Word processors like Microsoft Office or Star Office chain you to a computer. Instead, if you opt for hosted services like Google Docs and Spreadsheets, your word processor is accessible from anywhere an Internet connection is available. Hosted services, like Google Apps, are powerful and requires no setup or maintenance. The software and hardware are updated without the user even having to know about it and whenever there is a problem in the service, the host will take care of it. Thanks to Bush administration, now a hosted democracy service is available for countries like Pakistan and Iraq.
Recently, after seeing that no one Pakistan was listening to him, the General in the labyrinth decided to impose emergency. He had already signed the order declaring emergency when the phone rang. “Yes, Dick”, he probably answered, thinking it was the Lord Voldemort on the line, but it was Dr. Rice. A few minutes of conversation and Gen. Musharraf, who is seen a macho macho man only in India was shredding the document.
“Hey, isn’t the hosted service provider saving dictatorship here”, you may ask. Calm down, grasshopper. Sometimes to save democracy, you need to save dictatorship. Yes, it is one of those Zen things.
Since Gen. Musharraf is nearing his expiry date, the Bush administration has been looking for a Prime Minister. Sadly, the available ones cannot enter the country. So, there has been negotiations and re-negotiations between Benazir Bhutto and Bush administration officials about a possible deal. Maybe the Bhutto deal won’t work out and it maybe Nawaz Sharif. Either way, you will hear it on CNN before the Pakistani people know about it.
We all know Pakistan cannot handle democracy and such outsourcing helps them avoid wasteful expenditures in terms of elections, booth rigging and bullets fired into fellow Muslims. It is not just Pakistan which is having problems in democracy. The ratings of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has been plummeting and his opponents in Iraq have decided to campaign against him, not in Iraq, but in Washington D.C. Ayad Allawi, who was the interim prime minister is paying the GOP firm Barbour Griffith & Rogers (BGR) more than a quarter-million dollars to lobby on his behalf.
Finally we are sure that a group of armchair quarterbacks in Washington D.C. will do what is right for Iraq. Isn’t this kind of democracy wonderful?
