A Healthy Democracy

Seven years after he ignored a PDB warning that Al Qaeda was determined to attack the US, more than five years after he lied us into a war with a country that was no threat to us, nearly three years after Hurricane Katrina wiped out a major US city and a great deal of the Gulf Coast while he played air guitar and golf, George W. Bush is still President of the United States. Hundreds of thousands of people died, were maimed, of left homeless and destitute on his watch, and yet the man still holds the highest office in the country, perhaps in the world.

Meanwhile, while President Bush is vacationing in Beijing, enjoying the Olympics on the taxpayers' dime, President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan is at home facing impeachment. Pretty amazing, that.

From an op-ed piece in The Guardian (U.K.):

Pakistan has reached a watershed moment in its short history. For the first time in its six decades of existence, formal proceedings are in train to remove a sitting military head of state. In some respects, recent events reflect past experiences. The Pakistan supreme court has previously declared the Yahya Khan and Zia ul-Haq dictatorships illegal. On both occasions, however, the decisions occurred after the two men had relinquished power. The current decision to impeach Musharraf, should he fail a vote of confidence in the national assembly, is somewhat unprecedented. It is a shot in the arm for the rule of law in Pakistan. ...

It's interesting to compare the impeachment efforts in Pakistan and the US, given their stark contrasts. Pakistan is a desperately poor, lower-tier power mired in years of corruption and a recent upsurge in violence instigated in part by elements of its own military intelligence. The US, in comparison, is the wealthiest, most powerful nation on the planet. Yet it too has been mired in political corruption and economic scandals. In their own ways, the countries share an alarming addiction to military corporatism. Both Pakistan under Musharraf and the US under Bush favour military solutions to political problems.

An interesting comparison, indeed. Yet there is a significant difference between the two countries, and it has to do with each country's elected parliament/congress, those lawmakers more directly responsible to the citizenry.

Nancy Pelosi, Democratic speaker of the house, opposes impeachment because "it would be divisive for the country". But, "if somebody had a crime that the president had committed," she mentioned flippantly on American television recently, "that would be a different story." Presumably the jury is out on Iraq until photos of Bush doing the thumbs-up at Abu Ghraib are unearthed. ...

...for whatever reasons, Pakistan's politicians have taken a calculated risk. If they fail it will only serve to validate Musharraf. That they decided to proceed regardless is something to celebrate. Democracies, let alone coalition governments in a country as volatile as Pakistan, are complex animals. The impeachment proceedings against Musharraf are proof that Pakistan's politicians can occasionally rise above their nation's traumas to seek accountability for a dictator who has been consistently supported by the west. [Emphasis added]

Do you suppose the Pakistani politicians would be willing to give some lessons in democracy to our Congress? It surely is sorely needed.

164 days.