's creepy widower, Asif Ali Zardari. For those accustomed to patronizing him with the insulting nickname Mr. 10%,: Hey, it's Mr. 30% to you! [Zardari] acquired the less-than-flattering nickname 'Mr 10 Per Cent' -- a reference to the cut he took for approving government contracts. That government was dismissed for corruption by the president, but Benazir was returned to power in 1993. Her second stint in office proved no different, however -- except that Zardari's nickname was 'Mr 30 Per Cent'. It remains to be seen at what percentage a Zardari government would finally max out at, given the immense amount of patronage he would need to dispense to keep his unpopular presence on top of the PPP. With Bhutto gone, the PPP has lost its transcendent image-management resource and the party is increasingly portrayed in the Western press as the feudal plaything of a corrupt and vindictive operator who bungees his son in to front the party for brief English-language press availabilities before popping him back to Oxford and blissful obscurity. Here's the lead from the current Time cover story on Pakistan: "As the new self-appointed standard bearers of Pakistani democracy, Asif Ali Zardari and Bilawal Bhutto Zardari don't inspire much confidence. One is a feudal aristocrat widely reviled as corrupt and blamed for his wife's undoing when she was the country's Prime Minister in the 1990s. The other, their son, is a bookish Oxford undergraduate who talks of democracy but whose political clout derives entirely from his middle name. Yet there they were, three days after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, their beloved wife and mother, proclaiming themselves inheritors of her political fief, the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), and assuring Pakistan that they were the answer to all its problems." Ouch. Bilawal Bhutto Zardari's most recent press conference informed the world that the elder Zardari has decided to pursue the Hariri option-pushing for a U.N. investigation of Bhutto's assassination. Giving the U.N. Security Council-and U.S. and Great Britain-carte blanche to interfere in Pakistan's internal affairs might provide Zardari with another valuable political weapon in his struggle with Musharraf, but Pakistanis will resent a measure that would undoubtedly undermine Pakistan's sovereignty and political stability. Zardari is desperate for quick elections, despite the horrific violence that gripped Pakistan since the assassination. I assume he knows that as time passes the image of Benazir Bhutto will fade from the public mind, to be replaced with awareness of the dubious and flawed legacy she left behind. The PPP-and Pakistan-could have used a period of reflection and restructuring, which they aren't going to get, given Zadari's need to wave the bloody shirt and U.S. haste to push the PPP-Musharraf deal down people's throats asap. Third, Sharif is one of the most popular politicians in Pakistan. Even if he can't win significant support from PPP voters after Bhutto's demise, he's probably the single most well-known-and one of the more trusted-political figures in Pakistan. So by allying with Musharraf and spurning Sharif, the U.S. is allying with the least popular national figure in Pakistan in opposition to the most popular. Fourth, we are once again selling out Pakistan's genuine democracy movement-the activists of the judiciary and legal profession who have been trying to get Pakistan to live up to the democratic promises of its constitution-by pushing our backroom deal instead of supporting a return to constitutional rule. This gives the anti-Musharraf bourgeoisie yet another reason to hate us. Fifth, we are pushing the military strongman-anti Taliban/anti terrorist regional security model on Pakistan that nobody likes. That includes the army, of course. Benazir Bhutto herself would probably have been incapable of getting the Pakistan military to abandon the comfortable strategic posture of standing as Pakistan's modern, well-armed, and prestigious national bulwark against India in favor the dangerous and dirty work of pursuing its ex-clients and enemies through the mud villages of western Pakistan more than it's already doing. No chance for the disorganized and opportunistic no-names who would be staffing a PML-Q/PPP administration. No chance they'd try, given the intense public opposition to U.S. security policy inside Pakistan. Increasingly, Pakistani opinion sees the dysfunctional dynamic of a military strongman propped up by the U.S. and permitted to trample on the constitution so he can pursue the U.S. aim of chasing terrorists as the thing that is destroying Pakistan. The U.S. global war on terror only enjoys 15 per cent support in Pakistan, according to the International Republican Institute. U.S. security policy-and not Islamist extremism-is seen as doing the greatest damage to Pakistan's civil society. I'd like to stress that a little bit. As Kevin Drum pointed out, in a November poll by the University of Maryland's Program of International Policy Attitudes, Pakistanis were asked to characterize threats to Pakistan's national interests in the next 10 years. The largest number characterized the U.S. military presence in Asia a critical threat. How many people? 72 per cent. What's the next biggest threat? The U.S. military presence in Afghanistan, characterized by 68 per cent of respondents as a critical threat. Those are really big numbers. Especially since we're actually allies with Pakistan. We're not supposed to be a threat. Even Pakistan's enemies are seen as less of a threat than us. The Indian threat-that old standby of Pakistani security policy, politics, and military rule-clocked in third at 53 per cent. (Since I write a China blog, I should point out that rising China came in at the bottom of the list, viewed as a critical threat by only 10 per cent of respondents.) As for the areas that interest us the most: Al Qaeda clocked in as a critical threat to a respectable but distant 4th for 41 per cent of the respondents. The local Taliban: 34 per cent. So Islamist movements are a problem, but here's something to chew on from the poll results: "Asked about the 'cooperation in the last few years between Pakistan and the US on military and security matters', only one in four (27 per cent) said that it had brought any benefits to Pakistan...Nearly one-third said US-Pakistani cooperation had actually hurt Pakistan... "Supporters of all leaders were united in their distrust of the United States and its motives. Majorities of all said they did not trust the United States to act responsibly in the world, including 68 per cent of Sharif supporters, 65 per cent of Bhutto supporters, and 55 per cent of Musharraf supporters.[emph. added]." And those are the people we think support us. As for allowing U.S. or foreign troops to capture al Qaeda fighters in Pakistan? 5 per cent approved. In other words, in the name of stabilizing Pakistan and shoring up support for Musharraf, we are pretty much guaranteeing that Musharraf will be less popular-and Pakistan's government less stable-than before our failed injection of Bhutto into Pakistani politics threw that nation into disarray. I assume the geniuses of Foggy Bottom-and the Office of the Vice President--are well aware of these numbers and the bleak situation. Maybe State is pushing the doomed PPP-Musharraf alliance because we know that only a regime of weak and unpopular clients reliant on American aid will keep the threat of a populist, united, anti-American and Taleban friendly regime at bay, at least until the Bush administration is out of office. Maybe that same vision of a helpless, discredited pro-US regime in Islamabad convinced Cheney's people that the time was ripe to discard the dream of stabilizing a friendly Pakistan for the thrill of kindling America's third Eurasian land war in the mountains and valleys of West Pakistan. I looked at the recent Time cover and actually had to laugh. It's a classic piece of what I call "muscular handwringing"-the unwillingness to understand that the mess we're dealing doesn't grow out of mysterious local conditions or our client's inexplicable political dysfunction. The cover story is entitled: No One Could Save Benazir Bhutto. Why We Need To Save Pakistan It's too disturbing and inconvenient to realize that the source of the mess can be discovered by looking in a mirror. In Pakistan, we are dealing with the inevitable consequences of our own failed policies. Actually, the best way to save Pakistan is for us to leave it alone. That might have saved Benazir Bhutto, too. China Hand edits the very interesting website China Matters.   Your Ad Here

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