Musharraf's Coup

Against himself.

Which Musharraf is in charge in Pakistan?

Why the one who opposes liberal democracy while cuddling up to Islamic fundamentalist parties and the Taliban.

He won't take off the uniform and he won't run in elections without it. And even if he does take off the uniform you can't take the uniform out of the man. Or the dictator out of office even if he is elected.

And I am not sure why everyone is surprised at his actions since he telegraphed them in his musings last summer.

Since imposing emergency rule, the targets of President Pervez Musharraf's crackdown have not been the Islamic militants who took over a northwestern town Tuesday but thousands of lawyers and liberal activists from the secular mainstream that Musharraf has said he wants to rally against extremists.With the constitution suspended, authorities have assumed sweeping powers to detain without charge. In all, opposition groups have reported at least 3,500 arrests in the past three days, many of them lawyers.
On Saturday night, when Musharraf declared the emergency, Pakistan's top human rights defender was watching him explain on TV why such an authoritarian step was needed to combat terrorism when police knocked at her door to tell her she had been placed under house arrest.

The next morning — just hours after she and many judges, lawyers and activists were detained — Asma Jehangir laughed bitterly as she read newspaper headlines: The government had granted amnesty to dozens of pro-Taliban militants in the violence-plagued northwest.
Ali Dayan Hasan, South Asia researcher for Human Rights Watch, said the crackdown, that has also seen independent television news networks blacked out, was a targeted assault on liberal and secular elements of society pushing for the accountability of Pakistan's rulers.
"This is not a free for all. It has been very systematic and brutal and has targeted specific groups of people," he said Ali Dayan Hasan. "It is a coup against civil society."

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