Griff Witte's Musharraf's Military Reaches Deep Into Pakistani Society, WaPo, June 27: "Yet in a country where the military has long been immune from criticism, its extraordinary power is now drawing open contempt from civilians. A campaign against Musharraf that began three months ago, following his suspension of the chief justice, has exploded into a full-fledged movement to oust the armed services from civilian life and send the generals back to their barracks."
Carlotta Gall's As Pakistan's Chief Looks Ahead, Army Holds the Cards, NYT, June 28: "Asked if the corps commanders might tell the general he had to go, he answered, “We may be coming to that stage.”
There used to be a time when the biggest "social program" Pakistani intellectuals hammed about was de-feudalization. The wave of the future: de-militarization.
"The wave of the future: de-militarization." Gonna be a long voyage, if the Turkish example is anything to go by. While I wouldn't stretch the analogy too far, there do seem to be a number of depressing echoes, from the history of clockwork coups to the generals' skillful manipulation of elite/secularist fears. The WaPo article also struck a familar note WRT the deep & wide influence of the military in economic/corporate matters, although this has actually lessened somewhat in Turkey in recent decades. That said, in Turkey the military manages to remain (discouragingly) much more popular than it seems to be Pakistan--perhaps a product of universal (male) conscription, which seems to increase people's sense of identification with the TAF. ps: am loving the new site design. appropriately, given this comment, this morning's image was a top-hatted Kemal. heh.