For the month of November, may I nominate for Idiot of the Month Pakistan's current commander-in-chief / president / despot / supreme general / whatever Pervez Musharraf. He took control in 1999 and keeps delaying the elections he has been promising for so long.

Not only has be taken over a country with the armed forces, but he has set back the democratic tides in that region of the world and done great harm to that fledgling nation. Opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was even placed under house arrest to prevent her from leading a protest march. He has fired the most senior judges. Lawyers have gone on strike. People are being arrested for all manner of civil disobedience "crimes".

I have read a lot about this impending crisis, and yet have found nothing that indicates why the army should behave in this manner. No real reasons seem to be forthcoming as to the original coup in the first place.

But this is where it becomes frightening: the USA is supporting him by their silence. They call his actions 'regrettable'. They don't send troops or anything else to try to stop this man. Why? Oil? What? No; location. Pakistan is a great place for the USA to lanuch its troops into Afghanistan.

And Pakistan has nuclear weapons.

And so does India.

Notice a lot of sabre rattling between those two countries since this man seized control? Especially in the early 2000's, it was touchy.

So the USA is scared of a little rogue state with nuclear weapons that they themselves helped finance, and afraid of losing an ally in that comfortabkle niche of the subcontinent they need to harass the Middle East... and so they allow this tinpot ruler to take over and do nothing about it.