fallacy of poverty reduction:
An analysis of the sources of growth during the period 2000-01 to 2004-05 shows that the composition of growth during the period was pro-rich rather than pro-poor. It was fuelled mainly by the services sector, (particularly banking and communications) which contributed 60 per cent of GDP growth during the period and the manufacturing sector – primarily manufacture of automobiles, luxury consumer electronics, cement and textiles – which contributed 30.4 per cent of GDP growth during this period.
(...) It is clear that GDP growth during the period was overwhelmingly pro-rich since none of the sectors which mainly constituted the growth were either producing goods for the poor or directly providing employment to them.
(...) Our own poverty estimate also takes account of the inconsistencies in the Sindh sub-sample and yields a poverty reduction estimate of only 0.6 percentage points with poverty declining from 31.3 per cent in 1998-99 to 30.7 per cent in 2004-05. One can conclude therefore that, there has been no significant poverty reduction during the period 1998-99 to 2004-05. This conclusion is consistent with the sources of growth analysis based on national income data.
(...) In the three years after 2004-05 the demand-supply imbalances in the economy resulting from design errors of the economic policy led to accelerated inflation, particularly food inflation, severe shortages of flour, electricity, gas and fuel. The accelerating inflation rate particularly for items in the poor man’s basket would be expected to have worsened the poverty situation.

how not to win friends:
A recent Congressional Research Service report on international arms sales records that last year the United States delivered nearly $8 billion worth of weapons to Third World countries. This was about 40% of all such arms transfers. The United States signed agreements to sell over $10 billion worth of weapons, one-third of all arms deals with Third World countries. It is easy to put this in perspective: $10 billon a year is the estimated cost of meeting the UN Millennium Development Goal for water and sanitation, which would reduce by half the proportion of people in the world without proper access to drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015. Today, about 1.1 billion people do not have access to a minimal amount of clean water and about 2.6 billion people do not have access to basic sanitation.
(...) The largest third world buyer of weapons in 2006 was Pakistan. It purchased just over $5 billion in arms deals. Almost $3 billion of the purchases by Pakistan were new U.S.-made F-16s fighter jets, up-grades to the F-16s Pakistan bought in the 1980s, and bombs and missiles to arm these planes. A White House Press spokesman explained that the sale of the jet fighters "demonstrates our commitment to a long-term relationship with Pakistan."
(...) Since September 11, 2001, the United States has given over $10 billion to Pakistan to buy or reward General Musharraf's support for its newest war, the "war on terror." Pakistan has spent over $1.5 billion of this amount on buying new weapons. To understand the scale of this aid, consider Pakistan's total military budget in 2006, estimated at about $4.5 billion. The United States is now giving Pakistan aid to pay for the new deal for F-16s, bombs, and missiles. It is likely to win few friends.
(...) Attitudes toward the United States have worsened. A 2007 poll found that only 15% of Pakistanis had a favorable attitude towards the United States. An August 2007 poll found that General Musharraf was less popular even than Osama bin Laden; Musharraf had the support of 38% of Pakistanis, Bin Laden of 46%, and President Bush found favor with only 9%. It is hard to imagine a more damning indictment of a policy that sought to make friends and build support.

favored nation:
It does not follow, however, that blame for Pakistan’s multifarious woes can be laid squarely on the shoulders of the US. Washington’s influence has played a deletrious contributory role in many respects over the decades, but we are essentially the authors of our own misfortunes - not least in terms of offering the US repeated opportunities to establish - and abuse - its clout.

Pakistan needs scrutiny not charity
In October 2005, upon learning of the devastation that had been caused in Northern Pakistan by a massive earthquake, many of my British friends promptly emailed me with offers of help, ranging from money to filling in my duties at Cambridge while I visited the earthquake stricken region. At the time, I suggested to them that what countries like Pakistan need, even in the face of such calamities, is not charity but scrutiny. Pakistan is a rich country, with abundant natural as well as human resources. What keeps Pakistan from developing is not a lack of resources but the presence of an illegitimate, highly corrupt government, which is sustained not by the people of Pakistan but by powerful developed countries in the vanguard of movements for ‘good governance’, democracy and transparency. 160 million Pakistanis do not need charity from the British public. They need their scrutiny. They need them to deny oppressive governments legitimacy. And they need them to expose the double standards of their own government.

musharraf's last straw:
"You don't need a state of emergency to fight the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in the tribal areas. The army already has emergency powers there," says military analyst Hasan Askari Rizvi. "Any state of emergency in Pakistan is irrelevant to the 'war on terror'. It has everything to do with Musharraf preserving his hold on power."
(...) his stock among ordinary Pakistanis is rock bottom, says human rights lawyer, Asma Jahangir. "There is a sense his time is up. He should make an honourable exit rather than increase polarisation in Pakistan. There is not single person who believes a [state of] emergency is necessary for this country. They see it for what it is -- the last straw a dictator clings to."

barack obama war-mongering:
"When I am President, we will wage the war that has to be won, with a comprehensive strategy with five elements: getting out of Iraq and on to the right battlefield in Afghanistan and Pakistan," Obama told the foreign policy establishment. The sovereignty of Pakistan will not be respected, under an Obama presidency. "If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will."

extremism in pakistan:
From the vantage of the cosmopolitan capital, Islamabad, Pakistan is one of the most rapidly growing economies in Asia. But Swat, home to 1.5 million, is a reminder that the frontier has long been deprived of that wealth. The gradual death of an agrarian way of life in Swat, following increased mechanization and a series of land reforms that undercut sharecropping, has promoted the wealth of a few at the expense of thousands. With little local industry, residents of Swat have some of the lowest incomes per day in the province, a formula for discontent.
(...) Local officials in Swat complain they haven't received development funds from the federal government in more than two years. "If I had money, I would give [the city] a vision for development. But I don't have any money," says a frustrated Jamal Nasir Khan, a mayor of Swat based in Saidu Sharif, the district capital. Mr. Khan says he'd like to build more schools and health facilities for the area's population, 49 percent of whom live below the poverty line and 61 percent of whom are illiterate.
(...) Although NWFP has some of the highest rates of poverty, illiteracy, and violence in Pakistan, it received just $34 million in federal aid and development grants in 2006, compared with Punjab's $210 million – even though Punjab, by many accounts, already has the healthiest economic indicators in Pakistan.
(...) "In some villages, the largest employer is the jihadis," Mr. Bengali adds.
(...) Swat is a startling example. Because unemployment is high, Fazlullah is able to summon hundreds of volunteers – who receive meals in exchange – to help build his new madrassah in Mingora, the city of 175,000 where he lives. Situated along the Swat River, the large religious school will someday offer poor students of this city, which has no university, a free education in Fazlullah's ultraconservative brand of Islam. Aides say proudly it will cost nearly $2.5 million, suggesting that while Fazlullah's audiences may generally be poor, he has wealthy patrons.
(...) "Tell me, what wrong have I done? I am preaching religion, and religion is not terrorism," Fazlullah says in a brick room on the site of his new madrassah, surrounded by bearded aides.
(...) "There is no local justice, no economic justice. Corruption is a bigger problem than you imagine," says Shah Salam Khan, a lawyer of the district high court, mentioning payoffs to judges and police.
(...) "These people remain a good tool of policy in the region, in Afghanistan … as well as internally," says Ijaz Khattak, a professor at the University of Peshawar. "If other liberal parties become stronger, they will challenge the regime. These people are there to stop them."

interview with musharaff:
[if democrats come to power?] None at all. It will not change. Every country follows its national interests. [codeword for imperialism] These interests do not change with the change of governments and also there is an environment in Afghanistan, in Palestine and in Iraq, these environments will be understood by whoever comes, whether democrats or republicans, they cannot change their attitudes towards whatever is happening. And as we are concerned with Afghanistan and India, I think all republicans and democrats (who are involved) know what is the reality. Their interests in this region and in Pakistan will remain because we are in the leading role in the coalition to fight terrorism. Whether it (the administration) is republican or democrat nothing is going to change, and they know that.
(...) On Afghanistan, I think things are very clear, I do not think there will be a change in the policy of the United States. On Iraq, yes there are a lot of speculations, there will be a change of policy. But even if you leave aside the history of whether they should have gone there or not, now that they are here, they have caused certain turmoil, how can they just go away? You must solve the problem or there will be a bigger problem that will affect the whole region and the Gulf. So how can you do this? I really do not know, but I would like to see a republican government or a president coming and let us see what decision he takes.[pathetic analysis for a general]
(...) Whoever comes, and a lot of times US Vice-President Dick Cheney came here and the whole world thinks that he comes to pressurise me and Pakistan. What pressure? We don't accept any pressure from anyone.
(...) First of all, I do not get bullied, I do not accept any bullying from anyone. And Pakistan also will not accept any bullying by anyone. We take decisions wherever our national interest is involved. And the example is Iraq. We will not send forces to Iraq (despite the fact we were asked to). Why should we send forces? Nobody bullies us. But yes, there is a lot of talk that Pakistan is not doing enough? I get annoyed at such talk. If Pakistan is not doing enough, I would ask which country is doing enough? It is only Pakistan which is doing something, and I will substantiate that. First of all, Pakistan is not the exporter of terrorism, extremism, Al-Qaeda, or Taliban.
(...) ave the coalition forces or the Afghan government caught anyone? We have suffered 400 casualties. There are 50,000 troops involved in Frontier Tribal Areas. So anyone who says Pakistan is not doing enough, I tell them you don't know what is happening there. And we don't accept such accusations at all. If Pakistan stops doing anything, you will all collapse. So please don't give such wild accusation about Pakistan. We are doing much more than our share but there is a problem which is very big. Instead of refusing, join to see realities, join to strategise to fight this problem.
(...) The Iran situation is dangerous. We, in Pakistan, are against nuclear proliferation. I think the world is so dangerous, we should be talking of reduction of nuclear power, nuclear potential, nuclear weapons rather than making more. At the same time we are for the right of every nation to have nuclear energy. Thirdly, we are against any military action. Because I think that will open another front whereas we should be thinking of closing fronts.

pakistan, afghanistan, and current crises:
Pakistan has historically seen both a problem and an opportunity in Afghanistan. The problem is that the British Empire, like all empires, drew its boundaries with no respect for the lives and aspirations of the people on the ground. Its empire in India ended in the Northwest Frontier Province, despite the wars to conquer Afghanistan. While Afghanistan was outside the formal structure of empire, in fact there was social, economic and cultural continuity across the Pashtun region that spans Pakistan and Afghanistan. The new Pakistani leadership saw this as a problem once Pakistan became independent in 1947. Would there be calls for an independent Pashtunistan? Pakistan sought to limit the power of ethnic nationalism to unite Pashtuns across the border. They came to believe that in order to keep the NWFP, they would need leverage over Afghanistan.
(...) In its confrontation with India, especially after 1971 war that spilt off East Pakistan and created Bangladesh, the Pakistani generals looked at a map and thought, given how narrow Pakistan is, if India invades, where do we retreat to and fight back from? They decided they could retreat to Afghanistan and organize the defense from there. To do so they needed a client government in Afghanistan. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the US effort to organize the resistance gave Pakistan a chance. It tried to take advantage of its support for the insurgents against the USSR to establish clients among the Afghan militias. But the real breakthrough came in the chaos after the Soviets left and the Americans stopped caring about what happened in Afghanistan. Pakistan’s military helped create, train, arm, equip and at times led the Taliban to take power in Afghanistan during the 1990s. The goal was to create a client regime there. But, after 9/11, they had to distance themselves from the Taliban because of American pressure. But they seem not to have let go completely.
(...) [excellent summary of US creation of pakistan's military complex] The US and Pakistan have a long military relationship. In 1954 Pakistan signed a military co-operation agreement with the US. Up to that point it was a very small army with very little equipment, inherited from the British army before independence. With this agreement with US, Pakistan hoped to get military aid, training, and equipment to build an army to match India. The US was looking for a Cold War ally and saw Pakistan as pivotal with its proximity to the Middle East and to the USSR and a willingness to support the US. [/] The US poured in money, training, and equipment and redesigned the army on American lines. A generation of officers was sent to US for training. Many went to on to become very senior. They included General Zia-al-Haq, who trained in the US and went on to stage a military coup in 1977 and ruled for over ten years. US training was hugely influential in shaping how the Pakistani military thought about military issues. They developed a taste for American equipment, and American strategy and tactics. [/] From the 1950s to the 1970s, this was conventional training and conventional weapons: tanks, planes, artillery, communications. These were the skills that won ambitious soldiers promotions and medals. As a consequence, these people had an important voice in military planning and decision making. In the 1980s, the Afghan war meant that the focus shifted to organizing and running a guerilla army. In this period the ISI came into its own, going from an insignificant agency to an enormously powerful institution. It received money, training in covert ops, ideology, and developed a capacity for recruiting, training and managing Islamic militants. These became the new ways of war. [/] After the end of the Afghanistan war and the collapse of the USSR, Pakistan was no longer needed. The US imposed sanctions and cut off aid because of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program. Through the 1990s there was almost no aid or training. It started again after 9/11. The US has resumed cooperation, but its emphasis is countering al-Qaeda and Taliban. It has focused on intelligence sharing, covert action, counter-insurgency, ideology, and propaganda. [/] But many of the Pakistani generals still value Americans weapons. They are seen as high-equalizers against India’s larger numbers of soldiers, tanks, planes and so on. So Pakistan continues to seek big ticket, high-tech US weapons, like F-16s. The US has been pouring in billions of dollars a year in military aid. For the US, this has the added benefit, of course, of directing US government money to American military contractors who make and sell this equipment.
(...) The extent of cooperation is hard to know. The Afghan government is certainly convinced that Pakistan is helping the Taliban. It is clear that the Taliban are being allowed to organize and move freely in certain areas in Pakistan. They also continue to have access to weapons and other supplies, and funds. There has been no crackdown on the madrassas where the Taliban are recruited.
(...) The Taliban have become a more diverse group. The people the US are fighting now are not just the old Afghan Taliban. There are also veterans from the Afghan war in the 1980s against the Soviets. Many who were trained by US to fight Soviets are now on the side of the Taliban. Many Pakistanis also volunteered to go fight against the Americans and started to join the Taliban. And, there are now the Pakistani Taliban, a home-grown movement of Islamic militants, many from madrassas.
(...) They felt they could conduct a conventional war to try to force a negotiated settlement. It didn’t work. Nuclear threats were made by both sides. Both countries came under tremendous pressure to calm things down.
(...) On the other side, the Indian army’s massive military effort for almost twenty years has had a huge impact. The Kashmiri population is small. If you swamp it with soldiers, draconian measures, massacre, murder, torture, detention, as India has done, people back down. And as the movement for independence in Kashmir moved into Islamic militant hands, backed by Pakistan, the degree of identification between ordinary Kashmiris and the people claiming to fight for their freedom decreased. The Islamic freedom fighters, radical and conservative, were against the grain of the kind of Islam prevalent in Kashmir. They alienated the population with their attacks, their reliance on outsiders, and their brand of Islam.
(...) The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Pakistan has become a national flashpoint. He decided to hear the cases filed by relatives of people who were rounded up and disappeared, mainly in Balochistan and as part of the Pakistani military’s efforts to wage their own little war on terror. He told the government he wanted to know where the missing people were – habeas corpus. The government said, we don’t have them. The Court was clearly not convinced and has continued to pursue the matter, and held the government in contempt of court. Suddenly people who have been secretly detained for several years turned up in court. Musharraf decided not to tolerate this kind of challenge from the courts, so he took the extreme step of firing the Chief Justice. The real fear Musharraf had was that a Chief Justice and a Supreme Court willing to confront the military government on human rights might also intervene and prevent his securing re-appointment as President.
(...) Pakistan is stuck in its traditional troubles. The military is too strong, controlling the state, society, the economy. This idea is filtering into the common sense of the country, with the crisis in Islamabad. The military want to take the nicest bit of the capital city and build a new facility. This is prime real estate, and they are getting it at below market rates, basically stealing it from exchequer. And political leaders are too weak: You’ve heard how Benazir Bhutto is negotiating for a return to the country on the military’s terms. You accept our power and we won’t prosecute you for corruption. That’s the traditional pattern for Pakistan.
(...) The new thing is the rise of the madrassa phenomenon and the growing role of a generation of young, radical Islamist activists trained in these religious schools. These religious schools were once thought to be confined to the hinterland and to the conservative provinces like the North West Frontier Province (bordering Afghanistan). Many went to fight in Afghanistan. But there were also madrassas in the big cities, including Islamabad. These have created the Pakistani Taliban. The students from there have now become more active. In Islamabad, madrassa students have taken it upon themselves to take over public buildings, take hostages, and there has been a standoff with police for weeks. These are women madrassa students.
(...) Islamabad was a custom-built capital, built in the 1960s by General Ayub Khan, Pakistan’s first military dictator. The capital had been Karachi. The dictator chose a green field site, basically farmers’ fields, and said “build me a city”. So it is a city with a master plan, with planned green areas, parks, all built into the plan. But in recent years, people started to build mosques in the green areas, and in shopping centres, without a permit. It is basically the private, illegal appropriation of public land. They got away with it for years. The logic was simple. You build a mosque wherever you want, people will come and pray, and you’ve created facts on the ground – who’s going to demolish a mosque? Finally, the city administration said we can’t turn a blind eye to this anymore. Islamabad is undergoing a massive construction boom, land is suddenly in great demand. This also means the city administration needs to get some control back after years of unregulated development. The city demolished a couple of the illegal mosques and announced plans to demolish many more. In response, in January this year, women students from a local madrassa occupied a public building, a children’s library, saying: you must stop the demolitions and rebuild the demolished mosques. The women students are still there. They wear burqas, but there are reports that some of them are armed with Kalashnikovs.
(...) The protests started over the demolitions, but the students have added other issues. They started protesting corruption and moral depravity in society, and demanding enforcement of sharia (Islamic law). They established their own court - in the capital city – where they pick people off the street and punish them for violations of sharia. This is an amazing development. It shows that the crisis in law and order and state authority has become very acute.
(...) The government has been very passive. They say we don’t want to hurt anybody. But this doesn’t stop the authorities from beating the hell out of human rights protesters, including women activists, and women lawyers. What this suggests is that the insecurity of the regime has reached the point where they don’t want to provoke a confrontation that will unite the Islamic parties and militant jihadis against the state. The Islamists could create a real challenge to the state.
(...) At the same time, Musharraf needs to show public opinion that he is in charge of the situation and no one should think of challenging his government. He also needs to show the West that he can take on the Islamists. He also convince his fellow generals that he can manage all these problems. There is always a risk that he may look for, if not create, an opportunity to be able to put on a show of force.
(...) [tensions within military brass] There are tensions, for instance over support for the Taliban and the Islamists groups. It used to go all the way to the top. Musharraf was one of the architects of the 1999 war with India, that started with Islamist militants crossing over into Kashmir from Pakistan. Among the militants were Pakistani soldiers in camouflage. Musharraf has been involved in all of the decision-making around Pakistan’s policy in Afghanistan. But there were more religiously-minded conservative generals for whom support for the Taliban wasn’t just a tactic. Some of those have retired or been pushed out after 9/11. The US was very worried about the Pakistani military leadership for a while. But there is still a lot of sympathy among the military for Islamic groups, ideologically, as well as for strategic and political reasons. This includes people who simply don’t like America’s foreign policy or fighting America’s wars.
(...) In India, it seems we’re starting to see that the process of urbanization, industrialization, and education set in place after independence by the avowedly socialist Congress Party has produced a new ruling class. This new elite has interests in business as well as the state. It is a bourgeoisie that owns means of production, factories, and so on, as well as a middle class to work in these new jobs. The influx of foreign investment into India, with Indian companies and multinationals setting up there, has also created a large group of young people who are seeing rapid increases in income and seeking to satisfy a sense of the “good life”, buying into the American dream.
(...) They have moved towards liberalization – the transfer of public assets and goods into private hands - so that they can make private profit from what was previously public investment. They want state resources to build and strengthen infrastructure for their lives and aspirations. There are more imports of luxury goods and less emphasis on producing within India for Indian needs. This is what Arundhati Roy meant: the successful seek to secede, and they want to take everything with them. The new Indian elite is trying to pull the ladder up after themselves, in the typical pattern. This leaves 3-400 million in desperate poverty and marginalized from economic and political institutions.
(...) It is part of the new sense of success and achievement, a new sense of India’s capacity as a strong state and economy. People have started to say, we have economic growth, we are becoming an economic superpower, we should have the other aspects of great power. This is a sentiment the Americans and Europeans are happy to feed. Buy our weapons. Get big buildings. Buy submarines and jet fighters. The US military-industrial complex finds in India a huge new market in a context when other markets aren’t growing. Indian spending increasing by leaps and bounds with military modernization across the board. They are building nuclear weapons and missiles, aircraft carriers, submarines, jet fighters, new radar systems, everything. It seeks power projection, which requires a huge capacity for logistics, ships, refueling airplanes.
(...) The US State Department went on record and said the US goal is to help India become a major world power and that they understand the military implications of that statement. The US is preparing India to become a major power. The intent is to help India as a competitor to China. That’s also feeding Indian militarization and ambitions.
(...) The Pakistani military sees itself as vulnerable. They see their position eroding. What can they do if the US sells to both sides in South Asia, and India has much more money to spend on weapons? Pakistan can buy more hardware from China, but it is not as good as the US stuff they are used to. The real danger is that as they see the conventional gap grow, they will become more reliant on the nuclear arsenal.
(...) Both Pakistan and India are torn between their regional interests to have good relations with Iran, and their alliances with US. The whole problem is really encapsulated in an important project proposed some years ago: a gas pipeline to bring Iranian gas through Pakistan to western India, to provide energy for India. India does have huge energy needs, natural gas is more environmentally friendly and preferable to coal and nuclear power. The Iranians are happy to sell it and it diversifies their client base. Pakistan would benefit from the gas, the rent they could charge for the pipeline passing through, and the trust it could generate between India and Pakistan.
(...) The problem: the US doesn’t want Iran to sell gas. They told the Indians they can’t buy, they told Pakistan they can’t let pipeline be built. Where Iran could have played a great role in improving the level of cooperation between the two countries, the US is trying to prevent that for narrow short-term interests in trying to control and contain and undo Iran. This is one of the biggest problems.
(...) The second is the Iranian nuclear programme – from an Iranian point of view, the program started in the 1950s, under “atoms for peace”, the same program that helped provide nuclear training, technology, and reactors to India and Pakistan. The Shah wanted a large nuclear program, and nuclear weapons. But he was a US ally and there were not too many concerns about helping Iran’s program as long as he was in power.
(...) The Islamic revolution has an interesting nuclear history. Khomeini denounced the atomic energy program on theological grounds. He also said, we don’t need the stuff. He gave it no attention, and no money. But the scientists managed to stay in business through the hard times. Then the Iran-Iraq war happened and the US provided plenty of help for Iraqis and the international community did nothing while Iraq used poison gas against Iran. The Iranians thought: we have to look after ourselves.
(...) Today the Iranian revolutionary leadership doesn’t have much to show for its 20 years in power. It has a 10-year war and an oil exporting economy whose infrastructure is on the verge of collapse for lack of investment. It has one national project: its nuclear program. Something only the government can do. This has become their measure of achievement. When the west attacks the nuclear program, they see it as proof of its importance – they believe the West doesn’t want Iran to have the program because nuclear technology is so important.
(...) But Iranian mullahs are like mullahs everywhere: they are interested in technology, not science. They want the symbols of being modern, rather than actually wanting to be modern since that would imply a commitment to a different kind of society.

musharraf-bhutto deal:
Rather the status of Bhutto- Musharraf "deal that is no deal" is like the liberated Chinese woman described by Mao Tse- tung: "She doesn't exist. But she is beginning to want to exist".
(...) The deal's terms exist, according to sources. They are that Musharraf would be re- elected Pakistan's president for another five years by the present national and provincial assembles later this year. Bhutto would return to Pakistan, with the corruption cases against her and her family dropped. Free and fair general elections would he held, "uninfluenced" by Pakistan's ubiquitous intelligence agencies. Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) would form the next government, in coalition with Musharraf's Pakistan Muslim League-Q (PML-Q).
(...) For Musharraf, the compulsion is strategic and tactical. Strategically, say sources, he has realised the Pakistan army's historical alliance with the Islamists is untenable in the post 9/11 world, especially given the army's financial and political dependence on Washington. Coaxed by the Americans, he is therefore seeking another political constituency that would widen his legitimacy at home and license his pro-American policies abroad. The PPP is the perfect partner -- it is opposed to the Taliban, supports Musharraf's crackdown on Al-Qaeda and has applauded the peace process with India.
[two fronts of crisis:]
(...) The first is the ferocious political backlash caused by his decision to suspend Pakistan's chief justice, Iftikar Mohamed Chaudhry, on 9 March. The fall-out has not only meant gathering protests in Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi. It has united all shades of the Pakistan opposition around the twin demands of Chaudhry's reinstatement and Musharraf's resignation. "Musharraf has never been weaker than he is today," says analyst Hassan Askari Rizvi.
(...) The second is what Bhutto calls the "creeping Talibanisation" of Pakistan. In the last six months pro-Taliban Islamists have spread their retrograde brand of rule from the tribal areas next to Afghanistan to Peshawar to, in places, Islamabad. The latest taste of their lash was on 28 April, when a suicide bomber exploded next to Pakistan interior minister, Aftab Sherpao, at a public meeting in Charsadda, near Peshawar. Sherpao escaped with perforated eardrums. But 33 others were murdered. It was the eighth suicide attack in Pakistan this year, all aimed at ministers, the army, police and hotels and airports frequented by foreigners -- the very emblems of Musharraf's pro-Western military government.

pakistan and musharraf:
"When the army sued for peace with pro-Taliban tribesmen in the Waziristans in 2005 and 2006, it was not because of a new holistic' strategy for the tribal areas, as sold by (Pervez) Musharraf to Washington," Usher said. "It was because of the army's military and political defeat." In 56 years of independence, Pakistani soldiers had never set foot in the Waziristans, "part of the trade-off for keeping the tribes loyal," Usher said, and when they did the numbers of civilians killed and displaced were in the thousands. Malik Qadir Khan, a tribal leader in North Waziristan explained, "Everyone supported the Taliban when the army came in. It was a people's revolt. Pakistan had broken its promise, and that's a big thing in the tribal areas. You don't break your promise."
(...) Although U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney's advice to Musharraf has been to "go after them," journalist Rahimullah Yousafzai, an expert on the tribal areas believes, "every use of force is a victory for the militants." Yousafzai said the answer "must involve a strategy that provides education and jobs for thousands of impoverished and unemployed youth, who are ready recruits for the Taliban."
(...) The tensions in the tribal regions will not lessen until Pakistan has a civilian government, historian Ahmed Rashid told Usher. "Only a civilian government can bring reform. You cannot have free elections in the tribal areas when there are no free elections in Pakistan," Rashid said.
(...) Cheney flew into Islamabad to deliver a "tough message" to Musharraf, namely he was upset by peace agreements Musharraf signed with pro-Taliban tribesmen along Pakistan's border areas with Afghanistan, Usher wrote. "Bloodied by Iraq, the Bush Administration has realized that Afghanistan could tip the same way." Since 9/11, Pakistan has received $10-billion in direct U.S. aid and as much again in covert aid, "most of it military," The Nation article says.

on 'counterterrorism' in pakistan:
Speaking at a counterterrorism conference here in the capital, Musharraf acknowledged for the first time that Pakistan's military had been assisting the tribesmen in their battle against mostly Uzbek militants who have found a haven in the remote, lawless region of South Waziristan.