http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080101_musharraf_still_stands/
Musharraf Still Stands By Amy Goodman Truthdig: January 1,2008 Benazir Bhutto and her supporters who died with her during the suicide attack Dec. 27 are the latest victims of decades of dangerous U.S. support for Pakistan's military regime. The country's dictator, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, has held his grip on power despite increasing popular unrest. The Bush administration got nervous, turning to Bhutto to preserve the status quo in Pakistan. There is no doubt the exiled former prime minister was personally brave to return to her country. But Pakistani professor Pervez Hoodbhoy was critical nevertheless: 'After returning to Pakistan, she made clear that for a few table scraps, she would have happily teamed up with Musharraf under the hopelessly absurd U.S. plan to give the military government a civilian face.' While President Bush imposed 'regime change' on Iraq, based on fictitious weapons of mass destruction, 'regime preservation' is the U.S. policy for Pakistan, despite its role in global nuclear proliferation, the sale of true WMDs. Adrian Levy is a senior staff correspondent for the British newspaper The Guardian and co-author of 'Deception: Pakistan, the United States and the Secret Trade in Nuclear Weapons.' He describes a 'military government repressing human rights, connected tentatively to 9/11, state-sponsored terrorism with radical connections to al-Qaida that was proliferating WMD and of course that was not Iraq, it was Pakistan.' He told me: 'The problem facing the Bush administration was their policy post-9/11 was very much to embrace Pakistan as an essential ally in the war on terror in order to allow the narrative over Iraq and the WMD in Iraq to rise. The Pakistanis milked their nuclear program for hard cash, selling to Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Libya, the Axis of Evil powers. We also know there is intelligence to show that they began negotiations very much with Saudi Arabia, Syria and, of course, there are tentative contacts with al-Qaida elements as well.' The New York Times revealed last week that at least $5 billion in U.S. aid delivered to Pakistan since 9/11 to fight al-Qaida and the Taliban actually went into weapons systems against another U.S. ally, India. The more nuclear weapons Pakistan has, the more the U.S. has a vested interest in protecting them. As The Washington Post reported last week, even before the Bhutto assassination U.S. Special Forces were planning a vastly increased presence in Pakistan in 2008, 'to train and support indigenous counterinsurgency forces and clandestine counterterrorism units.' The Glasgow Herald now reports that U.S. Special Forces 'snatch squads' are in Pakistan, prepared to secure the nuclear warheads in the event of the government's collapse. What Pakistani author Tariq Ali told me recently about Afghanistan equally applies to Pakistan: 'The people of Afghanistan ... do not like being occupied by foreign powers. They didn't like being occupied by the Russians, and they don't like being occupied by the United States and the NATO armies in their country. And as long as this foreign occupation lasts, there will be forms of resistance against it.' The CIA coined the term blowback. It applies to situations like Afghanistan in the 1970s and '80s when the U.S. armed and trained the mujahedeen, including Osama bin Laden, to counter the Soviet occupation. When the Soviets were finally forced out, the mujahedeen set their sights on a new target: the U.S. That's blowback. While the Bush administration pushes for quick elections in Pakistan, it is important to raise these issues in our elections here at home. The assassination of Bhutto put foreign policy back on the front burner in the U.S. presidential race-though you would think that 2007 being the deadliest year yet in Iraq for U.S. soldiers (at least 900 dead) would have accomplished that. The candidates could use this as a 'teachable moment' to talk about the wrongheaded long-term U.S. support-Republican and Democrat-for Pakistan's corrupt, human-rights-abusing nuclear regime. Did any of the leading Democratic contenders use the moment to demonstrate that they represent a true opposition party? While they each tout themselves as true 'change' agents, they have yet to prove it. We are waiting. _____ Amy Goodman is the host of 'Democracy Now!,' a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on 650 stations in North America. (c) 2008 Amy Goodman *** ----- Original Message ----- From: "Joseph Wanzala" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, January 02, 2008 2:06 PM Subject: [alliance] Re: Meltdown in Kenya As I half-Kenyan from the Luo tribe (other 'half' is Mugisu from Uganda), however both tribes however are in both 'countries' such are the arbitrary wonders of colonialism) I am subjectively partial to the idea of a JaLuo leading Kenya, but of course tribe doesn't and shouldn't matter any more than race. The running joke recently among East Africans has been whether Kenya or the United States will elect the first JaLuo (Barack Obama is a JaLuo on his father's side), that Obama is 'black' in an American context, or a 'half-caste' in a Kenyan context did not enter into the equation, it is all about *tribe*. Ultimately, racism in the US is a form of tribalism and my experiences with tribalism in Africa have framed view of racism here. As the article below lays out, the Kikuyu tribe have hogged the spoils of economic growth, but any other tribe would have done the same - human nature, blah, blah. The Kikuyu were also the most militantly anti-British, and, and the Kenya Land and Freedon Army (aka the Mau-Mau) was mainly Kikuyu (but mainly because they had the best land which the British took and many - this land was also optioned to the Zionists by the way, along with what is now Northern Uganda), while the British colonial army was recruited heavily from Luoland. So the Kikuyu elites have a latent sense of post-colonial entitlement. Ultimately, the current chaos in Kenya is an expression of the legacy of colonialism as well as the abject failure of post-colonial African leadership and both Kibaki and Odinga represent the corrupt old guard of politics in Kenya. While Odinga has been clearly cheated out of his electoral victory, I'm not sure that he would really offer anything different than Kibaki and his cronies. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d192d1f4-b8d4-11dc-893b-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1 Preparing for the worst in Kenya Published: January 2 2008 02:00 | Last updated: January 2 2008 02:00 The eruption of violence in Kenya following the rigged presidential elections last week should not come as a surprise to anyone but it probably will. The western world has tended to see the country as a post-colonial model of stability and (relative) prosperity. It has been a good place to do business, dispense aid and enjoy a vacation. Yet tensions have been seething for years, stirred up by pervasive corruption and the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the country's largest tribe, the Kikuyu. It was only a matter of time before they boiled over. So is the former British colony becoming just another African failure, to be treated with a shrug of the shoulders, while carrying on business as usual with whichever corrupt faction may emerge victorious? Certainly not. Kenya is not only a vital trading hub in east Africa, the most successful market economy in the region and an anti-terrorism ally for the US and UK. Its current plight offers vital lessons for Africa and the outside world about the abuse of democratic process, failure to tackle endemic corruption and tribal tension and the wishful thinking of international investors and governments about their favourite regimes. Meltdown in Kenya is too ghastly to contemplate. It is not there yet, but the danger exists. There is a threat of ethnic cleansing, starting with a backlash against the Kikuyu. That would put great strain on the ethnically mixed army and police. Some see the danger of civil war, as happened in Ivory Coast, France's comparable model ex-colony in west Africa. Instead of being a haven for refugees, Kenya could itself see mass emigration. There are no easy answers to stopping the violence and reconciling the embittered rival factions. Mwai Kibaki, sworn in with unnatural haste for a second term as Kenyan president, was not freely and fairly elected. All the advance polls suggested he would lose. The simultaneous parliamentary elections saw his ruling party decimated, with 20 members of his cabinet, including the vice-president, de-feated. He won only 35 out of 210 seats, against at least 100 for Raila Odinga's Orange Democratic Movement. In the presidential vote, however, amid evidence of ballot stuffing and falsification of the figures, Mr Kibaki suddenly emerged the victor. It was both blatant and incompetent. In profiting from rigging, Mr Kibaki has inflamed resentment in the country against his Kikuyu tribe, to which some 22 per cent of the population belongs. They refused to share the spoils of economic growth. Having fought the 2002 election promising to unify the country and root out corruption, Mr Kibaki has failed on both counts. Without outside pressure, neither Mr Kibaki nor Mr Odinga is likely to seek a settlement. Each is persuaded of his own righteousness. But they must be induced to meet if only to defuse the violence. The African Union should certainly attempt to bring them together, but most African leaders are guilty of rigging elections as blatantly as in Kenya, so they may have little moral authority. They need to act in conjunction with the US, the UK and its European Union partners. They should exert pressure on both sides to annul the results of the elections and create some sort of government of national unity pending a new poll. It should be made clear to Mr Kibaki that his government is illegitimate. If he refuses to accept that, the western powers should suspend programme aid and devote the money to emergency relief and supporting any more muscular AU intervention. Visas should be refused not only to corrupt officials, but to Mr Kibaki and his team. If Mr Odinga and his inner circle are seen to encourage violence, the same sanction should apply to them. Whatever happens, the outside world must prepare for the worst, while praying fervently that both sides will see reason. Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- LAAMN: Los Angeles Alternative Media Network --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Digest: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Help: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Post: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive1: <http://www.egroups.com/messages/laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive2: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yahoo! 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