Democracy sounds like a good thing, but if Democracy comes to Pakistan, they will vote for a theocracy and Al Qaeda may end up with the bomb. I've always thought this is one of the most serious, and unstable, situations in the world right now.
And I don't fancy having W in office when this shit hits the fan.
HARIPUR, Pakistan -- Every day, Taj Mohammed Abbasi wheels his cart through dusty streets, selling the oranges, guavas and litchis that are the pride of this rural outpost in the shadow of the Himalayan foothills.
But what he's seen recently on television motivated him this weekend to take to the streets for a different reason: to join a movement with the audacious goal of ousting the military-led government and restoring democracy to Pakistan.
Pakistan might be in the midst of its first televised revolution. For nearly three months, a handful of fledgling independent stations have been broadcasting minute-by-minute coverage of what at first seemed a relatively obscure issue: the suspension of Pakistan's chief judge by the president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf.
Since then, Pakistanis nationwide have been transfixed by live coverage of police beating lawyers, pro-Musharraf groups firing assault rifles at demonstrators and the chief justice speaking to ever-larger and more boisterous audiences about the dangers of autocratic rule.
As the cameras have rolled, opposition to Musharraf has surged, and he is considered more vulnerable now than at any time in his eight years in office. Even in rural areas where poverty is high, residents have gathered in hotels and barbershops around the few television sets available and watched the brewing crisis play out live.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/03/AR2007060301378.html?hpid=topnews
And I don't fancy having W in office when this shit hits the fan.
HARIPUR, Pakistan -- Every day, Taj Mohammed Abbasi wheels his cart through dusty streets, selling the oranges, guavas and litchis that are the pride of this rural outpost in the shadow of the Himalayan foothills.
But what he's seen recently on television motivated him this weekend to take to the streets for a different reason: to join a movement with the audacious goal of ousting the military-led government and restoring democracy to Pakistan.
Pakistan might be in the midst of its first televised revolution. For nearly three months, a handful of fledgling independent stations have been broadcasting minute-by-minute coverage of what at first seemed a relatively obscure issue: the suspension of Pakistan's chief judge by the president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf.
Since then, Pakistanis nationwide have been transfixed by live coverage of police beating lawyers, pro-Musharraf groups firing assault rifles at demonstrators and the chief justice speaking to ever-larger and more boisterous audiences about the dangers of autocratic rule.
As the cameras have rolled, opposition to Musharraf has surged, and he is considered more vulnerable now than at any time in his eight years in office. Even in rural areas where poverty is high, residents have gathered in hotels and barbershops around the few television sets available and watched the brewing crisis play out live.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/03/AR2007060301378.html?hpid=topnews
