General Musharraf's Democracy

Worst Ever? ..........Already the historians across the US are assessing whether G. W Bush is the worst president ever. He started two disastrous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, ostensibly under false pretexts, failed his own citizens facing a natural calamity and completely isolated the US from the rest of the world. All in a term and a half. His major accomplice on the international scene, Tony Blair is under intense pressure in UK to resign for toeing Bush. After Blair, Musharraf is the next "tight buddy" Bush has. So the jury is out on his seven years in power too. Lets begin by comparing him to his military predecessors. The pile on Ayub's table is the unequal distribution of resources (creating 21 rich families including his own) and planting the seed of separation of East Pakistan. He lost the 1965 War (let us have the courage to admit). Yahya Khan lost not just the Eastern wing of the country but also quite a chunk of territory in Kashmir as well that we never acknowledged. (PN Dhar's "Indira Gandhi, the Emergency and Indian Democracy" OUP India 2000 p.184). Zia lost Siachen and handed over the country to jihadis and the smugglers of narcotics. General Musharraf is before us; he has reneged on his seven point agenda. If only he had fulfilled his "replacing the sham democracy with the real one", he could be placed somewhere on the pedestal of history. His other owned and accepted major failure (disaster) is the "provincial harmony". The federation was never weaker before. -ASLAM MINHAS, Karachi, via e-mail, February 20.

What USA wants from Pak General ?

Pressuring al-Qaida is not without its risks for Musharraf, who faces an election this fall. McConnell acknowledged that efforts to pursue the terror group must be balanced with the desire to keep Musharraf — a moderate and a U.S. ally — in charge of Pakistan and its nuclear arsenal