In an amazing display of cultural hipness, The General will be appearing on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart tonight. As Stewart quipped last night, 'I have no idea why'. Ostensibly, The General is out promoting his memoirs, In the Line of Fire [currently # 3 on amazon! {check out the non-partisan reviews (also, when did amazon start comments on reviews?)}].
The memoir is hot especially for this bit of non-news: After 9/11, Dick Armitage told The General that Pakistan will be "bombed back to the Stone Age if it failed to help Washington" - which is not a meaningless threat especially if you've _seen_ Dick Armitage.
Armitage claims that it is a classic case either of 'selling wares' or 'lost in translation'. According to accounts,Mahmoud Ahmad told The General over the phone from Washington: "Wo hamari einth sey einth baja dey gain" - a beautiful bit of colloquialism meaning 'they will dismantle us'. It is this news which is all over the internets and interwaves of homistan [though there are other bits of interesting info]. Obviously, it plays nicely with a crowd that has about had it with The General. The recent ham-handed killing of Bugti, the 'pact' with the Taliban in Waziristan and more bomb-shells [literally] of A. Q. Khan and it is evident that The General needs good P.R.
I should note, that there was another general who wrote his memoir while in office - General Ayub Khan [ruler dictator of Pakistan 1958 - 1969]. His book, Friends not Masters, a political autobiography was published in 1967.
The writing, as they say, was on the wall.
live-bloggin' the show: JS offers The General tea! Jasmine tea! Mush is wearing a pakistani pin - looking relaxed and casual. Nice suit.
- JS sets up a softball. "How has it been to hold it together?" "It" being the shiteshow of Pakistani domestic and foreign policy.
- Dick Armitage. Mush says he wanted to make sure Pakistan's national interest was upheld.
- "We did take into consideration a confrontationist approach"!
- Defends his agreement in Waziristan w/ the Taliban factions. Gives an ethnicity lesson. Studio audience asleep.
- "We have eliminated them from our cities" Them = al-Qaeda.
- Break. OK. I think pretty softball all around. JS being super deferential. Mush is a superstar when it comes to dealing with the Western press.
- "It has led certainly to more extremism and terrorism around the world." The IT is Iraq. Man, Bush is not sending any Xmas gifts to Mush.
- "Who would win a popularity vote between GWB and UBL in Pakistan?" "They will both lose miserably."
- Over. The Iraq bit is nice news. I bet it gets picked up at dailyKos. What with all the NIE chatter.
- PS. Colbert is _so_ good.
