Benazir vs. Musharraf is Punch vs. Judy

Shlent was the marvelous onomatopoeic term we used in my student activist days, as verb or noun, to describe the stage managing of an event or process in a manner that allowed its appearance to camouflage a power play. (The sound shlent to me always evoked heavy pieces falling smoothly into place.) And I can think of no better term to describe the bogus “showdown” we’re being sold involving Pakistan’s General Pervez Musharraf and former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. In fact, appearances aside (although they camouflage very little), it’s plain that Bhutto and Musharraf are still involved in an elaborate U.S.-brokered negotiation process to divide the spoils of power in what might be called Pakistan’s Team America. Musharraf’s police may periodically prevent her from leaving her house, but they’re largely doing her the favor of providing her an excuse for refraining from leading her supporters in confrontation with the regime — which she, and her backers in Washington, are very concerned to avoid. Bhutto has not suffered the fate of other opposition leaders, who have been hounded by the security forces and thrown in prison. And her own political awkwardness and hesitation in responding to Musharraf’s moves are a reminder that all is not quite what it seems in the media narrative of a brave and beleaguered civilian democrat confronting a military despot.

The U.S., in fact, pressed Musharraf to make a power-sharing deal with Bhutto, fearful of the fact that the general appeared to have no social base to continue his role as Washington’s gendarme in the region — as mischievously as he often plays it, every U.S. official who has spoken on the matter in recent weeks has affirmed Musharraf’s centrality to U.S. interests. It was not that the U.S. believed in restoring democratic civilian rule per se — the U.S. didn’t raise a peep of protest when the former prime minister overthrown by Musharraf, Nawaz Sharif, arrived home from exile, only to be unceremoniously bundled back onto a plane to Saudi Arabia — after first being sternly lectured about his impudence in showing up by two of Washington’s Mideast trusties, a Saudi prince and Lebanon’s Saad Hariri. No, Bhutto was Washington’s anointed civilian political leader, presumably after she managed to convince the Bush Administration that she was a more reliable ally in the “war on terror” than was Nawaz Sharif. And when pressed as to why she continues to talk to the dictator whose ouster she demands, her spokespeople say simply that the U.S. told them to.

Musharraf and Bhutto are both viewed as allies by Washington, the latter enlisted to broaden the base of stability of a U.S.-backed regime in Pakistan. But proxies always have their own agendas, and the precise balance of power between them remains very much in play — indeed, if anything, the current “showdown” is part of their contest over the balance of power in Pakistan’s Team USA.

So Bhutto calls on Musharraf to quit, and Musharraf responds by contacting Nawaz Sharif for a chat. This is like “War of the Roses.”

Musharraf didn’t declare emergency rule because he feared Bhutto’s challenge; he declared emergency rule because the Supreme Court was about to rule that he was not, in fact, legitimately the president of Pakistan, because he violated the constitution by standing for the presidency while in command of the military. And the reason Bhutto appeared to hesitate when it happened was obvious: She has as much to fear from the independent judiciary in Pakistan as Musharraf does. The same judges threatening to strip Musharraf of the presidency had also warned that the amnesty extended by him to Bhutto — absolving her of numerous corruption charges — was also illegal. (And, for good measure, the same judges had also ruled that Nawaz Sharif’s expulsion was illegal.) The last thing Bhutto needs is the rule of law and an independent judiciary in Pakistan, for that would pull the rug out from her deal with Musharraf, put her back in court, and bring her fiercest political rival back into the picture at a moment when she is increasingly vulnerable, politically, by virtue of her alliance with the U.S.

House arrest, if anything, gives Benazir political cover for avoiding the streets. Better for Bhutto to sit out whatever turmoil will come in the weeks ahead, cultivating an image of martyrdom ahead of the elections that Musharraf promises for January (although a Musharraf promise and a dollar will buy you a cup of chai at Pak Punjab on Houston Street). Remember, Bhutto’s party may be the largest single party in Pakistan, but its ceiling is about 30% of the vote. If the Washington-brokered deal is to work, Musharraf, too, needs Bhutto’s popularity to be boosted.

Proxies always have independent agendas; if they didn’t, well, they wouldn’t be proxies. So, the U.S. struggles to get Musharraf to do its bidding — because he has a far keener sense of the requirements of his own survival in a dangerous part of the world, and also of Pakistan’s strategic interests, than do his U.S. interlocutors. And Musharraf struggles to control the Taliban in the same way. The Taliban, remember, was literally created by Pakistan’s Inter Service Intelligence in the early 1990s, as a proxy force to take charge in Afghanistan and end the chaos there by establishing a monopoly of force in the hands of a Pakistan ally. This was a continuation of the U.S.-Saudi-Pakistan policy in the 1980s of using Pakistan as a sanctuary from which to train and recruit jihadis to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan, and also of Pakistan’s pursuit of its own interest to counter the power in Afghanistan of warlords allied with its key regional rivals, India and Iran — i.e. the forces grouped in the Northern Alliance.

Remember Musharraf’s response after 9/11? He sought, as he made clear in a PBS interview and publicly, to salvage the Taliban regime by urging them to hand over Bin Laden. When they refused, he had to accept the war to oust them, although most of the leadership simply went to Pakistan where they operated with relative freedom. But Pakistan could not accept the dominance of the Northern Alliance in Kabul — which the U.S. had been in no position to prevent. (Proxies with their own agendas and all that: Remember how as the Northern Alliance descended on Kabul, how the U.S. had urged them to refrain from entering the city? And remember how much attention the Northern Alliance paid?) So, Pakistan has clearly continued to cultivate the Taliban option for shaping the balance of power in Afghanistan.

The U.S. has always sought Pakistani loyalty rather than Pakistani democracy. General Zia ul-Haq, the military man who overthrew Bhutto’s father, the charismatic social democrat Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, was a close U.S. ally, ready to do Washington’s bidding in what was to become a hot zone of the Cold War. In response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the CIA worked with the ISI and Saudi intelligence to create a jihadist infrastructure of support for Afghan insurgents: The Arab dimension of this infrastructure later became al-Qaeda; the Pakistani dimension are the roots of the current Pakistani Taliban and related extremists. The U.S.-backed military assiduously cultivated Islamists as a hedge against the civilian politicians, and found them to be a useful means not only of securing legitimacy for military rule, but also as a proxy force for waging wars not only in Afghanistan, but also against India in Kashmir.

It’s probably no coincidence that Pakistan’s most sustained period of civilian rule came during the 1990s, when the Cold War was over and the U.S. simply had no need for Pakistan or interest in its domestic affairs. The fact that the civilian leadership in this period, both Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, was not only incompetent, but also incorrigibly kleptocratic is not a result of U.S. agendas. It may simply be a by-product of decades of authoritarian rule — and Pakistan’s military, itself, is said to own about a third of the economy. Musharraf’s overthrow of Nawaz Sharif was greeted with a shrug in Washington. It was only after 9/11 that Pakistan came back in fashion, and with it the idea of Musharraf as an “indispensable” ally. Yes, it may be true that the extremists that threaten the U.S. also threaten Musharraf. But not in the same way. And nor is that likely to make Musharraf follow the U.S. agenda, for the simple reason that he’s well aware that most Pakistanis take a dim view of Washington’s “war on terror.”

Musharraf has taken the piss since 9/11, both appearing to cooperate with the U.S. — and cooperating substantially, in respect of police work against individual Qaeda elements — at the same time as cultivating other elements of the equation to enhance his own position. And he’s doing the same in the current “showdown” with Bhutto. The sad thing, for the people of Pakistan, however, is that in the U.S.-sponsored Punch & Judy show, the only choice they’re offered is between the general and a discredited political relic. Regardless of the outcome of this particular Punch & Judy episode, democratic stability in Pakistan is not even on the horizon.

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34 Responses to Benazir vs. Musharraf is Punch vs. Judy

  1. Shlomo says:

    I don’t understand this argument. So Musharraf and Bhutto are both corrupt, and they’re staging this little game of protest-crackdown. But you’re saying, what exactly? That because both of these people are U.S. allies, democratic stablity is impossible?

    Bhutto is no saint, but I still want Musharraf out and her in. This would at least begin to establish the institutions for checks and balances, so that when a good leader does come along, he’ll be able to run for president instead of being imprisoned. It would also ensure that the All-Bin Laden Team in the frontier provinces, MMA, takes a bit of a hit. They are drastically overrepresented in the government because Musharraf would rather rig elections in their favor than hold real elections. Bhutto would also keep Musharraf honest in preventing the staged gunfights between the Army and te Taliban.

    I don’t get it. How could throwing out Musharraf NOT improve the situation?

  2. Ben P says:

    Shlomo,

    What makes you think that Bhutto – in terms of US interests – any better. She was a failure as a ruler in the 1990s and probably worked to undermine Pakistani democracy as a result.

    Also, the Taliban problem. Why would it be any easier to combat the AQ/Taliban organization with Bhutto in charge? I see your point – possibly – about the MMA’s overrepresentation. But this isn’t the heart of the problem anyway. Will the army be more willing to fight the Taliban under Bhutto? What will change if Musharraf leaves? Will they stop surrendering to the Taliban en masse as a result?

    The fundamental problem is that a lot of people – probably a significant majority in Pakistan don’t support “the war on terror” – as defined by the US, Musharraf, Bhutto, whoever. – and this is true of the army especially. Because for them, the Taliban isn’t really a problem.

    I don’t see how Bhutto doesn’t anything to change this situation.

  3. Kaukerrzai says:

    Musharraf and Bhutto are one and the same or should I say that one is worse than the other. She daughter of feudal lord who never paid a penny in taxes. He a war lord who does not want peace with India and in Afghanistan. She would sell her soul to rule again. These are the people who have nipped the democracy in the bud.

  4. Tony says:

    Well, yes. Benazir is posturing. And frankly, I’m not sure that putting Benazir in power via a U.S.-orchestrated shlent is going to make all that much difference. It’s not like the U.S. has demanded that Mush submit to democracy and the rule of law; it’s demanded that he cut a deal with Washington’s anointed Pakistani leader and damn the rest.

    And BTW, it’s not about Musharraf, it’s about the military. The U.S. would be happy to be rid of Mush, but it needs the military to remain the preeminent institution in Pakistani society given what the U.S. demands of Pakistan. If they can find generals willing to get rid of Mush and make nice with the U.S.-vetted political leadership, well and good.

  5. Bernard Chazelle says:

    Musharraf has already proven smarter than all of his predecessors. Bhutto’s main weakness is that she has scant support among the military. This little kabuki theater might go on a while longer but the generals will eventually decide which way it is. There’s no sign of serious popular unrest brewing. Is there? The so-called Jihadist threat is, I believe, nonexistent. (Though bin Laden has never been more secure, wherever he is — somewhere in Northern Pakistan.)

    At the risk of sounding patronizing, why but why does Pakistan, a country of such great potential, with half the population of the US, still have to behave like a banana republic?
    Still taking its marching orders from Washington and, to a lesser extent, Westminster. It’s quite pathetic.

  6. mullah cimoc says:

    mullah cimoc say tribal elders in waziristan all say same thing.

    look like benazir working as agent in place for western intel. cia and british seeking to depose musharaff (or chastize severely him ) for refuse commiting the war crime against him tribal people in NWFP.

    this walking coup all the concoct in washington dc and him cia agent write the script.

    neocon spy in whitehouse and pentagon him wanting benazir for puppet while cia control all and mass the murder of the tribes.

    usa media so control for keep usa people the ignorant. but usa be punish even now. him daughter take the LBT (low back tattoo) and slut have him sex with every man, even usa gang member. this the true punish for ameriki let wicked to killing so many people of middle east.

  7. dass says:

    Tony pretty much got it right. Couple of things to add though…no section of the elite is really honest in Pakistan, maybe except for a few elements in media and human rights group (and they keep quiet because they don’t wanna mysteriously disappear). Benazir was very corrupt so much so that her husband used to be called Mr. 10% in Pakistan (Ken Silverstein of Harpers has an excellent article regd Benazir on his blog at Harpers)..what ever wheeling dealing he/she did with corrupt officials, Mr. Asif Ali Zardari kept 10% of kickbacks for himself. I find it funny how US has canonized Benazir as the modern day Joan of Arc and has overlooked her past crimes including stealing Pakistan’s wealth and storing it in Swiss banks. That is why Musharraf isn’t scared of her..he knows she is a very corrupt and that she doesn’t have any credibility with the people.
    One has to keep in mind that Pakistan is still a very feudal society and people who come from certain province such as Punjab are the ones who get the best of everything in Pakistan, (they form the elite section of the society and form the core of Pakistan’s Defense elite officers, lawyers, doctors etc). So its not like the Chief Justice of Pakistan was ever the good guy or was ever serious about upholding the rule of law. He and other members of the judiciary turned a blind eye when ordinary people complained they were being abused by the elite sections of the Pakistani society (which 90% of the time is the military, they can do whatever the hell they want because they can). Such abuse included Pakistani Army officers removing poor people out of their land and building the most fanciest houses there, polluting rivers from which poor people drink and others too numerous to detail. I suspect that the Pakistani army got so over their heads because now they were allies of Washington that they began eating the share of the pie that was reserved for the rest of the elite members and that the Chief Justices couldn’t take. remember people in Pakistan don’t become Chief Justices or head of some govt institution just like that or based on merit. you have to be in some way connected to the Pakistani military.
    Also another thing..most people in Pakistan initially welcomed the dictatorship of Gen Musharraf, they thought he could bring some stability and get rid of the corruption so endemic in Pakistan. but because he faiied to do that and let loose his Defence buddies to further loot Pakistan, thats why the people turned against him.

    Also the ISI knew all along that AQ khan was selling nuclear technology to NKorea and other countries, and in fact I am sure they helped him with it. there is no way someone as famous as AQ Khan working on sensitive projects such as uranium enrichment could get away doing stuff such as these without the knowledge of the military. Musharraf knew what AQ khan was doing, but let him do it anyways. Even the US knows that Musharraf knows this but they cant do a damn thing because they cant lay a finger on Musharraf lest they lose the war on “terror” (watch C-span interview of Adrian Levy and Catherin Scott Clark regd AQ Khan)

    Also its hard to say if Mush himself knows where Osama is, but I am sure he doesn’t want to know. Many sections of the Pakistani Army are very religious and view the Taliban and Al Qaeda as their brethren. They are for sure actively aiding the Taliban. The Army people felt double crossed by Mush when he orderd the Taliban and the other extremists to stop their attacks on India. but that didnt mean they couldnt continue support of the Taliban secretly. What can Musharraf do? Nada..if he tried to move against the extremists his own officer corps or ISI could turn against him and overthrow. he fears them more than he fears the West or Bhutto

    so overall my point is this: US cant do a damn thing against Musharraf because they need him more than he needs the US

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  9. bert says:

    Since Zia Ul Haq, Pakistan is the land of the three “A”: Allah, the Army and America. Sharif, Bhutto and Musharraf, they all played, and still are playing the same game. It’s a more or less successfull mix between the religious parties, the armed forces, the ISI and foreign influence.
    Of course, Musharraf was(and still is!) the more successfull, because he could played both on religious and military sides.
    He is today the only serious card to play, as mo military figure is available. Neither Sharif nor Bhutto are able to really control something in Pakistan.

  10. FredJ says:

    Things aren’t very good in Pakistan, for them or for the US. And it doesn’t look like it’s going to get better.

    Perhaps the most interesting thing about the situation is the nukes. They haven’t helped anybody, neither the masses nor any of their leaders. Yet they remain a real danger to Pakistanis and to everybody else. The threat of loose nukes could give a foreign power the incentive to intervene in Pakistan. I don’t see how this could have a good result.

  11. ajea says:

    The US needs to take control of Pakistan somehow so that it will be behind Iran when Bush attacks it. If it gains control of Pakistan’s nukes, it can up the threat to Iran and prevent it from using its “Sizzler” missiles on US aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf. [Google Sizzler Navy] Ditto the activity along the Turkey-Iraq-Iran border. Reports are that the US and Israel are helping the PKK in Mosul and Kirkuk, Bush’s public position notwithstanding.

    Look at a map. This sounds like more brilliant military strategery from Cheney and Abrams, et al. Sadly. They probably came up with this pop-up when Putin clinched the deal last May with the Caspian Sea countries not to help the US against Iran.

  12. Jawad says:

    Tony,
    You make the most important points worth making in this sad “emergency”: Benazir is a crook, and she is part of the same Team America as Musharraf.

    I am advocating a very simple strategy. Friends of Pakistan should keep things simple, and make just one demand. Restore the Pakistan Supreme Court. Elections, democracy and the rule of law will soon follow.

    Ihttp://www.pakistanaffairsdesk.com/2007/11/one-demand-keeping-it-simple.html

  13. Shlomo says:

    OK, three main things people seem to be saying about why Pakistan is in a dire situation:

    1. Too much corruption in the government
    2. Too much collaboration/indifference to the Taliban
    3. Threat of loose nukes.

    The first point, I am not very worried about. Even if every official in the government is corrupt, it is better that the system is opened up to the people, as opposed to a barely-concealed millitary dictatorship. Any amount of democratic reforms will give the Pakistani people institutional space to empower themselves further. For example, after Musharraf agrees to hold elections, it is harder to rig them because he runs the risk of a “colored revolution”. Once the people are more accurately represented on the legislature, political elite that can speak on their behalf gain prominence. Etc.

    Second point concerns what Pakistanis will do once they ARE empowered. Specifically, will they be an improvement over the current dictatorship, in that they will work less closely with the Taliban than Musharraf? This question worries me much more than the last one.
    I know that the way the Army rigs elections leads to overrepresentation and increased power to MMA/Jamiat-Islami. So I am confident the radical Islamist parties will lose electoral strength in free and fair elections. But that might not stop the insurgency, because favoring the PML over MMA does not mean you want PML people shooting at your Taliban neighbors.
    This leads me to a comparison with Iran. Iranians had Mossadegh as a democratically elected leader, but the CIA decided Iranians didn’t deserve democracy then and killed him. Then Iran enjoyed dictatorship for a while longer, before the explosion of the Khomeini Revolution. Could a similar thing happen to Pakistan ten years later, if we crush the pro-democracy movement now? Is Bhutto or Khan (or whoever) the Pakistani Mossadegh? I believe that there is a Pakistani Mossadegh around, and that it’s a democratic-Islamist revolution now or a Taliban revolution somewhere down the road.

    This is where the third worry, about nukes come in. It’s harder to give power to Bhutto than it was to Mossadegh, because if radicals somehow gain power through democratic elections, they can funnel nukes west. Therefore, it might be better for U.S. interests AND the world’s interests to try and repress Pakistanis indefinitely, and hope somehow things get better. Even the army gets weaker and the Taliban get stronger, until U.S. military aid is all that holds things together, it would be worth it.

    Hmmm. Despite my intense dislike for Musharraf, I guess it isn’t as simple as “Go, Musharraf Go!” (I still think he should go.) Is a Turkey-type model possible, in which democracy is working pretty well, except if the people elect guys the military doesn’t like, the military removes them for a “do-over?” In Turkey, the Islamists now have power, it’s a LOT safer than it would be in Pakistan, and it would be so even if there were nukes. Is that situation attainable?

    I’ll leave this question to you guys, I honestly don’t know. But at least I learned something from this thread! Unlike today’s Jerry Springer-hosted Democratic Debate, which caused my IQ to take a sharp dive.

  14. bert says:

    I don’t think it is useful to compare Iran and Pakistan. As for Pakistan, we shouldn’t forget the ongoing war with India, since 1947, something Iran didn’t and still don’t have. The Kashmir issue is one of the main reasons why Musharraf seized power back in 1999 (Kargil operation). The NWFP is another specific point. Most of the frontier between Afghanistan and Pakistan is something like a wild west, without control from the central gvt, and with strong ties with terrorism. And each time Afghanistan wasn’t tightly controlled by Pakistan, there were contestation about the Mortimer Durand line, the frontier itself.
    Pakistan can only exist with foes, and with an external factor, and as soon as Pakistan face an internal issue, it looks for something to do abroad in order to counter the threat. It will be the same, I guess, for today’s issues: more fighting in Kashmir and Afghanistan, in order to keep strength for Musharraf.

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  16. pangean says:

    I previously submitted two posts with extensive links to maps showing the ethnolinguistic breakdown of South Asia (Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, Iran) to assist folks here in getting beyond the shallow analyses that take the existing borders of Pakistan as being relevant. Unfortunately, these posts were not accepted.

    I find it shocking that no one on the left or right is able to acknowledge that Pakistan is a fictional country. That Bhutto represents the Sindhi via the PPP, that Musharraf represents the Mojahirs (Muslim immigrants from India who speak Urdu) via the MQM. That the country is disintegrating along ethnic lines via both the drive to form Pashtunistan in the NW/Waziristan area, the Balochi separatist movement and the general hostility of Sindhi and Mojahir against the Punjabi.

    Talk about ‘democracy versus dictatorship” is ridiculous when there are clearly national self-determination movements with massive energy. Are folks too ahistorical to remember that Pakistan first fractured in 1971 when Bangladesh was formed? And that the creation of Pakistan out of British Imperial India is also of recent vintage?
    Or that there has been a clear pattern of political disintegration of the entire South Asian spanning several centuries now since the Mughal Empire reached it’s peak in the 1700’s.

    Like the collapse of the Ottomans and the collapse of the Czarist Russian Empire, South Asia (and the Middle East too) is experiencing a systematic emergence of NEW REAL NATIONS that share common language, culture and economic life.
    This simultaneously takes the form of splintering and of unifications.
    The current borders are not a useful framework for analyzing the situation, especially since the Pashtuns are oriented toward Afghanistan, the Balochis spill over the borders of both Afghanistan and Iran, and the existing detente between India and Pakistan is perhaps principally due to the fact that both Musharraf and Manoman Singh are Punjabi – Muslim and Sikh respectively.

    The first point is crucial vis a vis Taliban, and the last point is worth considering when one asks the nuclear question.

    Would detente between India and Pakistan continue if Musharraf were not in power?

    In any event, i don’t want to invest more energy in this post at the risk that like my previous posts it gets moderated away.

    But if it does stay up, I will add more and address how progressive will have to navigate the overall situation of decomposition of existing vestigial and irrelevant borders.

  17. Tony says:

    Pangean — sorry to hear that, the reason your posts would have been rejected by the spam filter is that they probably contained more than one URL… I’m afraid there’s so much spam collecting in there that I can’t sift the filter. If you’re posting links, you may want to try breaking up the message to post one at a time. (Can’t guarantee that’ll work, but it has a better chance!) Thanks, Tony

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  26. Concord says:

    Since Zia Ul Haq, Pakistan is the land of the three “A”: Allah, the Army and America. Sharif, Bhutto and Musharraf, they all played, and still are playing the same game. It’s a more or less successfull mix between the religious parties, the armed forces, the ISI and foreign influence.
    Of course, Musharraf was(and still is!) the more successfull, because he could played both on religious and military sides.
    He is today the only serious card to play, as mo military figure is available. Neither Sharif nor Bhutto are able to really control something in Pakistan.

  27. Metano says:

    You make the most important points worth making in this sad “emergency”: Benazir is a crook, and she is part of the same Team America as Musharraf.

    I am advocating a very simple strategy. Friends of Pakistan should keep things simple, and make just one demand. Restore the Pakistan Supreme Court. Elections, democracy and the rule of law will soon follow.

  28. Webmarketing says:

    Great article. Like your blog, very complete.

    Though I agree with pangean. He made a point by saying “Would detente between India and Pakistan continue if Musharraf were not in power?”

    Cheers, keep up the good work.

  29. I don’t think it is useful to compare Iran and Pakistan. As for Pakistan, we shouldn’t forget the ongoing war with India, since 1947, something Iran didn’t and still don’t have. The Kashmir issue is one of the main reasons why Musharraf seized power back in 1999 (Kargil operation). The NWFP is another specific point. Most of the frontier between Afghanistan and Pakistan is something like a wild west, without control from the central gvt, and with strong ties with terrorism. And each time Afghanistan wasn’t tightly controlled by Pakistan, there were contestation about the Mortimer Durand line, the frontier itself.
    Pakistan can only exist with foes, and with an external factor, and as soon as Pakistan face an internal issue, it looks for something to do abroad in order to counter the threat. It will be the same, I guess, for today’s issues: more fighting in Kashmir and Afghanistan, in order to keep strength for Musharraf.

    Mark Spillberg @ Gigapod Labs

  30. autocraft says:

    You make the most important points worth making in this sad “emergency”: Benazir is a crook, and she is part of the same Team America as Musharraf.

  31. Pangean — sorry to hear that, the reason your posts would have been rejected by the spam filter is that they probably contained more than one URL… I’m afraid there’s so much spam collecting in there that I can’t sift the filter. If you’re posting links, you may want to try breaking up the message to post one at a time. (Can’t guarantee that’ll work, but it has a better chance!) Thanks, Tony

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