From the NYT, September 2, 2005

By SOMINI SENGUPTA and HARI KUMAR

IMPHAL, India - A garland of red hibiscus adorned the dead man's portrait, and provisions for the afterlife were laid out for the mourners to see: new slippers and towel, a white undershirt, dessert plates piled high with bananas and sugar-cane candy.

Rameshwar Ahanthem, 26, a day laborer mistaken for a guerrilla, was beaten to death by Indian troops. His killing came under the aegis of a law that gives Indian troops extraordinary powers to quash ethnic insurgencies in this part of the country. His funeral rite on a midsummer afternoon offered a snapshot of the routine, gnawing anguish of daily life in the remote and forgotten state of Manipur.

The conflict here is more remarkable for its stamina than its death toll: roughly 200 people a year have been killed in the last few years, according to official statistics, far fewer than in Kashmir, for instance.

As in much of the Indian northeast, Manipur has been engulfed by civil conflict virtually since the birth of the country a half-century ago. The only change over the years is that the number of guerrilla groups has mushroomed.

Today, even as India flexes its muscle on the world stage, Manipur stands as an emblem of its unfinished business of binding together its people to resolve what Sanjib Baruah, a political scientist who studies conflict in the northeast, calls "India against itself."

"India's nation-building project is in more trouble in northeast India than it is usually realized," said Mr. Baruah, a professor at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y., who is spending this year in India. "We have not done very well in terms of winning hearts and minds."

The rest of India - to say nothing of the world beyond - is all but blind to the plight of this restive corner of the country, part of a lush, hilly swatch of land that juts out of the east toward Myanmar.

Foreign journalists must have permits to even set foot in the state, and those are only rarely issued. India's home minister, Shivraj Patil, in an interview earlier this year offered this justification for the virtual prohibition against foreign journalists: "Because you are so interested."

The conflict dates to the creation of modern India. Like Kashmir in the north, Manipur was a princely state under British rule, and its incorporation into Indian territory in 1949, two years after independence, remains a sore point among many Manipuris.

More than a dozen ethnic armies operate here, each with its own separatist agenda. What they share is a deep distrust of Indian soldiers and a sense of apartness. In the half-century of conflict, India has poured in troops and money. But neither seems to have stanched political grievances or everyday misery.

"Our lives are not secure," is how Rashtrapati Singh, an engineer with the state public works department, put it. He was among 200 engineers who quit because of threats from insurgents this summer. "You cannot bear the pressure," he said.

Extortion by guerrilla forces is common. Economic blockades, most recently for two months this summer by the Naga hill tribes demanding a separate homeland, regularly choke the flow of fuel and medicine coming into the state. In early July, Naga protesters set fire to dozens of government offices across the state.

In April, a mob from another ethnic faction, angered at the use of Bengali rather than Manipuri script in official documents, burned down the state library here in Imphal, the state capital, and with it a trove of rare archives; they lie today in a half-burned heap on the yard outside.

To make matters worse, heroin addiction and AIDS have cut a devastating swath across Manipur. A handful of guerrilla groups responded to the crisis last year by mounting an audacious antivice crusade that included shooting the kneecaps of those deemed to be corrupt or addicted, from drug dealers to snuff addicts to local government officials.

The vice chancellor of the local university in Imphal fell victim last December, allegedly over the appointment of a university employee; he now hobbles around with a cane and remains too fearful to speak about his fate.

Then there is the seething grievance against the Indian troops and paramilitary forces that saturate the state, and particularly against the sweeping powers they are granted by the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, which allows them to search, detain and interrogate anyone suspected of guerrilla activity.

In practice the law, which applies only in the northeast, makes it next to impossible to hold soldiers accountable to a civilian court. To take any member of the Indian armed forces to court, the central government must give special permission, which it rarely does.

Manipur erupted in anger against the law after the killing of Thanjam Manorama in July 2004. Ms. Manorama, 32, was taken from her home in the dark of night, shot dead and left in a field.

Semen stains were found on her underwear, according to reports in the Indian news media. The military said she was a militant and challenged a state government inquiry into her killing, citing the Special Powers Act. An army spokesman said in a recent interview that there was no conclusive evidence of rape.

The attack against Ms. Manorama set Manipur boiling. In one of the starkest acts of protest the country has ever seen, nearly a dozen elderly women stripped themselves naked, stood in front of the military base in Imphal and held up a haunting imperative on a homemade white banner: "Indian Army Rape Us."

Last November, on the heels of the protests, the government in New Delhi set up a panel to review the law. That panel submitted its recommendations in June, but they have not been made public. Accounts in the Indian press suggest that parts of the law may be amended, but there have been no suggestions from officials that the law will be scrapped.

"It will be old wine in new bottle," said a local human rights worker, Babloo Loitongbam.

Calls for the law's repeal continue. Its most celebrated opponent is a Sharmila Irom, who lies in a hospital bed, between life and death, officially in police custody. Ms. Irom has been on a hunger strike since 2000. The state has begun force-feeding her through a nasal tube.

Since Ms. Manorama's killing, Mr. Loitongbam's group, Human Rights Alert, has documented 10 extrajudicial killings by government forces. The latest was that of Mr. Ahanthem. His family was offered compensation of about $2,380 and a government job for one of its members.

By far the most bleak portrait of Manipur's desperation can be found by driving two hours from the capital to the provincial town of Churachandpur. There, in a Christian-run shelter called Gilead's Balm, rest the inheritors of decades of war: men, mostly in their 20's, all heroin addicts, some living with AIDS.

A peculiar innovation has made this and similar shelters in Manipur popular with the addicts' families. The addicts are shackled at the ankles, so no matter how desperate they become for another fix, they cannot run away.

Tom Malsawn lay on his bed, pale and weak. At 27, he had been an addict for seven years. He stole from his parents to satisfy his habit. He was herded into four different shelters. Nothing worked. This was his second time at Gilead's Balm. By July his family reached the end of its tether. They took him there to be chained once more.

Somini Sengupta reported from Imphal for this article, and Hari Kumar from Imphal and Churachandpur.

About a month ago, on the occasion of a lecture by Donald Rumsfeld at a confab of defense minister types in Singapore, I wondered idly how one says "chutzpah" in Chinese.

We've just received the answer courtesy of Justin Logan in, of all places, Astana, Kazakhstan where, at a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, we also learned how it's said in Russian and a few other languages of the region. As Justin notes, the participants included as honored guests nearby countries such as India, Pakistan and Iran.

Given the recent reemergence of security challenges in Afghanistan, and the apparent scrambling to beef up security -- shifting UK forces from Iraq, a few Aussie SAS to join special ops, etc. -- perhaps there's a bit of reassessment going on right now in Washington? Is there time still before the current Quadrennial Defense Review is due to rethink some of those lily pads ?

This evening I was finally able to set aside the time to finish up Stephen Cohen's recent book The Idea of Pakistan. In this post I aim to summarize his key conclusions and in the process offer a review of the work.

As the title of this post suggests, The Idea of Pakistan is intended primarily as a guide to the political, social, and economic makeup of the country, its major political actors (the military, the Establishment, the Islamists), and the future trends and issues that the Pakistani and American leadership confront when making policy. Each of these topics are capable of sustaining multiple books of their own (and have), but Cohen's ability to provide a comprehensive briefing on each subject makes this a valuable introductory resource for readers new to the country. Since this information is presented categorically rather than chronologically, it can be at times difficult to hold all the factors operating at a particular point in time in your mind when reading on a different section, but Cohen compensates for this fairly well by starting off the book with an account of Pakistan's history from the struggles of Partition and the founding of the state to the coup that installed Pervez Musharraf in 1999, then going deeper in the subsequent chapters.

A well-balanced book (hey, this is the Brookings Institute we're talking about here), Cohen offers what are in my view key assessments on the following subjects (not, it should be noted, an exhaustive list):
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Sepoy of Chapathi Mystery tells a tale of woe:

Let me tell a small anecdote. Last spring, I walked into the Oriental Collection in Punjab University Library and asked to see the catalogue. After proving my authenticity as a student, I was asked by the clerk to write down the name of the manuscript that I wanted to see. I said, well, I don't know which manuscript I want to see because I don't know what is in your holdings. I was asked to go to the Old Campus and purchase the catalogue. Sure thing. Next day, I came back and had a specific call# or two. I was told to, then, write a petition to the Oriental Librarian requesting permission to see the manuscript. When presented with the petition, she didn't even glance up from her desk and told me to go back to Old Campus and get the petition stamped by the Chair of the Persian Dept. for validation that my research agenda necessitated that manuscript. She also threw in a lecture on my bad English for good measure (this damn yankee accent). I went to see the Chair of the Persian Dept., explained my research, showed him my petition and asked for his assistance in this matter. He let me sit out there for a while before grilling me on why I would want to study such odd things and shouldn't I be making good money as a computer engineer in Houston. Finally, he signed the petition. The next day, I returned to the Oriental Librarian. She did not even LOOK at the petition I was handing out to her, simply stated to the clerk to go get what I wanted. Power play. Anyways, the clerk says to come back the next day and they will pull the manuscripts from the archives. Sure thing. I returned the next day and was given the stack of manuscripts and a desk to work on.

Read the rest.

There is no innocence in the politics of humanitarian assistance.
Jayadeva Uyangoda, head of dept of political science, Colombo University.

The notion of a "core" group of major countries with resources and logistical assets within the region affected by the tsunami makes a great deal of sense. Although just how that "core" is supposed to relate to all the other pieces of the international mosaic has been more than a little unclear since announced by President Bush, but probably best left deliberately vague.

The announcement of the "core" has been seen by some, however, as another Bush "coalition of the willing" designed to cut out the formal mechanisms of multilateral cooperation. But in that prickly reaction to the core, no one seems to be paying much attention to relations within the core itself.

Except in Sri Lanka. Where the decision to send a contingent of US Marines has "raised eyebrows" in some quarters of Colombo and Delhi, with some suspicions that humanitarian aid isn't all that innocent, especially when it involves a movement, temporary or not, into India's sphere of influence.

"India Furious!" said a banner headline in the Monday edition of the Sudar Oli (Beacon Light), a Tamil-language newspaper considered sympathetic to the LTTE published from Colombo.

The newspaper said India was upset that Sri Lanka had not given it proper warning that it would be welcoming U.S. Marines into its "neighbourhood".

But G. Parthasarthy, a former Indian ambassador to Pakistan, told Reuters by telephone from New Delhi that too much ado was being made of the aid effort. "They love conspiracy theories in Colombo," he said.

Parthasarthy said it was clear the United States had got into the aid race rather late "after stringent domestic and international criticism".

For the present, he said -- "and please underline 'for the present'" -- the aid seemed to be just what it was, humanitarian and with no strings attached.

Although having lost more than 15,000 people itself, India has been keen to demonstrate its ability to manage in the wake of the catastrophe. After Indo-Lankan relations reached a nadir in the early stages of Sri Lanka's civil war, they have improved substantially. India is now seen as a supportive neighbor when humanitarian assistance is called for. India has already mobilized five Navy vessels including a hospital ship, a field hospital, six military helicopters and nearly 1000 military personnel for Sri Lanka.

And then there's India's famous general prickliness about anything that could be seen as failing to acknowledge its global and regional status. India has politely refused external aid for itself. As Amb Parthasarthy reminded the Reuters interviewer:

"Ten foreigners come and work two hours a day and the world's media think they've sorted out our problems tickety-boo," he said.

"We have the resources to manage our own situation."

Best not to forget that.

Emily Gertz has a good post over at the essential Worldchanging.com that credits one of the world's most underappreciated plant species with saving lives. She found this article by G. Venkataramani in The Hindu:

CHENNAI, DEC. 27. "Tsunami is a rare phenomenon. Though we cannot prevent the occurrence of such natural calamities, we should certainly prepare ourselves to mitigate the impact of the natural fury on the population inhabiting the coastal ecosystems. Our anticipatory research work to preserve mangrove ecosystems as the first line of defence against devastating tidal waves on the eastern coastline has proved very relevant today.

The dense mangrove forests stood like a wall to save coastal communities living behind them," said M.S. Swaminathan, Chairman, M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF), Chennai.

The mangroves in Pitchavaram and Muthupet region acted like a shield and bore the brunt of the tsunami.

The impact was mitigated and lives and property of the communities inhabiting the region were saved.

"When we started the foundation 14 years ago, we initiated the anticipatory research programme — a two-pronged strategy — to meet the eventualities of sea level rise due to global warming. One is to conserve and regenerate coastal mangroves along the eastern coast of the country, and the second is transfer of salt-tolerant genes from the mangroves to selected crops grown in the coastal regions.

It is now found that wherever the mangroves have been regenerated, especially in the Orissa coast, the damage due to tsunami is minimal," he said.

I hope my fellow bloggers will forgive Gertz's somewhat gratuitous slam of the World Bank, because she's right about the overall point: mangroves are not only a great place to find tarpon and bonefish, but they're also a key line of defense against natural disasters. But she's right to complain about the problem of shrimp farming, which has devastated mangrove swamps in the developing world (and that's one of the reasons that I, as a relatively ardent "free trader," am not altogether apposed to the shrimp tariffs the Bush administration recently slapped on Vietnam). Something nadezhda and I have discussed in the past (I'm not sure if it was here or on tacitus) is the weakness of current economic valuation methods, especially with regard to ecological services. That weakness makes it hard to compare mangroves vs. shrimp farming via cost/benefit analysis, although that hasn't stopped people from trying. It's not impossible to assign dollar figures to, say, the boon that mangroves naturally provide to fish stocks or the value of firewood to nearby villagers (relevant only for some kinds of mangroves), but it's definitely shaky. But how on earth do you put a value on "tsunami protection?" The inherent actuarial difficulty gives the shrimp farmers an unfair advantage.

Learn more about mangroves here.

UPDATE: If you don't want to save your mangroves or get frustrated with the difficulty of proper economic valuation, you could just build a giant wall.

I'm gratified to see that, based on this press conference, the U.S. is stepping up and demonstrating that it has at least a handle on the post-tsunami situation, and has assigned clear overall responsibilty on the diplomatic side to the highly capable Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Marc Grossman:

The job I was given today by the President was to lead a U.S. task force. And as the President said, we're trying to accomplish three things with this task force:

First, to work with the partners that the President talked about today -- Australia, Japan and India -- to see if we can form a core group to provide coordination and assistance to the terrible tragedy. I had the chance earlier this morning to speak to the three ambassadors here to begin the process of that coordination, and I also proposed that we have the first conference call of me and my counterparts in those three capitals tonight at 10 o'clock. And so, that is what we will do.

Second, to help to coordinate the interagency response here in Washington. The President, as you know, from watching him as he walked out, had a National Security Council meeting today and we have spent the morning helping to, I think, get the interagency organized. People, yesterday and the day before, were already doing a tremendous amount of work. We'd like to just make sure that that work can be facilitated and goes as easily as possible.

And then, third, to see what more can be done to get the international community to help with these relief efforts. And so, we've begun the process of trying to respond in this way, and we're going to take this now to a new level. And that is the job I have been given and the job I intend to carry out.

And on the military side:

As you can imagine, our commander of the Pacific Command, Admiral Tom Fargo, has been extremely busy and active over the last 72 hours, in contact with the various chiefs of mission in his region, as well as his military counterparts.

As a result of his discussions, he has opted to stand up Joint Task Force 536. The commander of that joint task force will be Lieutenant General "Rusty" Blackman, the commanding general of the Third Marine Expeditionary Force, located on Okinawa.

That headquarters is already in the process of deploying a forward command element, has moved to Utapao, Thailand. The Thais have been gracious enough to offer us use of Utapao throughout the disaster relief effort. That forward command element will be commanded by Brigadier General Ken Gluck, who is General Blackman's deputy up in Okinawa.

Three disaster relief assessment teams are either in place or are moving into place: the first arrived in Thailand this morning; a second will arrive this afternoon in Sri Lanka; and a third will arrive tomorrow in Indonesia. Their task, of course, will be to make immediate assessment as to the nature and the scope of the impact of the disaster.

We have committed, at this point, six C-130 aircraft for airlift support. They will be operating out of the air base at Utapao. We have committed nine P-3 aircraft, four of which will operate out of Utapao, the other five will operate out of Diego Garcia. As we speak, there are at least two P-3s in the air conducting that initial observation and reconnaissance of some of the damage sites to further the assessment.

The Lincoln Carrier Strike Group was in Hong Kong. It has been diverted now to the Gulf of Thailand. It has aircraft in the air doing a reconnaissance of the Malaka Straits to check for debris before it would transit. If it's clear, and early reports indicate that it might be, the five ships associated with that carrier strike group will take position off the island of Sumatra. It has embarked aboard 12 helicopters, which we find extremely valuable in these types of scenarios, that will be employed dependent upon the results of the assessment team.

The Bonhomme Richard Expeditionary Strike Group was in Guam. It is foregoing port visits there and in Singapore to move rapidly to the Bay of Bengal. It's estimated to be on station sometime on or before 7 January. It has seven ships associated with the strike group. It carries 25 helicopters, which will be valuable to us, again, in disaster relief. There are four additional Cobras that will also be instrumental, we think, in reconnaissance efforts; 2,100 Marines, 1,400 sailors embarked aboard the Bonhomme Richard Expeditionary Strike Group and 15th MEU.

The commander has also opted to move five of his pre-positioned ships out of the squadron located in Guam. These five ships have freshwater-producing capability. Each ship can produce 90,000 gallons of fresh water a day, and, of course, that will be extremely valuable as we have a number of requests already for freshwater supply.

There is a sixth ship that has a field hospital embarked aboard that can be phased ashore, again, depending upon the results of the assessment teams and the need.

Just before I stepped over, I discovered or was told that there are two additional ships out of the squadron located at Diego Garcia that Admiral Fargo is also ordering to action. They will embark as soon as possible and get underway, again, for assignment in the affected region. Those two ships also have a 90,000 gallon freshwater-production capability.

On the USAID side, according to Director Andrew Natsios:

We have stood up the Response Management Team, the RMT, which is the AID 24-hour/7-day-a-week disaster response center here in Washington. We did that on Sunday, Sunday morning. We deployed a DART team, a Disaster Assistance Response Team, of technical disaster relief specialists from AID. There are 44 people on the teams; 22 are now in site in the countries. They are doing assessments, working with local officials, nongovernmental organizations, the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and local officials.

I think there are going to be some questions later as to whether USAID is the entity best equipped to respond immediately to this sort of thing, but it sounds like Natsios is at least on top of it now. The NSC hasn't exactly bathed itself in glory, either, as is clear from Grossman's comments above. Grossman should have been designated in charge on Sunday. Moving on -- Natsios also noted the delicate situation in Aceh, Indonesia, which has been devastated by the tsunami:

Aceh is in the middle of an insurrection. It's been in a civil war for a long time now. And so, there are areas of Aceh that have not been accessible to anybody, including the national government of the -- Indonesia -- and they only today approved in Indonesia access by the international community to the area.

I think we have the sort of ceasefire in place, according to our friends in Indonesia, that will allow us access. But the deaths in Indonesia are much larger than anybody, including the Indonesian National Government realized, because some of these areas are insecure, or were insecure.

I think we should send retired CENTCOM Commander Anthony Zinni there. He knows the issues (Armitage appointed him as a special negotiator in the Aceh/Indonesia conflict) and has broad experience in urgent relief efforts in Kurdistan, Somalia, and elsewhere. I believe he also worked in some capacity with Grossman in Operation Provide Comfort, which was really the first example of this kind of complicated relief effort, although what's happening now is on another scale altogether.

UPDATE: Abu Aardvark notes that Sid Blumenthal is claiming that Grossman has already resigned. Hard to resolve that with him being charged with such a major relief effort, but I guess we'll see if he sticks around. It would be unfortunate if a guy of his integrity and competence were to leave.

When the first news of the tsunami crossed the wires, reports were of deaths in the 20s and 50s. But the wires also reported the magnitude of the earthquake and geographic reach -- to southeastern India and beyond -- as well as walls of water two stories high. This clearly meant we would be looking at deaths in the tens of thousands at best. And indeed, each hour the toll keeps marching upwards, and we are still in the midst of the initial chaos, when the numbers of missing and presumed dead cannot be accounted for with any accuracy.

Yet the score-keeping of numbers of victims only tells part of the tale. The scale of the geophysical event is mind-boggling, and will be the stuff of both science and legends for decades to come. So far, Wikipedia is proving to be a remarkable, dynamic resource for understanding what has happened.

Wikipedia also provides an extremely useful compendium of constantly updated information on the current struggles to deal with the most urgent threats as well as the broader tasks of addressing the longer-term consequences of the catastrophe in each country affected. In addition, a truly international collection of sites and programs soliciting assistance -- in kind and cash -- can be found there. A special section is devoted to indepth coverage of the disaster as it has affected India. Reuters' AlertNet, its humanitarian crisis and disaster service, is a good place to track news on UN, aid agency and NGO responses going forward.

The blogosphere has of course not disappointed. Folks have ramped up a variety of resposnes in short order. Via The Acorn, here's a just-launched site devoted to both information and organizing assistance: SEA-EAT blog (The South-East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami). Here's their RSS feed as well.

SEA-EAT blog has just set up a very useful donation page that directs you to organizations accepting donations online as well as those taking other forms of donations. Check out if there are comments on the SEA-EAT blog regarding some of the organizations soliciting assistance -- and you can also post questions about an organization if you want to know more about them.

In the blog's list of "how you can help," they add:

If you're a blogger, and would like to help us out by taking up posting duties, the same post has email addresses of the current contributors who can send you a blogger invitation. It would be nice having people around the world taking this up in shifts.

The SEA-EAT blog has a number of links to info, satellite photos, etc. on the topographical impact of the earthquake and tsunami that's beyond my ability to imagine.

The press item that perhaps caught my overall disbelief best was this bit of black humor, from a Korean site, titled "Sumatra, We Have a Problem":

The devastating earthquake that sent tidal waves flooding across land masses in the Indian Ocean has wrought significant changes in the topography of the region - even dislocating Sumatra by 36 meters. This caused aeronautical problems as the instruments of aircraft delivering relief supplies from all over the world failed to detect the new location of Sumatra Airport.

[UPDATE] The shifting Sumatra and neighboring islands is raising additional concerns about getting aid to affected people in those areas. According to Reuters:

The [US Geological Survey] team in Pasadena, California, also was studying more detailed satellite images on Tuesday to determine if the scraping of one plate over another plowed up enough debris on the ocean floor to block the port of Banda Aceh in Sumatra where international aid was headed.

Large earthquakes in the last decade in Kobe, Japan, and Golcuk, Turkey, deformed the coastlines and rendered their ports inoperable after the crises, Hudnut said.

The scientists have asked for cooperation from operators of commercial satellites that can provide high-resolution images to show the extent of damage to coastlines, he said.

---

We'll continue to post additional sources of information or organizations that might be of interest as we learn about them.

Network for Good is an online network that links people who want to donate funds or volunteer with projects of interest. They also help people find ways to give in response to disasters, such as the Caribbean and Florida hurricaines earlier this year. Their page on assistance for victims of the Asian tsunami can be found here.

Right now we're up to 50,000 dead, and the toll is inevitably going to go up as disease kicks in. While I strongly agree with Colin Powell that it's unfair to characterize the United States as "stingy," we do need to show that the world still needs us in a pinch, badly. Talking blandly about "assessments" and "surveys" won't do the trick. Bill Clinton gets it--he dropped a none-too-subtle hint on the Beeb that the Bush administration needs to ramp up its efforts to help victims of the recent devastating Sumatran Tsunami: "It is really important that somebody takes the lead in this." The UN can't do it; only the United States and, to be more specific, Pacific Command has the logistical acumen to pull off a major relief effort (in cooperation with the Indians and others in the region). This is not a major relief effort.

UPDATE: USAID throws in another $20 million. Good.

UPDATE2: John F. Harris and Robin Wright report on the criticism President Bush is getting for not demonstrating adequate sympathy for the tsunami victims. While the charge of "stinginess" is certainly unfair, I do believe that Bush should have gotten off his ass immediately and headed back to Washington to show not only his empathy for the victims but also to demonstrate leadership. I'd say the same thing about PM Singh if he were chilling out at a resort somewhere in northern India. Meanwhile, Nitin Pai, as well as many American bloggers on the right, are crying foul. As I hope I conveyed over at Nitin's place, this isn't about scoring political points or trying to cynically use a tragedy for nationalistic gain. It's just that America needs to lead, because only America has the capacity to do so. And, pace Mr. Pai, symbolism does matter. At the same time, it's an opportunity to demonstrate to the world that America is, fundamentally, a force for good in the world. There's nothing cynical, hypocritical, or inconsistent about that. And a note to Glenn: the extra $20 million that you're crowing about was thrown in precisely because the U.S. was getting slammed. Unfairly so? Perhaps. But if you want to claim the mantle of world leadership, it's tough times like this when you have to show why you deserve it.

Awkward responses from the US, including at a State Dep't press briefing, re Musharraf's decision to retain his military position along with his presidential duties. From the view of democratic symbolism, certainly not a very positive step, and many are understandably suspicious. The following comment from an Outlook India Online recent thread is not atypical.

Musharraf, like Zia and other khakis who ruled Pakistan; is no better than any other tin pot dictator. He has perfecetd the art of attire according to the occassion. His military dress with all those "tamgas" when talking to Pkaistani public, and hand crafted suits -when abroad, makes for a topic in itself. This man can never be trusted.

Our friends at The Acorn put the matter a bit more elegantly in commenting on Dan Darling's recent Winds of Change.NET report on a conference he attended on Al Qaeda .

Dan does not cover Musharraf’s dealings with Pakistan’s jihadi outfits in detail — if he did, he would have found out that the jihadi groups are just one of the variables Musharraf controls to stay in power. In this context, Musharraf is not actually trying to distinguish between good and bad jihadis (for that distinction is invalid) but manoeuvering to do the barest minimum to keep that other variable (United States) from knocking him down. Pakistan’s military establishment has effective control over all al-Qaeda related jihadi groups as well as on their spiritual leaders, patrons and mentors.

The Waziristan operation was a wild-goose chase — the tribesmen did support al-Qaeda and bin Laden, but only slightly more passionately than millions of their compatriots. The most dangerous jihadi leaders, those who can shed the most light on al-Qaeda and its global operations, remain in Pakistan, free to go about their business as long as they keep their head down.

Osama bin Laden is Musharraf’s golden egg laying gander (to invoke the avian reference again), and the General knows all about that fable. As for those jihadi groups, they cannot even hope to subvert the Pakistani state. Musharraf is far more secure and is in far greater control of the situation that he would like the United States to believe.

And then there's the Pakistani domestic opposition to Musarraf. The circus of Benazir Bhutto's husband's release, rearrest and re-release over the past two days has underlined how tricky the "reconciliation process" may be. The rearrest followed Musharraf's announcement about going back on his promise to relinquish his military leadership post on December 31, which flies in the face of the position Bhutto's group has vigorously supported.

Zardari's re-arrest appeared to dim hopes of reconciliation between former Prime Minister Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party and Musharraf, a key ally of Washington in the war on terror.

However, some analysts said it might have been orchestrated by figures in the military government worried about losing influence should the reconciliation process move forward, rather than by Musharraf himself.

"It's to do with local ambitions and local politics," said newspaper editor and political commentator Najam Sethi. "I don't think Musharraf had a hand in that."

Bhutto herself appears to have taken a rather low-key and non-confrontational approach to the goings-on regarding her husband and re-emphasized the need for dialogue with Musharraf to achieve sustainable reconciliation.

Islamist opposition leaders, on the other hand, have called for nation-wide protests on January 1. From the FT and Reuters:

“Musharraf has become a security risk for the country,” said Qazi Hussain Ahmed, leader of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal ( MMA), the coalition of Islamic parties, speaking before a crowd of about 5,000 supporters who braved heavy rain to attend a protest gathering in Rawalpindi, a suburb of Islamabad. “The military dictatorship is the root of all our evils.”

Mr Ahmed announced a nationwide “black day” on January 1, when a series of protest meetings would be held in different cities. MMA officials said the coalition then planned to hold more frequent protests. Opinion was divided over how big a threat yesterday's announcement was to Gen Musharraf[...]

A focus on Musharraf's presidential role, however, while certainly merited, fails to look at the other side of Musharraf's equation. Syed Saleem Shahzad, bureau chief for AsiaTimesOnline, looks at what's going on within the Pakistani army. His report suggests why Musharraf believes he must retain titular as well as de facto control of the "only organized institution" in Pakistan -- and it's not just to ensure his personal safety from further assassination attempts. Shahzad may share The Acorn's view that Musharraf has more control over things than is conventional wisdom, but it's a control that remains vulnerable and will take quite a bit more time and initiatives by Musharraf to consolidate.

Musharraf has forced Pakistan's military into an abrupt and wrenching U-turn. If Pakistan is to modernize and moderate its internal politics, and become less of a disruptive force externally, remaking Pakistian's military certainly must be at the top of the list of critical tasks. And let's be realistic about the process. It's going to be difficult and often violent. If the military in Turkey was the, frequently brutal, force for secularization and internal modernization, Pakistan's military has been built for leadership in "Muslim renaissance and pan-Islamism" as part of a strategy of "political hegemony" in South-Central Asia.

Shahzad sees it as a matter of "Purging Pakistan's jihadi legacy:"   more »