by Patrick J. Buchanan

“Inaction at this moment is suicide for Pakistan, and I cannot allow the country to commit suicide.”

Thus did President Gen. Pervez Musharraf declare a state of emergency and invoke martial law.

The Supreme Court has been dismissed, the chief justice put under house arrest. A thousand lawyers and political opponents have been incarcerated. Human rights organizations have been shut down. Independent news media have been silenced.

Musharraf has effected a second coup, the first being his takeover in 1999. Doing so, he invoked Abraham Lincoln: “By general law life and limb must be protected; yet often a limb must be amputated to save a life.”