A Friend In Need ...

At first glance, the current state of national affairs in Pakistan may seem as though the long-prophesized nightmare of the liberals has come true.

Since Nov. 3, President and military leader Pervez Musharraf has declared martial law, dismissed the country’s Supreme Court justices and installed his own, cracked down on the media, shut down most human rights organizations, suspended habeas corpus and threw his political opponents in jail.

As Patrick Buchanan mentions in his Nov. 6 blog post, Abraham Lincoln was forced to do many of the same things during his “reign” as president, and I’ll add that liberals, by and large, have had very little trouble with what he did. Further, our own President Bush has suspended habeas corpus for some people with few adverse results.

The facts behind these shocking moves are complicated, but it is important to remember that when the towers fell on Sept. 11, 2001, and the rest of the world stood still, mouths agape, Musharraf stepped up to offer his help as one of our only Middle Eastern allies

Let us not forget, either, that Musharraf’s political opponent, Benazir Bhutto is no saint. As Ann Coulter points out in her Nov. 14 column, Bhutto was found guilty in an independent Swiss court of money laundering after being convicted by the Pakistani Supreme Court on corruption charges. The Supreme Court justices released earlier this month by Musharraf later exonerated Bhutto and set up her return.

Musharraf, who rose to accept the heavy responsibilities we asked him to perform after 9/11, can apparently see the bigger picture in his own country. Who are we to say what he is doing is wrong?