Musharraf would enjoy Janet Albrechtsen's writings 

Greg Barns writes: 

While one wouldn't make a comparison between Pakistani dictator Pervez Musharraf and John Howard or Philip Ruddock, or even the UK Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, they all have one thing in common - they each think that the judiciary and lawyers get in the way of the fight against terrorism. 

Musharraf reportedly told diplomats yesterday that he took the action he did to impose martial law over the weekend because certain decisions by the judiciary "created impediments in the fight against terrorism". In other words, the Pakistani judges had found some backbone and were ensuring that individual rights and liberties were not obliterated in the name of the war on terror. 

Last week Gordon Brown's Home Secretary Jacqui Smith was bemoaning the fact that the House of Lords found that a preventative detention order imposed on a terror suspect that required him to stay at home for 18 hours each day was a breach of human rights. "I am disappointed that they have found against control orders containing 18-hour curfews, which I feel was required to protect national security," said Smith last Thursday. 

John Howard and Philip Ruddock and their media cheer squad, led by The Australian's Janet Albrechtsen have fulminated against judges and lawyers who dare to advocate for fairness and justice in cases involving terror suspects. Ditto Kevin Andrews who simply ignored Brisbane magistrate Jacqui Payne's considered decision to grant Gold Coast doctor Mohamed Haneef bail in June.  

Speaking of Albrechtsen, no doubt President Musharraf would endorse every word of her rantings in The Oz about activist judges. Her latest bizarre writings on the topic, published October 31, have her musing that a Rudd government might appoint judges who believe in human rights having a central role in the law! She berates Victoria's Court of Appeal President Chris Maxwell for being "rather keen on bringing nebulous notions of human rights and international law into his courtroom wherever possible." How appalling.  

As I said, President Musharraf would enjoy her writings.

When their TV screens suddenly went fuzzy on Saturday afternoon, most Pakistanis felt they had seen it all before. Their country has, after all, spent 33 of its 60 years under military rule. The troops surrounding the TV and radio stations, the phone networks down, the round-up of opponents, the concertina wire across Constitution Avenue blocking off the Presidency, Parliament and Supreme Court . . . all these have been a periodic feature of Pakistan’s politics. 

But this time the army chief imposing what amounted to martial law was himself already the President. ‘General Musharraf now has the dubious distinction of being the only man in Pakistan’s history to have suspended the Constitution twice,’ said Husain Haqqani, who has managed to be at various times an adviser to the military, and rival party leaders and former prime ministers Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto. 

Unlike previous coups, the main targets of arrest were not political leaders or militants but judges, lawyers and human rights activists. Seven of the Supreme Court’s 11 judges were locked up and the chief justice placed under house arrest. Musharraf’s main aim was to pre-empt a ruling from the Supreme Court this week which had been expected to declare illegal his recent re-election as President. 

Soon We’ll See If Musharraf Is A Man Of His Word

So this is what it has come to?  

The President of the United States has become so completely morally bankrupted that he has taken to publicly and vehemently defending a dictator.  

Gulp - that's hard to swallow! One day Musharraf is cracking heads, rounding up and jailing the political opposition, scrapping Pakistan's Constitution, disbanding the courts and imprisoning lawyers, and the next day - Saturday to be exact - Mister Bush is practically making him out to be the second coming of George Washington. That's embarrassing! 

As if that weren't bad enough and embarrassing enough - and it seems to be more than enough - by Monday George W. will be telling the world that he invaded Iraq, destabilized the Palestinian territories, and talked Israel into bombing Lebanon and undermining its democratic institutions so that he could bring "democracy" to the Middle East.  

Now, that'll really be embarrassing! 

Mister Bush Is An Embarrassment

President Bush yesterday offered his strongest support of embattled Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, saying the general "hasn't crossed the line" and "truly is somebody who believes in democracy."  

Bush spoke nearly three weeks after Musharraf declared emergency rule, sacked members of the Supreme Court and began a roundup of journalists, lawyers and human rights activists. Musharraf's government yesterday released about 3,000 political prisoners, although 2,000 remain in custody, according to the Interior Ministry.  

The comments, delivered in an interview with ABC News anchor Charles Gibson, contrasted with previous administration statements -- including by Bush himself -- expressing grave concern over Musharraf's actions. In his first public comments on the crisis two weeks ago, Bush said his aides bluntly warned Musharraf that his emergency measures "would undermine democracy."  

Bush More Emphatic In Backing Musharraf

Not long ago, attorneys across the United States organized to protest Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf's move to dissolve that country's Supreme Court.

In city after city, black-clad lawyers ostentatiously assembled in public to send a message halfway around the world about the importance of the rule of law. 

For sure, there's bad stuff happening in Pakistan. So good for my fellow attorneys for objecting, even though something tells me President Musharraf isn't much moved by the views of a bunch of American lawyers, if he even got wind of their protests at all. 

But where were all those American attorneys over the past six years, as the Bush administration and both Republicans and Democrats in Congress have shredded our own Constitution and Bill of Rights?

Apparently doing the same thing as most everyone else: going along, sheep-like, as our leaders take us down the path toward the total state. 

Chronicling The Shredding Of Our Rights Since 9/11