Five years ago black suited lawyers in Pakistan marched the streets to protest the unconstitutional actions of General dictator General Pervez Musharraf.
Who knew? That wasn't going to be the last to be heard of them, the Lawyers' Movement .
Should come as no shock. Beyond the headlines and immediate goals, who outside the region really cared what they do? My only interest is of curiosity, and what seems to be a lesson in human fault.
What seemed to be a noble group of men, we find out to be not much better than the Dictator they sought to overthrow.
Pakistani lawyers go from heroes to ‘gangsters’
LAHORE, Pakistan — The young police inspector came to court to present evidence in a beating case. He left with his head and lip bloodied and his uniform torn — assaulted, he said, by a gang of black-suited assailants.
The notorious lawyers of Lahore had struck again, police and witnesses said. It was chalked up as yet another episode of violence by lawyers that has become common here in this seat of justice in eastern Pakistan, where cases from throughout Punjab province are heard.
In a nation where the rule of law is already fragile on many levels, police officials, judges, litigants and witnesses say they have become increasingly fearful of marauding lawyers in their trademark black pants, coats and ties.
I am not going to copy the whole article, as interesting as it is, but rather paste some snippets.
“If police officers don’t submit to their pressure, they abuse and beat them,” said Sadaqat Ullah, the 28-year-old police investigator who alleged that a group of lawyers pummeled him
“Storm troopers,” Ayaz Amir, a politician and commentator, called them in a June column. “Time was when lawyers did most of their arguing with their tongues. Now they seem to do a better job with their fists.”
Judges, in particular, say lawyers have become drunk on power, unafraid to curse judicial officers, drag them from their courtrooms and padlock the doors
Courthouse violence appears infrequent elsewhere, but in Lahore, on a single day in May, three courtroom brawls were reported in the media. They included the pummeling of police inspector Zohaib Awan
In courtrooms, lawyers crowd insistently in front of the bench as opposed to sitting quietly at their places until the judge instructs them to appear.
Throughout Pakistan, neither the police, nor the lawyers, nor the courts — particularly the lower courts — are held in high regard. Police officers are poorly paid and augment their income by demanding payoffs to investigate crimes.
FULL STORY
I can't think of another time an election result bothered me so much as last Tuesday when President Obama was reelected.
Before the campaign I didn't have a problem keeping my dislike for his policies separate from what I think of his as a man. That has all changed now, seeing how there was no low for him to go in his quest to transform America.
This is a good editorial from the Washington Times which is more eloquent than anything I can say compose.
Lament for lost America
The American people have spoken. With the re-election of President Obama, America is on her way to complete conversion to a socialist country (“Election 2012: Obama re-elected without a mandate,” Web, Wednesday).
This will not be the kind of socialism of Greece, where the government foolishly has spent the country’s resources and the people are suffering greatly for it. Nor will it be like the former Soviet Union, where even an aspirin could not be found in the apothecaries and standing in line to buy bread was an everyday necessity. Mr. Obama’s socialist America will have the peasants dancing in the streets for joy, and why not? We will be taken care of from the womb to the tomb.
One of the cornerstones of Mr. Obama’s socialist country is the redistribution of wealth. Targeted for their wealth will be those “greedy” oil companies. In the words of Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. about America’s economy, “It’s all about a three-letter word, J-O-B-S, jobs.” Government jobs, that is.
Cry, the beloved country we once were.
STELLA L. JATRAS
I already posted about the tragic sinking of the H.M.S. Bounty, but now there is more information to share.
The heroic efforts of rescuers and the what is now known of the fate of the two aboard who did not make it back to safety.
HMS Bounty: A tall ship’s final hours in hurricane-ravaged seas
The tall ship began to die early Monday morning in the hurricane-ravaged waters off the North Carolina coast. One of the HMS Bounty’s generators failed. Water flooded everywhere. The 180-foot-long, three-masted tall ship was losing power and propulsion.
By about 3 a.m., the Bounty’s once-optimistic Facebook page, which on Sunday had posted “So far so good!” in its daily updates, had issued a new message for its followers: “Your Prayers are needed.”
“Rest assured that the Bounty is safe and in very capable hands,” the Facebook page’s administrator wrote. “Bounty’s current voyage is a calculated decision . . . NOT AT ALL . . . irresponsible or with a lack of foresight as some have suggested. The fact of the matter is . . . A SHIP IS SAFER AT SEA THAN IN PORT!”
But Sunday night, the hurricane was proving too much for the Bounty. The ship sent out a distress signal at 9 p.m., according to the Coast Guard. Two hours later, the HMS organization called the Coast Guard, confirming that it had lost radio contact with the vessel.
A Coast Guard C-130 aircraft arrived at the scene an hour later to make direct contact with the Bounty and survey the scene, about 90 miles off Cape Hatteras.
When the captain ordered everyone off the ship about 4:30 a.m., three people struggled to climb into the two lifeboats and were smacked by a wave, the Coast Guard said. One man fell into the water, but others pulled him into one of the boats. Walbridge and Christian were thrown into the water and disappeared.
Christian’s body was recovered Monday night, but Walbridge remained unaccounted for.
While the HMS Bounty and its crew foundered in the dark, Steve Bonn was woken from a sound sleep in Camden, N.C., about 4:15 a.m. by his ringing cellphone. The 44-year-old Coast Guard helicopter pilot was needed for a mission: A big boat was sinking.
I left out a lot, for the whole story go the the
Washington Post Link
