Seth Wessler

Whose Despotism?

I was reading a Times article a week ago about the confirmation of Michael Mukasey as Attorney General when my friend in Pakistan popped up on Skype. I gave her a call to make sure she and her family were okay as the state of emergency there has become increasingly publicized in the United States. She told me, “all my parent’s friends were arrested, but now they’re released. It’s crazy here”

Certainly, the consolidation of power on the part of Musharraf is intolerable and the dangers of suspending the constitution, freedom of press and assembly are real, as my friend knows. Even so, there is an irony in Washington’s calls for Pakistan to return to a democratic process and constitutionalism. Musharraf has responded that the state of emergency will end when security can be achieved in the country.

Around the same time that Musharraf’s new escapades began, Mukasey was confirmed. Mukasey, of course, is posed to continue the legacy of his two predecessors, Ashcroft and Gonzalez, in supporting the bellicose assertion of executive power marked by a refusal to condemn, and even outright support of torture. In all likelihood, he will become the new front man for an administration dead set on suspending personal liberties and engaging in the profiling, detention, deportation and torture of Arabs, Muslims, immigrants and others in the name of security.

After I talked to my friend I realized that when she returns to the US, whenever that is, she’ll almost definitely be racially profiled and interrogated at the airport. Bush and his pack, with Mukasey among its newest leaders, are still masquerading around the pretense of democracy while clearly riddled with inconsistencies and anti-democratic intents. Washington’s rhetoric about Pakistani despotism is rendered empty by a distinct blindness to our own. It seems like people who look like my friend are the target of both.

Posted at 8:03 AM, Nov 20, 2007 in Permalink | View Comments