| LurkerJ said: Not sure how you can continue to watch the news, @SvennoJ, thank you for keeping the Palestinian thread updated, I shut off recently and my mood has been cranky, even Bernie fumbled easy questions by Novara Media. People don't seem to understand that the Israeli genocide is more disgusting than the Russian one because one is preventable by a push of a button, funded by our money and the other one is simply not. The Israel genocide is much bigger indicator of the west fading relevancy than the Russian will be when it's all said and done. Labour and Biden can't get the IDF soldiers to stop parading & documenting their genocide on TikTok despite the massive damage its doing to their election chances. I have been moaning a lot about the weak west and the rising global south recently even before this war, glad to see Israel clearly telling us which faction it belongs to despite all the help and protection they receive, as if MBS and the gulf states needed more reassurances that their continuous humiliation of Biden is consequence-less Our politicians continue to shell for their donors first, mega-corporations and foreign rich donors above all. I hope people continue to harass them in public and expose them for the obedient drones they are. Labour can thank their luck that the average right-wing British voter seems to off-put-able by lies and broken promises compared to Republican voters, otherwise, Kier would be in a similar position to Biden, i.e., losing in most polls. |
But it is the one the U.S. wanted https://t.co/y2BqsLYUQE
— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) February 22, 2024
Yet what Pakistani voters managed to pull off over the past few days strains my imagination to its breaking point. I just can’t picture us doing it.
Consider this: The leading opposition party, the populist PTI, led by legendary cricket star Imran Khan, was officially banned from the ballots by the courts. Its candidates were forced to run as independents instead. The candidates were prohibited from using the PTI’s party symbol – a cricket bat – on the ballot, a crucial marker in a country where some 40 percent of the population can’t read. Khan himself was jailed on bogus charges and ruled ineligible to run. Candidates who did file to run were abducted and tortured and pressured to withdraw. So were the new ones who then replaced them. Virtually the entire party leadership was imprisoned or exiled. Rallies were attacked and bombed; rank and file workers jailed and disappeared. Campaigning was basically impossible as candidates had to go into hiding.
On election day Thursday, polling locations were randomly changed and the internet and cell service was taken down. Western media described the race as over, a fait accompli for the military’s preferred candidate Nawaz Sharif. And yet.
And yet. Pakistani voters came out in such historic numbers that it caught the military off guard. The ISI — Pakistan’s powerful intelligence agency — was prepared to steal a close election or nudge Sharif to his inevitable victory, but they were swamped by the tsunami they didn’t see coming. In a crucial mistake, they had allowed individual polling locations to release official vote tallies, which parties and TV broadcasters could then total up themselves.
Then the military moved in, shutting down the election commission website and halting the count. Military and police forces surged into polling locations. Fantastical numbers began to be announced, sometimes just reversing the totals so the winner became the loser. The military was clearly unprepared to steal such a resounding victory, and the obviousness of the fraud forced politicians in the UK and U.S., including even the State Department, to denounce it.
All of this puts the State Department in a difficult position. It’s widely known the U.S. is no fan of Imran Khan. The U.S. prefers to work directly with the Pakistan military as a check against China. Khan has long said he wants a better relationship with the U.S., yet we refuse to believe him – our preferred approach was to oust him, put in more pliant clients, and shrug as the military dismantled democracy in the runup to the election. (The U.S. denied playing a role in ousting him, but we very much did, as The Intercept reported.)
https://theintercept.com/2024/02/11/pakistan-election-latest-imran-khan-pti-surge/
This provides further context https://youtu.be/7-EbmgJwT5A
The only democracy in the Middle East..... because when democracy actually works, you fuck it up, America? (I am aware Pakistan isn't in the Middle East, but you get my drift).
Essay Pro