WITH the Afghan Loya Jirga in the process of being convened and former King Zahir Shah present in Afghanistan to launch it, an assessment of the situation there at this critical juncture would be timely. The whole issue of our relations with our western neighbour has assumed greater importance, as several other countries appear to be increasing their influence in Kabul. Even the growing incidence of terrorist attacks on Pakistan’s soil is being linked by some to Pakhtun anger over our cooperation with the US in its military campaign against the Taliban regime, and the Al Qaeda network it had supported.

As India’s hostility towards Pakistan has been a constant factor since our independence, the relationship with Afghanistan has been managed in a manner that would avert a two-front threat. Despite Kabul’s support to the Pakhtunistan claim during the first quarter century of our relations, the government in Afghanistan did not seek to exploit the days of our conflict with India to its advantage. And, of course since 1977, when communist-backed regimes led to an exodus of Afghan refugees into Pakistan, our extension of sanctuary to them transformed their attitude. Around three million Afghans have lived in our midst since then, with many of them becoming integrated into our economy.

The consequences of the Taliban phenomenon have produced paradoxical results in our relations with various ethnic groups. When the civil war between 1992 and 1995 led to the emergence of the Taliban who were mostly Pakhtun, with links to madressahs in Pakistan, and we recognized them after they established control over 95% of Afghanistan, the factions of the Northern Alliance turned hostile. After the events of September 11, 2001, we found ourselves backing the military campaign of the US and its allies who destroyed the Taliban regime through a military blitzkrieg. This seemingly turned the Pakhtuns against us. Has Pakistan ended up alienating virtually all sections of the Afghan population, since the Northern Alliance representatives are cosying up to India, while we are hunting for Taliban and Al Qaeda remnants in our tribal belt, with US logistic support?

These questions and other aspects of the emerging situation in Afghanistan are constantly under discussion by the think tanks in Pakistan. Our citizens, who have been feeling depressed over the tribulations of the Muslim minority in India, and the sufferings of the Palestinians a the hands of the Israelis, worry whether the Muslim world is fated to remain in a state of discord under such daunting circumstances. What has emerged from some of these discussions is, very fortunately, reassuring.

The regime that emerged in Kabul after the departure of the Taliban was dominated by the Panjshiris in the Northern Alliance, who kept their hold on the key ministries even after the interim government headed by Hamid Karzai assumed power on December 22. General Fahim, and Messrs Qanooni and Abdullah Abdullah who control the ministries of defence, interior, and foreign affairs, have personal links with India, where their families have been living. However, there are indications that positive changes may take place after the Loya Jirga meets from June 10 to 16.

The formula being devised for participation in the Loya Jirga envisages representation from each of the 400 ulusvalis (districts) in the country. Thus, the representation would conform more closely to the ethnic composition of the Afghan population, and the low Pakhtun representation in the existing power structure is likely to be remedied.

The possible role of ex-King Zahir Shah is also being evaluated positively. He himself has not manifested any desire to resume power, given his age and state of health. His own wish, as stated to western journalists interviewing him after his return, is to live quietly, letting younger leaders guide the country in political and economic reconstruction. However, the Pakhtuns, who are in majority and who are riven by rivalries that result in frequent clashes, see him increasingly as a unifying force.

Hamid Karzai, who is expected to retain the leadership of the government after the Loya Jirga, and beyond, is a royalist, as are half the members of the cabinet. The strongest opposition may come from the Panjshiris, but they are likely to be weakened after the Loya Jirga, as they all come from one ulusvali and also face the hostility of other Tajiks, as well as of the Uzbeks under Dostum.

The possible impact of the warlords, who are in control of many parts of the country, has to be considered. Initially, the US, in pursuit of its campaign against terrorism patronized some of them. However, being warlords may cease to be an attractive profession, as a national army and police force are formed. Should economic reconstruction take off, the majority of the warlords would be interested in making money from some economic activity, rather than from waging war, that may lose its attraction as stability returns and peaceful pursuits are available. A major task for the Afghan government that would emerge after June 2002 would be to eliminate the large quantities of heavy weapons currently controlled by the warlords.

What about prospects for economic reconstruction, for which $4.5 billion were pledged at a conference at Tokyo in January this year? Most donors would link their contributions to projects on the ground, which they would like to be managed by their own people. So far, only small amounts of aid have reached Kabul, with the Panjshiris showing a preference for contractors from India and Iran, though it has to be admitted that they quoted lower prices. Pakistan’s ability to take advantage of the opportunities for reconstruction works would depend on its competitiveness. The UN coordinators would float tenders for each project that would go to the lowest bidder.

Recalling the manner in which India had cultivated close relations with Kabul prior to 1977, it is natural to ask about prospects for New Delhi exploiting anti-Pakistan sentiments found among many Afghans. We should remind ourselves about the fact that we have a 2,500 kilometre border that confers an enormous advantage in relations with this land-locked country. Relations between countries are driven by national interest rather than by sentiments, and the emerging leadership in Afghanistan is conscious of the importance of developing cordial relations with Pakistan.

Mr Karzai visited Pakistan soon after assuming his responsibilities as leader of the interim government, and paid a tribute to the friendly attitude of President Musharraf, who had been the first foreign leader to telephone him after his appointment. President Musharraf also paid a one-day visit to Kabul, accompanied by a large delegation, and pledged full support to the Karzai government in its plans for national reconstruction. Numerous agreements have been concluded with the Afghan government for assistance by Pakistan in various fields, and direct air service between Kabul and Peshawar has been resumed.

The repatriation of the Afghan refugees to their homes has picked up momentum as the internal situation improves. There are still over two million Afghan refugees in Pakistan, and nearly all aspects of reconstruction will require transit of materials and experts through Pakistan, for which special facilities have been put in place. As a major step forward in bilateral relations, the Afghan government is facilitating the return of Pakistani nationals who had been misguided into joining the Afghan jihad, and were taken prisoner. This should remove a major irritant.

Looking to the future, it is expected that Mr Hamid Karzai will continue to be the leader of the Afghan government, following the Loya Jirga. The current ascendancy acquired by the Panjshiris who have close links with India is bound to be replaced by a more normal set-up, with a greater role by the Pakhtuns. A certain amount of tension may persist owing to the heavy losses suffered by the Taliban as a result of western action against Al Qaeda and its Taliban backers after the terrorist attack on the US. Pakistan is apparently being targeted by some elements, especially after the announcement of the policy to discourage jihadist groups founded by some of the religious parties. However, it is expected that internal peace and stability will prevail because the implementation of economic reforms and the improvement of living standards will be possible only in an environment of internal harmony.

In view of its strategic location, Afghanistan remains important in the goals and perceptions of many major powers, including the US, the EU, Russia, China and regional players situated around it. Though it is landlocked itself, it provides the shortest access to the sea via Pakistan for the central Asian states. It also figures prominently in the various plans of the economic cooperation organization. After the exit of the Taliban, who had failed to gain international recognition, Afghanistan is likely to regain the interest for international investors interested in exploiting the resources of the Central Asia region.

In this context, Pakistan is keenly interested in the reactivation of some projects that had reached a fairly advanced stage in the pre-Taliban years. Turkmenistan is particularly interested in reviving the pipeline project to tap its rich gas reserves that were to be connected through Pakistan to India on the one hand, and to Gwadar on the other for export by sea.

Though India may be less keen for the present owing to strained relations with Pakistan its needs for energy are growing so fast that access by pipeline to West and Central Asian gas and oil reserves is the only economical solution.

The triangular summit between the leaders of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Turkmenistan, planned for the end of this month may produce a significant breakthrough in regional integration. Afghanistan stands to benefit not only from the economic aid for reconstruction, promised by the world in January this year but more substantially from participation in regional development projects. Pakistan’s role in such cooperation will be pivotal, for which infrastructure is already being created.

I SUPPOSE it is a sign of the times that one should be faulted for never having Kashmir out of one’s mind, as a correspondent complained the other day in this newspaper about me. Who knows how long it will take before a reference of any kind to Kashmir becomes enough of a misdemeanour to have an ISI jeep without a number plate standing outside your home and watching your back wherever you go.

After all, that sort of thing has happened often in this country. Whenever political fashions change or a new deal is made with outside players, things, that until then were considered legitimate, overnight become illegitimate. And given this government’s “principled” alliance with the so-called “international coalition” against Afghanistan and its people, nothing should be ruled out, including the displeasure of “agencies” with those who are either foolish or old-fashioned enough to remain involved in Kashmir.

If unconstitutional government can be declared constitutional under the doctrine of necessity, why can’t a continuing interest in Kashmir be treated as an undesirable activity? What is publicly known about the terms of our post-September 11 arrangement with the “crusaders” against “international terrorism” may not exactly be the tip of the iceberg, but there should be no doubt that there is much more there than meets the eye or is being allowed to meet the eye.

The basic facts about Kashmir are known to everyone, though not always to those speaking for state agencies in or outside Pakistan. I recall one self-proclaimed “Daughter of Kashmir” currently ensconced in the cabinet, who has frequently been sent abroad to present the case for Kashmir. During a string of appointments in Washington at a number of congressional offices some years ago, every time she would open her mouth, which was almost all the time, she would come out with different facts and figures. She was equally fuzzy about what happened when at the time of independence and thereafter. However, those on the other side of the table were barely interested in details and so it did not matter.

It is popularly believed, and rightly so, that had the Quaid-i-Azam lived, events in Kashmir would not have taken the tragic turn that they did. There has also been speculation as to how much the Quaid knew or was told. One thing is beyond controversy. The Quaid was not told of the tribal intervention in Kashmir. To this day, it is not clear who ordered it, though the finger of suspicion points to Khan Qayyum Khan. Liaquat Ali Khan knew about it, though when asked by K.H. Khurshid in 1949 in Lahore if the Quaid also did, he kept quiet.

With the passing of time, more facts have come to light. Prof. Zawwar Hussain Zaidi who can be said to have put the entire nation in his debt by his work on the Quaid-i-Azam’s papers, has come upon a letter sent to the Quaid from Srinagar on October 12, 1947, by his private secretary, K.H. Khurshid who was there to visit his family and report on the situation in the state. While the Quaid must surely have read the letter, it is not known if he ordered any action on some of the recommendations made by Khurshid. Be that as it may, the Khurshid letter is an unvarnished account of the existing situation in Kashmir and may answer some of the questions that have been asked about the last days of the Maharaja’s rule and where Pakistan and the Kashmiri Muslim leaders may have gone wrong.

Khurshid informs the Quaid that events in Kashmir have been “moving very fast since the release of Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah as an act of ‘royal clemency’”. He adds that other members of the Sheikh’s party, jailed for their part in the Quit Kashmir movement, have also been set free, but the Muslim Conference leaders “continue to rot in jails”. He writes that the state is getting rid of Muslims who held positions of any significance in the state forces. European officers have also been let go and the positions falling vacant have been filled by Hindu Dogra Rajputs. According to Khurshid, “The Maharaja is dead set against Kashmir’s accession to Pakistan. He is reported to have said that even though his body be cut into seven hundred pieces, he would not accede to Pakistan ... The state today is a hotbed of dirty court intrigues ... to disrupt the Musalmans and suppress the popular feeling in favour of Pakistan.”

The “popular feeling” that Khurshid reports nails the claim that Sheikh Abdullah had the people’s backing for securing Kashmir’s accession to India. His National Conference had no non-Muslims in its ranks. They only began to join him after independence to strengthen his claim to represent the people of the entire state. Khurshid informs the Quaid that as things stand, everything points towards “the road to Delhi”.

The Maharaja has appointed his uncle the prime minister and a nominee of Sardar Patel has been inducted as his deputy. Work on the Jammu-Pathankot road, he adds, is in hand. Petrol supplies, suspended for reasons unknown by the Rawalpindi authorities, are being flown in from Delhi. Dogra troops have been deployed all over the state. They would soon be on the rampage against the Muslim population. But despite all this, Khurshid points out, there is no support for accession to India except by “some Punjabi Hindus of Jammu”.

The Muslim Conference is “dead” and its leaders, he adds, are either in jail or in Pakistan, “but there is a very strong undercurrent of popular feeling in favour of Pakistan, to utilize or exploit which, there is nobody here. Spontaneous demonstrations (in Pakistan’s favour) are being held in different parts of the city and the state but there is nobody to mobilize these scattered elements.”

Khurshid writes that since Abdullah never had any non-Muslim following, now that Pakistan has been established and the League-Congress controversy is at an end, his followers want that Kashmir should accede to Pakistan. Khurshid tells the Quaid that “Pakistan must think in terms of fighting” for Kashmir as the other side is ready to take the state by force. He also recommends the supply of arms and food to tribes within the state because unless that is done, the local population will not be able to resist for more than a fortnight.

It is, of course, on record that the Quaid’s orders to his British commander-in-chief to send troops into Kashmir were disobeyed. Pakistan’s claim over Kashmir went by default, both militarily and politically. In the latter case, there was not a single pro-Pakistan Kashmiri leader around in the state.

Khurshid also suggests to the Quaid to issue a statement (he provides him with a draft) that would “clarify the League position vis-a-vis the Indian states”. It has been said that the League’s position on this crucial question was ambivalent and provided the princely rulers with the legal authority to accede to any of the two Dominions.

Khurshid, mindful of this, includes the following elaboration in his draft for the Quaid. “The Muslim League has always stood for the right of self-determination of the people all over the world and it was this principle which formed the basis of (the) Pakistan demand by the Muslim League. This is a question entirely different from the interpretation of the position of the states under the (June 3) Plan.”

In other words, while the Quaid-i-Azam, because of the League’s special relationship with Bhopal and Hyderabad, accepted the right of the rulers to accede to India and Pakistan, it was assumed that the will of the people of the acceding states would remain paramount. In the case of Kashmir, popular will was overwhelmingly in favour of accession to Pakistan. But that was not to be; however, it is wrong to blame the Quaid for this, as some now tend to do.

SELDOM would there have been a greater discrepancy between myth and reality than what was seen in Pakistan recently. Seldom could there have been the consequences of that discrepancy so disastrous. And seldom could there have been a more pressing need to move from myth to reality.

The myth is of course the 56-71% turn-out in the April 30 referendum, and the 97.5% ‘yes’ vote for Pervez Musharraf staying on as president for another five years. The blatant stuffing of ballot boxes and disregard for all electoral rules in the referendum have been narrated ad nauseum in the press. Irrespective of the justifications offered by Musharraf supporters and sycophants — thousands of polling stations, indelible ink, ID verification, and so on — the fact is that the referendum was a farce.

The reality is what happened on May 8: 11 Frenchmen and three Pakistanis torn apart by a suicide bomber. The reality is also what happened last Tuesday when a moderate-to-the-core religious scholar, Dr Ghulam Murtaza, was gunned down in Lahore. The reality is that five people were killed in a grenade attack on a church in Islamabad’s diplomatic enclave; 12 women and children in a bomb blast in Bhakkar; 12 Shi’a worshippers in Rawalpindi and 18 Christians in a church in Bahawalpur. The reality is that a state cannot fulfil its most basic and fundamental function: protecting the life and property of its citizens.

Since the end of March the energy of the government was focused on the former: fostering the myth of massive popular support for President Musharraf. Both elected and appointed officials were tied up with mobilizing the public to attend the Great One’s rallies, and to vote for him on referendum day. Millions of rupees were spent on this effort. The state TV spewed out a constant diet of pro-Musharraf footage. The security forces were given the daunting task of letting Musharraf address the masses, while not letting any of them get within spitting distance of him.

In this referendum frenzy everything else was ignored: responsible financial management, freedom of the press, democratic norms and, most crucially, the fight against terrorism. The Karachi blast and Dr Murtaza’s murder took place after the referendum, but how many of the acts of terror predating it — by months, if not years — have been solved? How many killers have been caught, convicted and punished for their bloody deeds? How many of the pledges made in the ‘historic’ 12 January speech have been fulfilled?

While the President tried to perpetuate his hold on power, others plotted death. To speak of Nero playing his fiddle while Rome burned would be an exaggeration, but not entirely off the mark.

May 8 was a bloody wake-up call. It showed the real Pakistan. Not the cheering referendum-happy millions so laboriously portrayed by the government PR machine, but a country in which the writ of the government is challenged with impunity and in which many fear for their lives.

May 8 also showed the disastrous consequences of ignoring the reality and focussing on myth-making. Fourteen people killed. A shaken New Zealand cricket team on the next plane out of the country. An instant plunge in the Karachi Stock Exchange. Singapore Airlines announcing the cancellation of all flights to Pakistan. The long-term consequences will be even more dire. The one-way exodus of foreigners, initiated by the US and Canada, will gain momentum. International confidence and investment, already a precious commodity, will decrease. Domestic capital will not fly out for reasons related to the post 9/11 global environment, but nor will it be used to finance growth.

For what this government has perhaps not yet realized — or if it has, is not yet acting on — is the intimate connection between law and order and national development. Without the former there will never be substantive international investment and hence no economic growth, no job creation, no poverty alleviation. Without law and order the only direction in which Pakistan can head is down. Until the government realizes and acts on this — until it carries out its fundamental function of securing the life and property of its people — everything else it does will come to nought.

In the government’s defence one could offer the quite valid argument that no state can provide absolute security to all of its people all of the time. In particular, no state can defend against the latest innovation in Pakistani terrorism: the suicide bomber.

It is true that the state cannot prevent everything. But it should be able to prevent something. The state should be able to make it difficult for the terrorists to operate. The state should have the intelligence capability to prevent at least some attacks from being carried out.

The state should be able to catch and punish at least some of those responsible. The state should give the signal that terrorism will not be tolerated. The state should have some deterrent capability.

In Pakistan, the state does few, if any, of the above. Intelligence is excellent when it comes to spying on politicians and engaging in Machiavellian manoeuvring, but a joke when it comes to security. The capability of the police does not even merit comment — it is so appalling.

The Musharraf government came into power promising to be uncompromising in its pursuit of sectarian, ethnic and other killers. In practice it has been anything but. An unimplemented deweaponization campaign; the release of Azhar Masood and hundreds of other extremists; mullas who, even in the capital, continue to spread a message of hate and intolerance unchecked by any authority. This is what the government’s chest-beating boils down to.

What is perhaps most shameful is its tolerance of terrorism. Yes, we hear strong expressions of denunciation and determined pledges to punish the perpetrators after every horrific terrorist act.

But once it becomes yesterday’s news, so too does the anger and determination. Nothing changes on the ground (particularly when the victims are Pakistanis). And this is why the terrorists continue to operate with impunity: they have no fear of the state.

May 8 was a wake-up call that cannot be ignored.

So says Thierry Maysson, so implies Gore Vidal, and one fails to see how any reasonable human being could think otherwise. The US government let the 9/11 “attacks” happen to allow it to move swiftly toward complete militarization of the society. It is predictable that the next “event” will be an “attack” so calamitous that it will make 9/11 look like a beach picnic. All the signs are there that this is what’s being planned.

Respected French think-tanker and author Thierry Maysson has written a book, The Frightening Fraud, that seems not yet available in the United States although it is a runaway bestseller in France and other European countries. Indeed, there is no mention of this book in American newspapers.

Maysson claims, with much evidence to back him up, that 9/11 was a massive hoax perpetrated on the American public. There is more and more evidence emerging to bear that out. Indeed, if one only visits a website like www.asile.org/citoyens/numero13/pentagone/erreurs-en.htm based on Maysson’s research, and studies the contradictions in the pictures available of the Pentagon right after the attack, one is stunned by the gaping holes in the official explanation of a jetliner ramming into the Pentagon facade. Truly laughable are the counter-claims of those on opposing websites who say that a jetliner indeed did crash into the Pentagon.

Gore Vidal claimed on Chris Matthews’s Hardball that as many as nine FBI agents are recruiting one of the House impeachment managers’ counsels to go before a federal judge to put on record that their information about the 9/11 attacks prior to that day was suppressed by the FBI.

On May 8, the Senate intelligence subcommittee held hearings with FBI Director Robert Mueller, questioning him about the now infamous Phoenix memo, written by an agent back in July in the Arizona office and asking the FBI higher-ups to look into a pattern of Arabs enrolling in flight schools and following suspicious activities. Indeed, even when the FBI caught Zacharias Moussavi, the so-called twentieth hijacker, a month after that memo was written, it failed to take any action.

On May 15 and 16, the White House was on the defensive about what it knew and when. The White House now admits being warned specifically by the CIA that Osama bin Laden was planning hijackings. The White House has pretty much admitted to all the pieces of intelligence that would have pointed to what was about to happen, except that it says that it didn’t know that hijacked planes were going to be used as missiles. But even this last deflection before acknowledging culpability doesn’t hold up. FBI agents interviewing Moussaoui had explicitly noted that flying planes into the World Trade Centre was a possibility.

In the immediate weeks after 9/11, reports had come out that British, French, German, Italian, Indian, and Israeli intelligence agencies had warned the US of planned hijackings by Osama bin Laden. So as of today, the White House admits to knowing at some level or the other all the pieces of evidence pointing to 9/11; it now wants us to believe that no one put all the pieces together.

It is also increasingly clear that the fourth hijacked plane was shot down by American military planes in Pennsylvania, and not brought down by the passengers themselves as has been the absurd official claim. The government waited six months to release only portions of the cockpit recordings, and even then only let some of the families of the passengers on that plane listen to them under compulsion of extreme secrecy. On that tape, one of the hijackers can be heard saying, “They’re coming! They’re coming!” Is it too far-fetched to assume that he was referring to US military planes on their tail?

The only reasonable conclusion that can be drawn about 9/11 is that US intelligence, and perhaps the intelligence agencies of certain close allies like Israel, knew exactly what was going to happen. They let it happen anyway, because this event was going to allow them to carry through a neo-fascist agenda throughout the globe.

These truths always come out, whether in five or fifty years. FDR allowed Pearl Harbour to happen, so that the US could enter World War II. Of course, if the truth comes out when it’s too late to alter history, does it matter in the end?

The claim then is that the US government has crossed the threshold of killing large numbers of its own citizens in order to carry out its domestic and global hyper-capitalist agenda.

The world has entered a whole new phase of absolutely brutal US domination, which will involve unprecedented military and political assaults on any recalcitrant members of the world community. The stage for this brutal escalation of imperialist domination was set throughout the Clinton years’ lulling rhetoric of benign globalization; now we enter the final phase.

The US is shedding all restrictions on its freedom of movement as it enters this phase. Any and all international treaties that could stand in the way of this next phase of American imperialism are being shredded. The anti-ballistic missile treaty was only a start. It would be crucial for the US not to be subject to the International Criminal Court treaty as it embarks on an unprecedented spree of war crimes on a global scale. Its own military and diplomatic personnel could not be allowed to fall under the international court’s jurisdiction at any point in the future; so the treaty was “unsigned” in a historical first.

On May 9, the House “debated” giving the go-ahead to a feasibility study to develop deep penetration nuclear weapons. It is not unforeseeable that if the US runs into trouble in its forthcoming invasion of Iraq, nuclear weapons will be used. This would make clear to the rest of the world that conventional opposition would be met with nuclear retaliation.

The escalation of events in the Middle East was also always planned, right along with the ascension of the accidental president. Destabilizing the whole region makes possible a range of aggressions that would not be feasible under conditions of at least illusionary movement toward “peace.” The ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, with the full blessing of the US, is in the offing. Meanwhile, Russian president Putin has been bought off and his own internal repression given a green signal, so that American nuclear and other aggression is not met with opposition from that front. A similar, although less durable, deal has been struck with China.

If we assume that 9/11 was allowed to happen by US intelligence, then the next predicate is that far worse is bound to happen. All indications seem to be that a “dirty” nuclear bomb might be allowed to explode and terrorize the US population, making its worst fears real. This event could perhaps happen in California, or another liberal part of the country that needs to be brought around to Bush’s fascist camp.

As mainstream a liberal commentator as the New York Times’s Paul Krugman has wondered aloud what “smoke screen” lies behind Homeland Security director Tom Ridge’s refusal to appear before Congress. This agency started off with $40 billion, wants another $30 billion, and is headed toward infinite consumption of resources, yet will not testify in public about its activities. Why would that be the case unless there needed to be a wall of plausible deniability when an even greater “attack” than 9/11 occurs, should that be necessary to bring the people into full compliance?

For the entire last year and a half, every single day one reads something completely astonishing in the newspaper, some reversal of more than 200 years of liberal tradition, and of more recent humanist activism. Often, these reversals seem to be done gratuitously, as if the fascist elements want to make it clear to liberals that the road ahead is clear for them to do anything at all. Whether it’s the attorney general overruling Oregon’s assisted suicide law to run roughshod over state legislatures, or reversing sixty-five years of government policy by claiming that the Second Amendment supports a broad right of individuals and not just militias to bear arms, these ideological offensives are meant to serve as shock-absorbers for the bigger shocks that are yet to come.

Nobody really protested when the election was stolen, and after September 11 when the Bill of Rights was for all intents and purposes suspended, when military tribunals were instituted, and when the first stages of ethnic cleansing of Arabs and Muslims and assorted dissidents went into effect. Now, the local police is being enlisted as immigration agents, so that a traffic stop could lead to deportation on technicalities. A fence around the borders is being considered. There wasn’t even a squeak from “liberals” when last month it was announced that a “Northern Commander” would take over in case of a catastrophic attack. This has all the earmarks of a preparation for martial law.

It is conceivable that free and fair elections may never happen again in this country. Of course, none of these extrapolations are inevitable; any number of circumstances, both within the country and abroad, can alter the dynamic as it seems to be shaping up. For one thing, the system of repression is incredibly fragile. Even the slightest real protest, risk-taking by activists on the scale of what happened in the sixties, can derail the best-laid plans of fascists. But so far the signs are not good. The Bushies, now in power, will not let go so easily.

American commentators have been perspicacious in analyzing the rise of fascism in Europe, but have a blindspot when it comes to seeing the same facts about their own country. They recognize that Le Pen, and besides him Haider, Berlusconi, Aznar, Fortuyn and others have stepped into the ideological vacuum created by the departure of the left as a real doctrinal alternative.