Pervez Musharraf had cricket star Imran Khan arrested:
Police in Pakistan arrested cricket legend Imran Khan and later charged him under anti-terrorism laws after he emerged from hiding to join a student protest Wednesday…
Khan, who led Pakistan to cricket World Cup glory in 1992, founded a small but vocal opposition party and called for Musharraf to be hanged for treason after the military ruler imposed emergency rule on November 3.
Mark Steyn at NRO remarks:
Imran is a ghastly opportunist who played a big part in fomenting Newsweek’s phony-baloney Koran-in-a-can story. But it’s hard to see what Musharraf has to gain by arresting him. I wonder if the finer points of the “emergency” are slipping beyond his control.
Steyn, of course, is dead wrong. Musharraf understands the finer points perfectly well- the Decider decides who is a threat, the Decider then throws them in jail to protect us from danger using “terrorism” as the justification, and then the decider detains them forever, sometimes in a secret location, sometimes sending them to Syria, and often times torturing them ourselves.
Musharraf understand things very well, and even though Marc Steyn is British Canadian, by now he should understand this is just the American way of doing things. Hell, he and his amoral and idiotic cohort have spent the better part of the last 6 years making this the new reality. You would think they would recognize it in practice.
cleek
nobody else is allowed to use the New American Way. it’s such a tricky balance that only the pure-of-heart (a.k.a. Americans) can manage it.
jake
And the incoherent babble gets shriller.
“No really, it’s okay that an ally in the wah on terrah, supposed leader of a democracy and Osama bin Laden baby sitter is a despot. If he doesn’t lock up everyone who won’t say he’s a swell guy the giant Underpants Gnomes of Armageddon will eat our shorts! [Drools]”
I wonder if these guys are remembering to bathe.
RSA
I wonder about NRO writers. You’d think that the arrest of a famous dissident by a military dictator would prompt some kind of condemnation. But no, it’s “the guy was a jerk anyway” and “What does this says about the dictator’s control of the country?”
maxbaer (not the original)
I’m thinking that Imran Khan has huge cajones and Mark Steyn has none.
El Cid
Hmmm. Steyn & NRO might be idiots, but on the other hand, by now they ought to be among the world’s premiere experts on “ghastly opportunist[s]“.
mclaren
Musharraf gives it the old colelge try, but he’s not getting it right. First, the victim must be innocent, like Dilawar the cab driver who was tortured to death in American custody:
Dilawar is now recognized as a cab driver with no connections to any terrorists who was sold to the U.S. military for the $1500 bounty by an unscrupulous Afghan warlord.
Imran Khan actually did something — he joined a demonstration. The real American way is to pick someone completely innocent and torture him to death. That demonstrates that there are no limits on American power. It’s the old Stalin method — it proves no one is safe, anyone can be snatched up and tortured and murdered in the blink of an eye, so you’d better keep your mouth shut and toe the line.
And Musharraf pussied out — he arrested Imarn Khan. That’s not the American way! Arrest? What the hell is that? You get habeas corpus with an arrest! That’s not America in 2007! Ya gotta grab the guy in the middle of the night, slap a black bag over his head, then dump him on a private jet to “disappear” him for torture in a distant locale. Siberia. Or “extraorindary rendition.” Or the isolated jungle where the El Savador junta raped and murdered those nuns. Or one of Pol Pot’s killing fields. Same difference. The disappearance is what terrorizes the populace into submission. That’s the American way. One day the guy is there, the next day he’s just gone. That’s what really makes it effective. Musharraf isn’t doing it right.
If Musharraf wanted to really follow the American example, he’d pick a completely innocent bystander, preferably a kid or a woman, kidnap ’em, torture ’em to death, then declare it “death by natural causes” and pin a medal on the chest of the torturers who murdered ’em. That’s real shock and awe, American-style.
The Norwegian visiting professor Johan Galtung talks about this a lot better than I can here.
John Cole
MClaren, you are not allowed to post again until you read this post.
Svensker
I thought Steyn was Canadian?
John Cole
He is. I brainfarted with his British Commonwealth comment.
Dave Ruddell
Sevnsker,
According to wiki he did a lot of his growing up in England, but you’re right, he’s usually identified as being from the Home and Native Land.
Notorious P.A.T.
I thought Steyn was Canadian?
“The Queen is on his money, so he’s British” (Dr. House)
Mark Steyn is an expert at deciding what is right and what is wrong. After all, it was he who had the blinding moral brilliance to declare that a 12 year old child is ‘fair game’.
Xanthippas
Note how Khan’s naughtiness is measured by his participation in the Newsweek-Koran story, an issue of outrage to the right and a story that is ONLY relevant to an American audience. Imran Khan’s actions that are relevant to the Pakistani crisis? Undiscussed, and irrelevant.
Steyn probably only wishes that Musharraf had the power to round up American “traitors” as well.
pseudonymous in nc
Steyn is essentially the acolyte of Conrad Black, without the hilarious ‘give up Canadian citizenship to get a title, then risk being barred for life from Canada as a convicted felon’ thing. He owes his entire career to the peculiar form of patronage that Con the Con bestowed upon him. Now that Lord Black of Block D is somewhat occupied, his frailties as a writer (and human being) are all too clearly on show.
As for Imran, one thing you can say is that he’s got cleaner hands than Benazir Bhutto, and that he could very easily have lived a sedate expat life in London after retiring from cricket, but chose not enter the not-particularly-safe world of Pakistani politics.
horatius
John,
We already knew you were shrill. But what we didn’t count on was you being lazy. Who is Mark Steyn? Name rings no bell.
But say Mark “Canada’s Leading Asshole” Steyn and suddenly we know who it is, that’s pulling this fetid pile of extrement from deep up his anus.
Svensker
There ya go.
fahs ibair
Snap! You got em this time, Cole. KSM and this Khan fellow? Two sides of the same coin. Just like Bush/Musharraf.
Truth to power!