Ali Malik's blog

The establishment in this country persecuted the polity ruthlessly for last 30 years. Politicians were painted as corrupt, mean, greedy, devilish – in short mother of all evils. Establishment attempted to turn the word politics into a slur. With all these efforts, it was expected that people of Pakistan will be made indifferent to the political process and this, in turn, will let the establishment run the whole show without any challenge. When the present regime came under unbearable pressure from its foreign backers to let the democratic forces operate in Pakistan , the regime yielded. But even in this yielding, through its political cronies, it ensured mudslinging on genuine political forces. We all heard the hue and cry over NRO and noise of “corrupt and greedy” Benazir from henchmen of establishment. The junta was sure that with all this politics-bashing of last three decades and the recent assault over NRO, Peoples Party’s public support will be significantly marginalized an

If NRO is a major compromise, which I do not think it is and I will be putting forth my opinion, later in this post, proving that it is not, even then it does not give any right to the people who have always been pro-Establishment along ages to criticize Peoples' Party. For had it not been for these pseudo educated from middle and upper classes of Pakistan, we the people of Pakistan would not have reached where we are. Needless to say, that the people criticizing PPP for a deal were the same people who hailed Musharaf as savior, those men in black and women in red who were the 2% who voted for him in referendum, who hailed the feel good factor Pakistan was enjoying overseas, and who hailed the fact that he is a shield between the corrupt politicians and their voters (who by the way were People of Pakistan in general) and the power and is an example of good governance with team of technocrats like Abdul Sattars, Shaukat Azizs (the gigolo), Javed Jabbars, Rashid Qureshis and Hafiz Sh

http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/10/03/pakistan.bhutto/index.html http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-pakistan-bhutto.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

http://www.bbc.co.uk/urdu/pakistan/story/2007/09/070930_mrd_anniv_sindh_ns.shtml