1.
Pakistan's Musharraf on collision course with Islamists over uniform
Musharraf is not making good on his deal. Are the members of the Islamic alliance in any position to be a threat to his power now that they have been scorned? They are using fighting words anyway.
"Musharraf will be an unconstitutional entity after December 31, if he does not remove his uniform," -Hafiz Hussain, Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal parliamentary leader.
It seems to me that it would be wise for the US state department to talk to both sides about an agreeable resolution to this growing standoff.
2. US considering New Year releases for Afghanistan detainees: report
This is just for the two main bases in Afghanistan, not for releases from Guantanamo. But it begs the question: what positive effect can we expect to result from an amnesty of a larger sort. I expect that this olive twig will be a drop in the diplomatic bucket. It will certainly be wonderful news for the families of the men and boys to be released, however.
When viewed in the context of the
Revised US Policy on prisoner treatment, it seems to me that we can expect to see a softening of US policy for a duration long enough to provide support for another hardening for some spurious reason that is already being crafted. Is that too cynical?
It is interesting to note that after reading media girl's great year end recap of media fact suppression, I went out into the world media of AFP and The Khaleej Times to find interesting daily tidbits that should be of interest to all concerned American citizens, but fall through the cracks of the corporate media. I do not fault them for paying so much attention to the disaster in Indonesia and Sri Lanka; it is a very important and tragic story. But I wonder if these AFP stories would have been picked up otherwise, if they will get picked up later. It's not just the big stuff that gets dropped, but also the continuation stories that surpass the measured attention span of the collective conscious of the all important media consumer that get dropped as well.