Democracy Hypocrisy, Part 25

I have done a series on Democracy Hypocrisy in the past, and put in twenty-something installments before I got bored writing about how bush says he promotes democracy, says he is in favor of democracy ….. and then proceeds to trash democracy at home and abroad.

I can only guess it is all a game for him.

But today’s hypocrisy (while long-standing) is showing deadly results currently in Pakistan. Here is a quote – WITHOUT a hint of irony – from a NYT article:

“For more than five months the United States has been trying to orchestrate a political transition in Pakistan that would manage to somehow keep Gen. Pervez Musharraf in power without making a mockery of President Bush’s promotion of democracy in the Muslim world.”

Got that? Bush wants to install a dictator, but still present the idea that he is promoting democracy. Well, as you likely know, that dictator Musharraf is really clamping down now – he had imposed marshal law, and he is locking up or killing anyone who is opposed to him. Oh, and he cut out the media and phone service in Pakistan too. I wonder if the Pakistani bloggers can get internet services. I rather doubt it.

Yet another clip from that IRONY-FREE article in the NYT:

“In recent months the White House had been hoping that a power-sharing alliance between General Musharraf and Pakistan’s former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, would help the general cling to power while putting a democratic face on his regime.”

Or, in short, they want their puppets, and were hoping an election (that the repubs may not be able to “fix”) would get them there. It worked in Iraq and Afghanistan, and might have worked in Pakistan if not for those pesky judges. Here in the USA, the judges were “on-board” and “on-message” even before the 2000 election. In Pakistan, not so.

Well, things are going to get much uglier in Pakistan. We have a sizable majority of the population that hates the USA. And a significant minority that totally support al Qaeda. And while a million people in Tehran held a candle light vigil to morn the victims of the 9/11 attacks, Pakistan was one of the few places who celebrated that terrorist attack.

And, since then, bush and friends have given them tens of billions of dollars in “aid” which means they get free money to buy US made military equipment. (The military-industrial complex loves this!) One significant item that Pakistan bought was F-16s.

OH – and Pakistan has nukes! Yippeee!!!!! While the rock-dumb Americans are worrying about imaginary nukes in Iran, and formerly worried about imaginary nukes in Iraq, they are oblivious to the very dangerous, very real WMDs in Pakistan. So, we have al Qaeda sympathizers who would come to power in a free and fair election, and may come to power anyway, who also have nukes and F-16s. In Pakistan.

And the ironic thing is this – that after we have killed over a million Iraqis in the name of bringing them “freedom” and “democracy” – the will of the majority in a country were we have killed less than a thousand may bring us to our knees. We may get way more blowback from Pakistan than we ever get from Iraq.

But it will be the civilians of the middle east who really pay the price, since it is looking more and more like bush may get his program of freedom (of the grave) and democracy (of death) for the whole region.

God help them.