Police Block Bhutto From Attending Rally

President Musharraf has placed his security forces outside the home of Benazir Bhutto in what can only be assumed is an attempt to prevent her from attending the protest rally due to be held against Musharraf's imposement of martial law in Pakistan.

Hours before the scheduled rally, though, lines of police officers turned her house in Islamabad into a fortress, placing concrete barriers and barbed wire at the entrance road and said she would not be permitted to attend. But her party said there was no formal order of detention. A trickle of party members was allowed into the house, but no one was allowed out.

Ms. Bhutto’s chief political aide, Naheed Khan, said, “The rally is on.”

President Bush has been worse than ineffectual whilst this crisis has been playing out, praising the General as a "partner in the war on terror" whilst Musharraf carried out a coup against his own government.

Musharraf's promise that elections would be held before February 15th have been praised by the White House as a "good thing" whilst the rest of the planet treats the promise with suspicion.

“There have been so many dates given,” one diplomat said of the various plans cabinet members have mentioned in the last few days about elections and the end of emergency rule. “People are going to continue exerting pressure.”

There were many questions about whether the pledge was “real,” the diplomat said. Even as the general gave some relief to Western concerns on elections, his statement was at least as notable for what it omitted.

He failed to specifically address when he would remove himself as the head of the Pakistani Army, a point that Mr. Bush said he had stressed in his 20-minute phone call on Wednesday.

Nor did he stipulate a date for the end of his de facto martial law, under which almost all independent television stations remain off the air, the judicial system has been effectively dismantled and large rallies banned.

Bush has understandably got to tread carefully when dealing with nuclear Pakistan, a nation who traditionally supported the Taliban and whose population are in danger of becoming vehemently anti-American. But Bush's policy of backing Musharraf no matter what makes a mockery of his claims to wish to export democracy worldwide.

The deal Bush has struck has been made not with the nation but with one man, Musharraf. Musharraf has made himself desperately unpopular with both his own population and with the Americans by accepting a deal that he will never be able to deliver on to the satisfaction of either side.

The deal is that he will get billions of dollars in aid as long as he is prepared to take the fight to the Taliban and al Qaeda. The problem is that the minute he attempts to take on the Taliban and al Qaeda he enrages large swathes of his own population.

The Pakistanis are well aware that the US is a fair weather friend and that their own interests are being ignored while Musharraf carries out US policy in the region.

The truth is that in the war on terror Pakistan is not a natural ally. It's President is being forced to do America's bidding, which he is largely doing against the will of his people. Again, this is very strange territory for a President who claims to love the democratic ideal.

Joe Biden has suggested a solution:

We've got to engage the Pakistani people directly, and address issues important to them, not just to us. On Afghanistan, Iraq, the Palestinians, Kashmir, Pakistanis want a respectful hearing. We owe them that at least that much.

Ask an ordinary Pakistani to list his top concerns about America and you may get answers unrelated to international grand strategy: our visa policy and textile quotas.

Or she might raise Abu Ghraib and Gitmo or water-boarding and other forms of torture the Bush Administration still refuses to renounce. Pakistanis don't see these as mere "issues." They see these things as a moral stain on the soul of our nation. In my judgment, so should we.

I have no idea whether or not the suggestions that Biden makes in this article - increased aid dependent on an improved performance at tackling terrorism - would work. But he raises one very important point. The US needs to accept that, at the moment, the Pakistani people do not agree with America's war aims and many of them are more naturally allied to the Taliban and al Qaeda.

If this is a war of ideas then more needs to be done to tackle why so many of the people of Pakistan do not share the US's aims. It's not enough to place a puppet at the head of the government and insist that he does your bidding. At some point you have to engage with the people.

A man who claims to wish to export democracy should know that. But Bush has become so used to seeing his own ignoring of the opinions of the American people (towards the war in Iraq) as a sign of strength, that he appears to think that this cavalier attitude can be attempted anywhere.

Pakistan is not the place to try that, as the current unrest shows.

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Tags: Musharraf, Benazir Bhutto, Bush, Biden, Pakistan, elections, martial law