Today's Stories

May 23, 2008

Paul Craig Roberts
War Abroad, Poverty at Home

Conn Hallinan
Ballots and Bullets: From Beirut to Bolivia

Mark Engler
The World After Bush

George Wuerthner
Cars and Cows: Living Large in America

Sandy Boyer /
Shaun Harkin
The Long Incarceration of Pol Brennan

May 22, 2008

Vijay Prashad
Racist Grammar

Joanne Mariner
A Military Commissions Cheat Sheet

Sharon Smith
60 Years of Apartheid

Jeff Birkenstein
Disaster Redux: Some Early Thoughts on the Earthquake in China

Brendan McQuade
From Obama to the PRTs in Iraq

Peter Morici
The Sorry State of the Banking Industry

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Restoration Boulevard

Dave Zirin
What I Want to Ask Mary Tillman

Ron Jacobs
CPR for the Antiwar Movement

Stephen Lendman
Immoral Hazard

Website of the Day
Hagee: God Sent Hitler to Drive the Jews to Israel

May 21, 2008

Jeffrey St. Clair
The Gothic Politics of Hillary Clinton

Nikolas Kozloff
U.S. Military Bases in South America

Alan Farago
Miami, Cuba and the Presidential Campaign

Dave Lindorff
Big John and the Scary, Scary Iran Threat

David Model
Genocide in Iraq?

Eric Walberg
Afghanistan: Who is the Enemy?

Franklin Lamb
Lebanon Gets a President

Kenneth Couesbouc
Tax Against Tyranny

Website of the Day
Child Labor and War-Affected Children: a Photo Essay

May 20, 2008

Ralph Nader
A Trip Inside Google

Uri Avnery
With Friends Like These

Patrick Irelan
The Empire and the Fleet

Ray McGovern
Come Out, Admiral Fallon, Wherever You Are

David Macaray
The UAW Strike Against American Axle

Chris Genovali
Big Oil on the Water: Skating Around the Tanker Issue

Ibrahim Fawal
Birmingham, Israel and the Nakba

Christopher Ketcham
Let Us Now Praise Famous Suicides

Andy Worthington
Guantánamo Trial Delayed

Martha Rosenberg
Merck is a Repeat Offender

Website of the Day
Defend the Students Who Pied Tom Friedman

May 19, 2008

Saul Landau
Cuba Will Live

Paul Craig Roberts
The Metamorphosis of the Conservative Movement

Brian McKenna
Brotherly Love in Philly's Badlands

Patrick Cockburn
City of the Dead: Mosul on Lockdown

B. R. Gowani
The Central Problem Pakistan Needs to Tackle

Dr. Trudy Bond
Psychologists and Torture: If Not Now, When?

Cindy Sheehan
Whose War is It?

John Mohawk
The Warriors Who Turned to Peace

Remi Kanazi
When Free Speech Doesn't Come for Free

Robert Day
I Get a Horse

Website of the Day
Evolve or Die

May 17 / 18, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
The View from the Crusaders' Castle

Tim Wise
Testosterone is Not to Blame: Why Sexism isn't the Reason for Hillary's Loss

Andy Worthington
Gitmo Trials: Betrayal, Backsliding and Boycotts

Robert Fantina
The Double-Talk Express Derails

Karim Makdisi
In the Wake of the Doha Truce

Harry Browne
Only Ireland Can Vote on EU's Future

John Ross
Suicide by Taco? The Demise of Mexico's PRD

Dave Lindorff
Fear at the Pump

Robert Weissman
Pharmaceutical Payola

Laray Polk
Bush Family Appeasement

David Yearsley
Puritans in Seattle

Ron Jacobs
Riot Squads, Privatization and the National Front

Paul Quinnett
My Last Flight

Sam Bahour
Refugees are the Key

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
Poverty Wages

Dr. Susan Block
The Groom May Kiss the Groom

Kim Nicolini
Paranoid Park: Inside the Fractured Landscape of Male Adolescence

Jeremy Scahill
John Cusack's War

Jeffrey St. Clair
Booked Up

Poets' Basement
Dominguez, Gerard and Davies

May 16, 2008

Stephen Soldz
Involuntary Drugging of Detainees

Jonathan Cook
Police Attack Al-Nakba March

Paul Craig Roberts
Lies of Aggression

Christopher Brauchli
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Pharmacy

James L. Secor
Olympic Torch China: the View from Shaoxing

Franklin Lamb
Did Hezbollah Thwart a Bush/Olmert Attack on Beirut?

Linn Washington, Jr.
The Price of Protecting Racist Cops

Dave Lindorff
What West Virginia Means

May 15, 2008

Stan Cox
Big Brother Close Up

Jeff Halper
Rethinking Israel After 60 Years

Greg Moses
Living for the Children of Palestine

John Ross
Why Mexican Justice is a Euphemism

Ron Jacobs
Go to Work, Go to Jail

Binoy Kampmark
Indian Jailbirds: the Case of Binayak Sen

Eve Spangler
We Should Not Celebrate Dispossession

Martha Rosenberg
Meat Wars with South Korea

Website of the Day
Idaho Wolf Killers

May 14, 2008

Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
Oil Wars

Reza Fiyouzat
Torture, a Bully's Creed

Felice Pace
California Water Politics: Of Dams and Water Buffaloes

Hamdan A. Yousuf / Dania S. Ahmed
A Generation Defined by War

Robert Weitzel
Hillary's "Final Solution" to the Persian Problem

Ralph Nader
You're Either with the American People or the Big Auto Bosses

Dave Lindorff
Hillary, McCain and the Stupid Vote

Missy Comley Beattie
White Heaven: Hillary's W. Virginia Idyll

Neve Gordon
Israel as a Site of Struggle

Dr. Susan Block
A Washington Witch Hanging

Website of the Day
Hillary's Downfall

May 13, 2008

David Rosen
Sexual Terrorism: the Sadistic Side of Bush's War on Terror

Alan Farago
Nuclear Florida: Beachfront Reactors in an Age of Rising Sea Levels?

Saul Landau
The Crisis at Home

Saree Makdisi
Forget the Two-State Solution

Paul Craig Roberts
How Empires Fall

Andy Worthington
Gitmo's Suicide Bomber

Brother Bede Vincent
The Problem with Rev. Wright--There are Too Few Like Him

Linda Mamoun
Marketing Ethnic Cleansing

David Macaray
The Myth That Won't Die

Website of the Day
Burning the Future: Coal in America

May 12, 2008

St. Clair / Frank
The Pentagon's Toxic Legacy

Ziga Vodovnik
Rebels Against Tyranny: an Interview with Howard Zinn on Anarchism

Gary Leupp
Why All of Our Efforts Won't Stop an Attack on Iran

Frankln Lamb
Choufeit's Bloody Pentacost

Suzanne Baroud
The Ambition of Hillary Clinton

Martha Rosenberg
Farmer Ernie's Chamber of Horrors

Dave Zirin
The Boss's Boycott

Carl Finamore
I Ain't Gonna Work No More

Peter Morici
Recession Watch

Richard Rhames
The Third Way to Nowhere

Website of the Day
The Untold Story of Black New Orleans

May 10 / 11, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Real Clear Numbers: 101,000 Casualties a Year

Franklin Lamb
Hezbollah Eases Up and Beirut Opens Its Shutters

Ciara Gilmartin
A Surge in Iraqi Detainees

Diane Farsetta
Inside a Nuclear Industry Soirée

Kent Paterson
Mother's Day in Ciudad Juarez

Alan Farago
The Social Engineers

Rannie Amiri
Beirut on the Brink

Patrick Irelan
Bolivia, Morales and the Red Ponchos

Robert Fantina
The Lexicon Legacy of George W. Bush

Nikolas Kozloff
El Salvador 2009: Another Feather in the Cap of Chavez?

George Ciccariello-Maher
The Yumare Massacre, 22 Years On

David Yearsley
Bacharach at 80

Ron Jacobs
Rosa Luxemburg's Shock Doctrine

John Holt
Can Yellowstone Survive?

David Michael Green
It's So Over

Ben Terrall
Dealing Sleep

Kim Nicolini
The Best Film of the Bush Era?

Jeffrey St. Clair
Booked Up

Poets' Basement
Gibbons, Orloski, Frisella, Gladstone-Gelman

May 9, 2008

Franklin Lamb
A Wild Day in Beirut

Andy Worthington
The Afghans of Gitmo

Benjamin Dangl
Polarizing Bolivia

Mark A. Huddle
Remembering Mildred Loving, an Unsung Hero of the Civil Rights Movement

David Macaray
Hollywood Gives SAG the Brush Off

Dave Lindorff
Team Clinton: Going Down Ugly

C.G. Estabrook
The Way We Live Now

Matt Kosko
McCain, Clinton, Obama and the Wages of Lesser-Evilism

Robert Weissman
Big Business is not the Solution to Global Poverty

Michael Dickinson
Jailing the Joint

Website of the Day
The Role of Third Parties in the U.S.A.

May 8, 2008

Sharon Smith
Rockefeller Family Fables

Saul Landau
The NATO Axiom

Laura Carlsen
A Primer on Plan Mexico

Binoy Kampmark
Food Riots are Coming to the U.S.

Kenneth Couesbouc
China's Paper Feet

Liaquat Ali Khan
Pakistan's Constitutional Shenanigans

Franklin Lamb
Blindsided, Hezbollah Mulls Its Response

Sen. Russ Feingold
Government in Secret

George Wuerthner
The Problems with Conservation Easements

Richard W. Behan
A Brief Exposé of a Fraudulent War

Adam Federman
Marching for Sean Bell

Website of the Day
State of the Air

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The 18th Hole

Pakistan's Futile Constitutional Amendment

By LIAQUAT ALI KHAN

The Pakistan People's Party (PPP) will soon propose to the Parliament the 18th amendment to the 1973 Constitution.  The proposed amendment would reportedly abolish Article 58 (2)(b) of the Constitution, which empowers the President, in his sole discretion, to dissolve the National Assembly. The amendment would also strengthen Article 6 of the Constitution to punish judges who would in future support military coups and constitutional subversions.

This essay argues that the proposed 18th amendment is an exercise in futility. Unfortunately, no constitutional amendment will prevent future military adventurism unless the political and military leadership is committed to honor the Constitution. As discussed below, however, the culture of the ruling elites has no respect for the rule of law. 

Historical Seesawing of Article 58(2)(b)

The proposal of abolishing Article 58(2)(b) is neither new, nor effective.  The Article has been abolished once before only to be reinstated in the Constitution. Furthermore, military coups respect no provision of the Constitution.  In fact, the disrespect for the Constitution runs deep among ruling elites. Even the judiciary and the National Parliament are quick to reform the Constitution for short-term interests.

Historically, Article 58(2)(b) is the invention of a military general. Exercising the non-existent powers of the Army Chief, General Zia ul Haq, who toppled a democratically elected government in 1977, ordered the addition of Article 58(2)(b) to the Constitution. In 1985, a pro-military Parliament, using the constitutional procedure of two-thirds majority, ratified Zia's Article 58(2)(b) as a constitutional amendment, called the 8th Amendment.

Note, however, that the highly discretionary power built into Article 58(b)(2) is vested in a duly elected President. It is not vested in the Army Chief.  Abolishing Article 58(2)(b) disables the President---not the Army Chief---from deposing an elected government.  

In 1996, a civilian President invoked Article 58(2)(b), dissolved the National Assembly, and dismissed Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's democratically elected government. The President justified dissolution on several grounds, including the Bhutto government’s corruption, incompetence, and disrespect for the Supreme Court. In his book, constitutional attorney Hamid Khan accuses Nawaz Sharif, the then opposition leader, for encouraging the President to dissolve the National Assembly and hold new elections.

Nawaz Sharif benefitted from the Article 58(2)(b) dissolution of the Bhutto government. In the 1997 general elections, Sharif won a two-thirds majority in the Parliament. Soon after assuming the office of the Prime Minister, Sharif turned on the President, and hurriedly processed a constitutional amendment to abolish Article 58(2)(b).  The sole purpose of abolition was to weaken the office of the President and bestow all powers on Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

The abolition of 58(2)(b), however, did not safeguard parliamentary democracy. Nor did it restore any respect for political governments. In a short time, the Sharif government lost its popularity. The nation did not know what to do with the autocratic Sharif family, which showed little respect for the rule of law. The Sharif government even sent ruffians to assault the Supreme Court. The civilian President was unable to dissolve the National Assembly, since Article 58(2)(b) had been abolished.  

Hotheaded political forces and restive media were openly inviting the armed forces to remove the Sharif government. Hearing the clarion call, Army Chief Pervez Musharraf overthrew the Sharif government. This deposition had nothing to do with Article 58(2)(b). Nor could the crime of high treason embodied in Article 6 deter the Army Chief from subverting the Constitution.  Following the habit of subservience, the Supreme Court upheld the coup and took a new oath to obey the laws of the Army Chief.

Exercising the non-existent powers of the Army Chief, Musharraf issued an order to reintroduce Article 58(2)(b) back into the Constitution. In 2003, a pro-military Parliament elected by the people passed the 17th Amendment to rehabilitate Article 58(2)(b).  

Now, the proposed 18th Amendment aims at abolishing Article 58(2)(b) again. This time, the proposal stems from the fear that “President” Musharraf will dissolve the National Assembly if the judges are reinstated without his consent or in the presence of Article 58(2)(b).  The proposed amendment may protect some short term benefit. However, it will not solve Pakistan’s constitutional woes.

The Underlying Problem

Article 58(2)(b) is not Pakistan’s underlying problem. The problem lies deep in the Pakistani culture of power.  Granted, most political and military rulers are patriotic men and women who want to do good for the nation.  However, the power culture sees the rule of law as an inefficient barrier to make and execute policies. The rule of law has always been the slogan of the opposition and rarely that of the government.

Right now, for example, the power has gravitated toward Asif  Zardari, the PPP Chief, who is not even an elected member of the Parliament.  Exercising dynastic powers that he inherited from his wife Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated before the general elections, Zardari is calling the shots from the Zardari House.  The Prime Minister, supposedly the head of the government, is serving as a loyalist subordinate. The Law Minister, responsible for the drafting of the 18th amendment, is not even an elected member of the National Assembly. Most important, the National Assembly, where Zardari and Sharif’s parties have a solid majority, is waiting for party bosses to issue orders, from outside the Parliament, on what needs to be done in the Parliament.

This subservience to party bosses explains why in the past the Parliament has mindlessly ratified both the constitutional inclusion and exclusion of Article 58(2)(b).  Rarely do members of the Parliament think independently.  And those who think rebel against the party and form another group. Each course of action is contrary to the democratic process.

In a respectable parliamentary democracy, party discipline is a cherished value. However, each elected member of the Parliament represents the constituency and the nation, in addition to towing the party line.  Likewise, party bosses are democratic both within the party and the Parliament. They do not establish personal fiefdoms to rule their “tribes” in the party or the Parliament and demand mindless subservience.

Ali Khan is professor of law at Washburn University School of Law in Topeka, Kansas, and the author of the book, A Theory of Universal Democracy (2003).

 

 

 

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