Embattled Musharraf resigns as Pakistan's president

ALI AHSAN: You know, I think, in the longer term, it will have a positive impact. You can’t expect—what the US has done is it’s relied on an individual, and not on a population, to fight this fight. It’s messier to rely on democracy. It’s messier because these decisions take more time. But once taken, once people are involved in the fight, it will be a stronger and a more lasting decision.

And what I would have—I would argue, and the lawyers of Pakistan argue, that the best weapon in the fight against extremism and the war against terrorism and terrorists is not an individual dictator who’s siding with you because you’re providing him with weapons and ammunitions for his own—and propping up his regime, but a population with enforceable rights, a population who has a stake in this fight. And what the people of Pakistan haven’t had under Musharraf are the kinds of rights that are enforceable that give them a stake in the state of Pakistan, rather than aspiring to sort of even a brutal form of justice promised by the extremists. And what the lawyers have stood up for and the judges in Pakistan who were deposed by Musharraf stood up for was an alternative version where everyone was accountable to a higher—to a constitution and to the law. And what the hope is, and what I’m coming back to in terms of holding Musharraf accountable, if you can demonstrate that there are clearly applied laws and no one can violate them, no one can get away with that, it gives people something higher to aspire towards and gives them a stake in this fight.

AMY GOODMAN: Ali Ahsan, what would you say are the major crimes of Musharraf since 1999, since the coup?

ALI AHSAN: I don’t think we have enough time to go over all the major crimes, but just to take the most recent ones, I mean, in 1999, he overthrew an elected, democratically elected, prime minister, jailed him, exiled him, ruled as military chief. He has done a number of things, such as taking Pakistani citizens and taking them into custody and handing them over to foreign governments, where they are tortured, detained, sent to Guantanamo. And whatever their guilt or innocence, they have not been—

AMY GOODMAN: You mean like handing them over to the United States?

ALI AHSAN: To the United States, including. The point, as a Pakistani citizen, is I am offended that a fellow citizen, whatever the guilt and innocence, isn’t provided due process of law. If you want—they need to be extradited, well, charge them and then extradite them. But frankly, no civilized country should be extraditing their citizens. They should be tried and punished for whatever the crime. And a lot of those people were thought to be innocent, or at least not guilty, of the crimes they were accused of.

Most recently, the most egregious crime that I find was in November, when his reelection, which was highly questionable and not possible under the current constitution of Pakistan. He suspended the constitution, fired sixty of the 104 senior judges of the Pakistan judiciary, not just fired them, but he also arrested them with their families, kept them in detention, under illegal verbal orders, for five months. Now, this is not just an illegal act, it’s a criminal act, that someone in this day and age can imprison the chief—the sitting chief justice of Pakistan for five months. Imagine, for instance, the equivalent here would be that Chief Justice Roberts—I don’t think he would do that, given his leanings—but is about to declare all the actions related to Guantanamo and CIA torture illegal, and President George Bush acts preemptively and not only dismisses the Supreme Court, but places Chief Justice Roberts under custody for five months with his wife and children. And this is what he has done. I mean, these are things that people, law-abiding citizens, people who believe in the rule of law—I do not believe we can let it stand that people can get away with this. And unfortunately, Musharraf is going to get away with this.