All the pundits and other political has beens have been going about this for months now, but when the “jailed spouse”:http://216.239.37.104/search?q=cache:zDOa70nQzJQJ:www.satribune.com/archives/jan20_26_03/P1_asiflcases.htm+asif+zardari+jail&hl=en&ie=UTF-8 of an exiled Prime Minister also starts on about it then it means that Musharraf is losing his grip somewhat. Much as the Mush would like to, he’s opened pandora’s box and though he can kill all the politico’s who’ve popped out he can’t put them back in.
As an aside, the link above is to the “google cache”:http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,41065,00.html of the article at the South Asia Tribune’s “website”:http://www.satribune.com/ as the Govt. of Pakistan is “blocking”:http://ko.offroadpakistan.com/pakistan/2003_07/pakistan_tackles_web_porn.html access to it. It took me all of 0.28 seconds using “Google”:http://www.google.com to access the site. Once they block Google, I am afraid that time might go up to a second. They can always just disconnect the whole country from the net, but that is really going to give Musharraf a bad image.
bq.. KARACHI, July 9: Asif Ali Zardari claimed on Wednesday that the Musharraf regime was on the defensive against political forces, and urged it to put its act together to decide who was the real ruler of the country.
Talking informally to reporters inside the Karachi Central Prison prior to his acquittal in an attempt to commit suicide case, Mr Zardari termed Gen Musharraf’s Camp David visit a “failure”, and said the deplorable terrorist attack in Quetta and the state of relations with Afghanistan, Iran and other neighbours reflected Pakistan’s growing isolation.
>> “Dawn”:http://www.dawn.com/2003/07/10/top3.htm
Asif Zardari was junior to me when he joined cadet college Petaro. I have with me a group photograph in which I am in the front row as section leader of Jinnah house and Asif Zardari is couple of rows behind me.
He was a friendly and happy go lucky type of person, but did have a kind of aura about him, and why not because his father was rich and influential. I could clearly observe that his khaki uniform was of a high quality cloth. He had tendency of making friends with cadets senior to him. But I did not observe any serious problems with him otherwise.
I was of the opinion that he could become famous or acquire celebrity status some day. But by no means I thought that he would earn the kind of reputation which he is enjoing at this moment in time.
It ought to be the fair operation of law of Pakistan to decide Asif’s future. As I feel nobody is above the law.
One thing I must mention that deep down Asif is a good person. I am sure that he will prove this one day.
I was a Cadet in the Pakistan Air Force College Sargodha when we went to Cadet College Petaro to participate in the Inter-Servces Cadet College Sports Tournament. I remember Asif Zardari as one of the Petaro Cadets. He was very friendly, loud, outgoing and really made himself noticeable. He acted like the typical son of a rich Pakistani, and had no fear pf his instructors or senior.
I could never imagine then that he would be where he is today!