| Facing imminent impeachment charges, President Pervez Musharraf announced his resignation on Monday, after months of belated recognition by American officials that he had become a waning asset in the campaign against terrorism. |
Since it comes from the keyboard of a New York Times Company employee named J. Perlez , we may happily identify two of the parties most visibly present as Parvezites and Parlezites. It is hopefully needless to explain yet again that "American officials" is but a transparent euphemism referring to operatives of the AEI-GOP-DOD-USIP Coalition of the Willful™ -- "Crawfordites" will do for abbreviatory purposes. The Perlezites are only indirectly alluded to, admittedly, yet they are undoubtedly there: they are the ones who consider the Crawfordite recognition "belated" and would, one presumes, have ditched His Excellency long since if they ran the Executive Branch.
Last, and least, and least distinctly noted, comes somebody-or-another who is out to imminently impeach His ex-Excellency. "Pakistanis" is, I believe, the technical name for this small and uninfluential faction. What on Gore’s green earth they make of NYTC corporate coverage of their local and native human events is beyond guesswork, at least not bedore I have had a couple more cups of coffee.
Perhaps mistakenly thinking an op-ed scribble had been solicited, the keyboard of JP of NYTC grinds the Perlezite faction axe relentlessly:
| The decision removes from Pakistan’s political stage the leader who for nearly nine years served as one of the United States’ most important — and ULTIMATELY UNRELIABLE — allies. And it now LEAVES [the Crawfordites] TO DEAL with a new, elected coalition that has so far proved itself to be UNWILLING OR UNABLE to confront an expanding Taliban insurgency determined to topple the government ... to add a NEW LAYER OF TURBULENCE to an ALREADY UNSTABLE nuclear-armed nation of 165 million people ... and RELATIONS between the countries are AT THEIR LOWEST POINT since Mr. Musharraf pledged to ally Pakistan with the United States after the 9/11 attacks.... |
And so forth and so on. The keyboard goes overboard, it seems to me, and I am almost tempted to be sorry for the vigilante cowpokers, who have more reason than elsewhere to object with their traditional Big Management Party mantras "History is bunk!" and "That was then. This is now!" If the keyboard of Jane Perlez, idiot niece to corporate Aunt Nitsy, is so smart, then, what does it propose to do about Bushogenic Quagmire #3 of 11?
Not a hard question, Mr. Bones, if thee do not care much about the quality of the answer:
| [T]o fix the attention of the two leaders of the coalition parties, Asif Ali Zardari and Nawaz Sharif, on the raging Taliban insurgency that not only threatens American soldiers in Afghanistan but also threatens to destabilize Pakistan itself |
The sixth word from the end there has to be one of the world’s all-time great Alsos: provided the armed operatives of AEI-GOP-DOD-USIP are attended to, which must naturally come first and foremost, the corporate keyboard would not mind if Pakistan should somehow fail to be destabilised. Amongst other idiocies, Mr. Bones, thee may observe how the Perlezite faction turns poor old Carl von Clausewitz topsy-turvy: politics and policy are to be mustered in support of the violence professionals, not vice versa. The Crawfordite aggressors have been accused of somethin’ similar as regards the former Iraq, though I do not think that case can be made out persuasively.
What one might expect, but does not actually find, in the GOP geniuses down at the ranch is thrown in one’s face by the New York Times Company. From Nitsy one had expected at least a solemn pretense that natives and locals matter too; perhaps the old girl’s heart would not really be in the Eleanor Roosevelt verbiage, but I, for one, took for granted that Nitsy still remembers the 1945 verbiage and would reiterate it on such an occasion as this one in 2008. I was wrong, sir. I was undoubtedly wrong.
O tempora, O mores!, Civilisation is swallowed up by Huntin’tonian Clashism™ and mere witless Perlezism!
Speaking of witlessness, the Perlezite factional keyboard emphatically does not regard the natives and locals -- most of ’em -- as very clever:
| Washington would like the new government to explain to the public that the effort to quell the Taliban is in Pakistan’s interests as well. So far, the coalition, distracted by internal machinations, has failed to make that case, even as the military has taken on the insurgents with new vigor in the last 10 days. |
Thee can not, I trust, miss the military silver lining that Miss Jane sees peeping out from behind the cloud there. Pakkies are not very bright in general, but fortunately Sandhurst and West Point can remedy the deficiency. ’Tis a familiar old song when sung by the barracks-basers themselves, however strange and discordant it sounds when scored for Manhattan Island fishwrap consort. I suppose there was originally something to be said for it from a social-scientizing point of view: under old-fashioned Greater Levantine and Latin American conditions, it will have seemed antecedently believable that the patriot colonels and generals would be more genuinely patriotic than the rest of the oligarquía from which they spring. After fifty or a hundred years of experience, this thesis looks more than a little shopworn and unrealistic. Thee are to consider, however, O Bones, that the chickenhawk OnePercenters cannot be exactly the same in 1429/2008 as they were in 1326/1908. Tempora mutantur nos et mutamur in illis ! [1]
In the wake of His Excellency, neoteric Perlezites are bound to consider an alliance with the palaeo-Crawfordite crew, ‘belatedly’ notwithstandin’. Both old and new factionalists agree that native and local druthers are immaterial compared with the safeguardin’ and advancin’ of Wunnerful US:
| “We’ve said for years that Musharraf is our best bet, and my fear is that we are about to discover how true that was,” one senior Bush administration official said, acknowledging that the United States had stuck with Mr. Musharraf for too long and developed few other relationships in Pakistan to fall back on. |
Major Leaker must be a Perlezite dressed up in cowboy costume. It would be interesting to know what he and Miss Jane said to one another about other eligible Pakkies with whom they might develop a meanin’ful relationship. The latter goes on to advise her corporation’s customers that "suspicions between the American and Pakistani intelligence agencies and their militaries are deepening," which sounds as if she, any way, is not thinkin’ of simply rescrapin’ the gun barrel that Gen. Musharraf came out of. What, if anythin’, Maj. Leaker himself has in mind to do cannot be determined from available data.
Miss Jane spends the rest of her scribble descantin’ on a variety of things that might go wrong even farther:
| (...) Pakistan has been through far more abrupt political transitions than this one [but] this is the first since it amassed a large nuclear arsenal. Another central concern is the war in Afghanistan (...). |
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Now if thee were to squint at Bushogenic Quagmire Number Three (of eleven) just right, Mr. Bones, thee might take up a blithe and heedless local-and-native attitude and rather enjoy theeself. Imagine being a blissfully ignorant Pakkie, sir! Or rather, imagine being a Pakkie who sees clearly enough that what is obviously bad for Crawfordites and for Perlezites and even, to a certain extent, for Pervezites closer to home need not be especially bad for mere Pakistanis.
We just quoted Sic vos non vobis mellificatis apes the other day, and here we have a sort of photographic negative thereof: your run-of-the-mill Pakkie native or local seems to be in a position to cause lots and lots of trouble for all the Masters of the Universe, actual and potential and wannabe, without making her own position any worse than it already is. The Latin fortune cookie for that one is Vacuus cantat coram latrone viator.
BGKB. Happy days.
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[1] The chickenhawk poet’s Patron presided over the most satisfactory mutation of all in this department. Perhaps the secret of Octavian’s sucess was that he was never really a violence pro at heart, though naturally he would not have lasted six weeks without simulation of one. Being the Son of his Father, or grandnephew to his granduncle, or whatever, furnished him with hereditary military credentials, as it were, that worked admirably because they were never subjected to close scrutiny except by obviously jealous Republican and Antonian losers.
Gen. Musharraf is not like that.
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