Always suspicious when the Zionist-controlled MSM is pushing a story.
It's ALL OVER the Sunday papers, too!
"Bhutto tries to visit Pakistan's deposed chief justice; Attempt viewed as bid to unite the opposition" by Pamela Constable and Griff Witte/Washington Post November 11, 2007
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, emerging from a day of house arrest, attempted yesterday to unite two key strands of the country's fragmented opposition by trying to visit Pakistan's deposed chief justice in his barricaded home in the capital.
Bhutto was blocked by police, but her effort seemed aimed at winning over lawyers who have been at the forefront of protests against President Pervez Musharraf.
The Associated Press reported today that Musharraf has amended a law to give sweeping powers to army courts to try civilians on charges such as treason and inciting public unrest.
In a separate development yesterday, militants abducted eight soldiers in the formerly popular tourist district of Swat, a government official said. No details were immediately available.
Pakistani authorities ordered three British newspaper correspondents to leave the country within 72 hours, citing an editorial in the Friday edition of Britain's Daily Telegraph that compared Musharraf to a former Central American dictator.
Officials said the paper had used "foul and abusive language" against Pakistan and its leadership.
Bhutto made one appearance at a rally by journalists protesting the news media crackdown and met with foreign diplomats and members of her party. She then drove with supporters to visit the deposed chief justice, Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry. When police blocked their path, she delivered a high-decibel speech on the spot, calling for democracy and judicial freedom.
Playing the game!
Most significantly, Bhutto offered her strongest signals yet that she intends to join the nation's lawyers in fighting Musharraf's firing of Chaudhry and other judges who had opposed the emergency.
Despite being under house arrest for a week, Chaudhry has managed to lead meetings via cellphone. With the government now threatening to banish him to his native Baluchistan Province, the deposed justice has refused to go quietly.
Chaudhry, in a telephone interview with the News International, a Pakistani newspaper:
"I fear my connection with the outside world will be lost after some time. I just want to convey this message that this is the final chance to save our independence. . . . If the civil society loses its war now, it would take another 60 years to reach this point."
Bhutto, riding in a white, bulletproof sport utility vehicle and surrounded by cheering supporters, attempted to reach the hilltop mansion where Chaudhry has been held since emergency rule began. Police blocked her path about 200 yards from the house, and Bhutto swung out of the vehicle with a megaphone in hand.
She declared: "He is the real chief justice."
Bhutto has been treated skeptically by many leaders of the lawyers' movement, who believe she is still negotiating a power-sharing deal with Musharraf. She has not backed their call for him to resign as president. Lawyers have taken a hard line against Musharraf all year, but nationwide their number is relatively small.
The move against the British correspondents was the first government action against the international news media since emergency rule began. One provision of the emergency order prohibits insulting or critical news coverage of Musharraf, although Pakistani newspapers are full of scathing commentary against him.
Bhutto briefly addressed a rally of about 100 journalists protesting the media clampdown yesterday:
"When the masses combine, the sound of their steps will suppress the sound of military boots."
Except in AmeriKa!
The government sought to ease criticism of its crackdown yesterday as it reiterated that it plans to lift a state of emergency within a month.
In Crawford, Texas, President Bush called Musharraf's promises "positive steps," saying the United States stands firmly behind the Pakistani leader in the fight against Islamic militants."
Yeah, never mind the beat downs of women and the jailing of lawyers, and the just passed Military Commissions Trials!
What a scum-shit president! Both of them!
And take a look at the very astute Pakistanis.
"Resentment of US underlies protests" by Henry Chu/Los Angeles Times November 11, 2007
LAHORE, Pakistan - It takes almost no effort to find people who are angry with Pervez Musharraf on the streets of this bustling city. The Pakistani leader's name comes up quickly in casual conversation, yoked with unprintable adjectives and harsh denunciations of the emergency rule he has imposed.
But dig just a little deeper, and another target of resentment surfaces: Musharraf's richest, staunchest, and most powerful patron, the United States.
Arfan Ghani, a 54-year-old professor of architecture, told an American reporter:
"We blame the US directly for keeping us under the rule of the military. [Musharraf] is just another dictator serving the interests of your country."
Musharraf's popularity reached a new low after he declared a state of emergency Nov. 3. Sinking alongside it is the public image of the United States, which many Pakistanis see as the primary force propping up an autocratic ruler.
In spite of Washington's repeated assurances that it wants to help restore democracy to Pakistan, there is a strong feeling of disillusionment here with what are seen as hollow promises and even a bitter sense of betrayal.
Demonstrations calling for the ouster of Musharraf have been held across Pakistan, and a grass-roots campaign against him appears to be gaining momentum.
While early protests against the state of emergency were led by opposition parties and by lawyers opposed to Musharraf's dismissal of independent-minded judges, the grass-roots movement includes many students, business professionals, and middle-class women.
After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when the United States latched onto Musharraf as a key ally in its war on terrorism, many Pakistanis welcomed American interest and largesse, hoping that the relationship would boost their aspirations to become a modern, prosperous, democratic society.
Six years later, the nation remains under the thumb of a military leader who seized power in a coup and refuses to announce when he will return Pakistan to civilian rule. Opposition parties remain in disarray and are now being harassed.
Yet the Bush administration largely has stood by Musharraf. While it chides him for decreeing emergency rule, it has refrained from imposing any real penalty, such as cutting the billions of dollars in aid that have flowed in, much of it straight into the coffers of the military.
Yesterday, President Bush said Musharraf knows that the United States wants him to end emergency rule and hold elections:
"I do remind you that he has declared that he'll take off his uniform and he has declared there will be elections, which are positive steps."
Musharraf is seen by many people in Pakistan as a stooge of the United States, or Busharraf, as one formulation has it.
Ha-ha-ha! Pakistanis have a sense of humor!!! Who knew?
To many Pakistanis, America seems not to care about their wish to be rid of Musharraf.
Nayab Shami, an art curator in Lahore:
"The US has never supported the people; the US has always supported the leaders."
Some Pakistanis still see a role for the United States to play in putting their country back on the right path. Whether that means throwing support behind one of Musharraf's rivals, such as former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, is not clear.
Opinions of America among ordinary Pakistanis have run the gamut, from those who despise it as the Great Satan bent on destroying the Muslim world to those who send their children to expensive private American universities.
Sure seems that way, despite the rhetoric!
Plenty of Pakistanis might resent the US decision to back Musharraf, but they do not necessarily have alternatives in mind."
Yeah, they don't know what they think, dumb Pakistanis!
The Globe even carries the local protests, while they ignore antiwar protests at home.
Sigh!
"Pakistanis in Boston decry Musharraf actions" by Anna Badkhen, Globe Correspondent | November 11, 2007
Pakistan's political discontent spilled onto the chilly sidewalks of Boston Common yesterday, when dozens of Pakistani students and professionals protested President Pervez Musharraf's recent sweeping crackdown on lawyers, human rights activists, and political opponents.
Dressed in traditional black choga mourning dresses and wearing red armbands to signify protest and blood, the demonstrators demanded that Musharraf end the state of emergency he has imposed. They also criticized the US government for supporting Pakistan's president, widely considered a key ally in Washington's war against Islamic terrorism.
Aslam Khaki, a Pakistani Supreme Court lawyer visiting the United States on a Fulbright scholarship:
"Musharraf is fooling the American government that he is the only solution to terrorism, but he is destroying institutions of democracy."
Aqil Sajjad, 28, an Islamabad native and a postgraduate physics student at Harvard:
"He has been able to present himself as the only thing standing between democracy and extremism, but people who are being targeted are not extremists."
At least 2,500 lawyers, human rights activists, and opposition political party workers have been arrested since Musharraf introduced emergency rule and suspended the constitution on Nov. 3. Several of them were family friends of Fawza Wali Khan, one of the organizers of yesterday's protest and a psychiatrist at St. Elizabeth's Medical Center of Boston.
Khan: "We are against arresting the intelligentsia in Pakistan."
Lubna Mahmood, 37, whose brother, a corporate lawyer in Lahor, was detained for several hours last week. He was released only because the holding cells in the police precinct were full, said Mahmood, a Boston resident who carried a hand-drawn sign that read: "Free Our Lawyers.":
"If they arrest all the lawyers, who will fight for restoration of democracy?"
The White House has urged Musharraf to end emergency rule and to cooperate with Benazir Bhutto, a former prime minister and opposition leader.
The Bush administration has encouraged Musharraf to drop charges against Bhutto in hopes that a broader base of support would help the general, who is criticized by pro-Western Pakistanis and religious extremists, to stay in power.
The only road to true democracy in Pakistan lies through electing a popular president who would replace Musharraf, the protesters on Boston Common said yesterday.
They chanted, dancing to an intricate rhythm of tabla drums and tambourines:
"No, Musharraf, no! Save democracy, not hypocrisy!"
Now if only the Globe would discover the antiwar protesters out there every week, huh, readers?
Pfffffftttttttt!!!!!
And what is really happening up in them thar hills?
"Taliban exploit Pakistan emergency"
"Aljazeera.net November 10, 2007
Officials in the Swat valley in Pakistan say Taliban fighters are tightening their grip on some areas in the north-west of the country close to the border with Afghanistan.
Pro-Taliban fighters have advanced in recent days and the government says they now control as much as 70 per cent of the Swat valley. They have taken control of public buildings, including police stations.
Mawlana Mohammed Alem, a local Taliban leader told Al Jazeera:
"Banks face trouble transporting money, we are prepared to provide them with protection. We wish to provide security to the public, who can no longer tolerate the unjust prejudicial acts of the police. We wish to provide protection under the Islamic Sharia law."
Local residents say heavy-handed police tactics are one of the reasons Taliban support is growing.
One man told Al Jazeera: "The police here commit atrocities against the residents and the law provides protection only for senior officers."
Another said: "Taliban supporters have not caused us any harm; our electricity was cut and they managed to restore it in one hour."
The Swat valley is just a few hours' drive from Islamabad and the Taliban's control is growing."
