Pakistan, U.S. Partner in War Against Terrorism

"This is a judicial coup. Had this been about corruption, there would have been a trial, not direct intervention by the Supreme Court, which should only be the court of final appeal in criminal matters."
"The military in Pakistan knows the difficulties of a military coup, so now hidden powers are using the judiciary."
"[The Supreme Court of Pakistan validated previous military coups citing the] doctrine of necessity."
Husain Haqqani, former Pakistani ambassador to the United States

"It is a populist judgment, which has opened the doors for the disqualification of politicians on flimsy grounds."
"It is highly flawed in procedure and substance."
"What  is the hurry; why the short cuts? He has a right to due process."
Asma Jahangir, Pakistani lawyer

"Civilian supremacy over the military is a must."
"The prime minister is the boss, not the army chief. This is what the constitution says. We all have to live within the four walls of the constitution."
Nawaz Sharif, May 2013 (former Prime Minister of Pakistan)

Social Media Website via Reuters/File Photo Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence1 agency (ISI) has been protecting the Egyptian-born al-Zawahiri, a trained surgeon, since U.S. forces evicted Al-Qaeda from Afghanistan in late 2001 

Nawaz Sharif's dismissal by the Supreme Court of Pakistan this week as Prime Minister does not represent a shocking new approach in cutting loose a political challenger of the powerful Pakistani military and its sinister, Islamist-infiltrated Inter-service Intelligence Agency that has supported Islamist terrorism against India as well as the Taliban and al-Qaeda operating in Afghanistan to destabilize the political and social system there.

In fact, there have been no prime ministers whose elected terms have been completed without the intervention of those who oppose them, whether coups by the military, removals by judges or the governor-generals, none has succeeded in carrying out their full elected term of office. Pakistan is a corrupt nation in that there is no area of political, military or civilian life free from corruption. The revelations of the Panama Papers that members of Sharif's family enriched themselves through corruption might have reflected any other family of influence in the country.

There appears to be general agreement among those who are familiar with Pakistan and the influence and power of the military that this was a military-engineered coup, under guise of a Supreme Court action responding to charges of corruption. Horrors, corruption! within a country in which no aspect of life is not tainted by corruption. So much for democracy, so much for the last vestiges of an independent judiciary in a mockery of the British system of jurisprudence and governance as a former Commonwealth dependency.

Claiming that the Prime Minister was guilty of violating Articles 62 and 63 of the Constitution where members of parliament are required to be "sadiq" and "ameen" (truthful and righteous), the Supreme Court represented the very ideal of truthfulness and righteousness when it removed an irritant yet again from administering the fractious and wretched affairs of this misbegotten Islamist state supportive of terrorism.

Various iterations of Pakistan's governments have relished persuading the United States that Pakistan could be depended upon as a force for good in the fight against terrorism and jihad, while acting as a virtual exponent of both, even as it felt entitled to the billions of aid for the military that the U.S. gifted the nation with annually.

Its duplicity, well enough known, was simply amplified when Navy SEALS rappelled from helicopters into the Abbottabad compound of Osama bin Laden, established a veritable stone's throw from a military academy, and an outraged Pakistan arrested and imprisoned the Pakistani physician, neighbour to bin Laden, who had assisted the CIA in the belief that his country was an ally of the United States.

Nawaz Sharif as Prime Minister of Pakistan was no better and no worse than any of his predecessors, which isn't saying all that much. He did have three turns at the office, and it's hard to imagine how he made the country a better place for his citizens or his neighbours. It was his brother, whom Sharif now is attempting to persuade the Supreme Court should be  his replacement and not his main rival Imran Khan, who engaged in confrontation with the head of the intelligence services over the support the army was providing to terrorists.

Imran Khan's ties to and support of the military on the other hand, do nothing to denote that a better switch could be made forthwith in his undemocratic ascension through judicial appointment to the office of the prime minister. This country typifies the mean-tempered tribal, religious intemperance of all too many Muslim nations ruled by despots, sheikdoms and royalty. The exception being, of course, that for the present time, it is the only one of them in possession of nuclear weapons.