Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Machiavelli Checks In

For some really splendid, splendid, El Jefe-channelling thinking on President Musharraf's situation, see James S. Robbins' very entertaining and well thought-out piece today, at National Review Online, here.
Boiled down, Mr. Robbins suggests finding some tame lawyers to read the constitution the right way; holding elections under favorable (i.e. controlled) conditions; ignoring the US and Euro do-gooders wringing their hands all over the place; and, looking effective and keeping the Americans on board by bagging Bin Laden. In general, all this sounds good, if the Pakistani Army will play along, and if, as Robbins puts it, the President-General watches his back with Madame Bhutto.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

i'm surprised those elders guys aren't milking this. you know jimmah cawhta, nelson mandela, desmond tutu(sp), that said they would be willing to over see any ones problems and come up with the correst and just decision.
just like you said, no americans.
right?

and for that matter, just what in the hel* is a tame lawyer? i've heard a lot of adjectives used with the word lawyer, but never tame............

have you been playing with that word verification thingy again?????

El Jefe Maximo said...

Oh, if one is a Man on Horseback establishing a regime of justice, truth and enlightenment, (or what the local newspapers will call such, if they know what's good for them), there's never ever any problem finding lawyers and bureaucrats to dot the I's and cross the T's and put the police state into proper legal form.

Lawyers and bureaucrats are part of your basic set of empire-building blocks -- and a would be dictator can always find some (but by no means all) ready to support whatever regime signs the checks this week. The common denominator here is "careerist."

Of course, when things go bad for the would-be Savior of His Country, the same suspects are always the first to claim that they don't know the guy, never liked him, and were just obeying orders -- and that they've always been for the republic, for the king, for the people, or against General X and for General Y, or who and whatever.

Yeah, I hate the word verification thingy, but ads for the latest form of viagra or Vegas betting are worse.