Our Buddy Musharraf

Pakistani strongman Pervez Musharraf may have declared a state of emergency throughout Pakistan and, as time.com notes, "suspended the constitution, blacked out domestic TV news broadcasts and arrested lawyers, human rights advocates and opposition political party figures." The U.S. government may be paying him approximately $80 million a month, approximately $1 billion a year, approximately $5.6 billion since payments began in October, 2001. And perhaps Musharraf inked a deal with militants in North Waziristan in northwestern Pakistan, the center of al Qaeda operations, assuring the extremists that his army would no longer conduct operations against them. And suppose Abdul Abdeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear program, had transferred nuclear technology to libya, Iran, and North Korea (two-thirds of the "axis of evil") from the late 1980's to the late 1990's, was caught, confessed, and pardoned in 2004 by Musharraf, supported by George W. Bush's State Department.

Now suppose all this happened and the President of the United States of America, father of Gulf War II and the man who "looked (Vladimir Putin) in the eye" and "found him to be very straight forward and trustworthy" lectures the American people "Pervez Musharraf has been a strong fighter against extremists and radicals."

This is southcentral Asia, where India and Pakistan face each other across a nuclear chasm. And this could be a nightmare, but instead is the latest indication of the horror Antonin Scalia and four other judge/politicans visited upon our country when they decided seven years ago that the votes of south Floridians were not worthy of being counted.