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As Musharraf Campaign Stops on Park Ave at CFR, Coups, Cases & Debt Scoffed At, Osama Likened to Che Guevara

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, November 9 -- Pervez Musharraf is on a roll, or thinks he is. After launching his All Pakistan Muslim League in the UK, he has held roll out events in hotel ballrooms in Florida and New Jersey.

  Tuesday morning found him at the Council on Foreign Relations in Manhattan, fielding questions about how and why he plans to reclaim power in Islamabad.

  Musharraf sung his own praises, that after his 1999 “coming into power” -- as his CFR biography tactfully puts in it -- he grew the Pakistani economy until, he said, it had more promise that India's.

  But after things were “stirred up against” him, foreign direct investment has dried up and 50% of factories have closed, in his telling.

  Back in Pakistan other stories are told, of how Musharraf hurt the electrical power market, allowed for the first time the US to fly drones over the country, attacked the judicial system. (Click here for Inner City Press recent coverage of Pakistan and the International Monetary Fund, on power subsidies and textile taxes).

  Musharraf claimed there are no court cases against him in Pakistan, and that if any began now it would be “political.” Meanwhile, in his New Jersey appearance where he took no questions from the media, he accused Nawaz Sharif of stealing $1 billion and hiding it in London.

At CFR questions were taken, chosen by NPR's Deborah Amos from among “members,” as she put it. At least one member called on was a journalist, Lawrence Wright of the New Yorker. The last question was finally given to the back of the room, but to (at least) 32 year CIA veteran Jack Devine of the Arkin Group, who asked about Osama Bin Laden and Pakistan's seven tribal areas.

  Musharraf compared Bin Laden to Che Guevara, saying the latter was able to evade capture too.

Musharraf, 9/20/06, before the stir up

  He said that the tribal areas were left undeveloped as a buffer between Russia and India, there there is “two to three percent literacy.” Bin Laden “is viewed as their guest,” Musharraf said, recounting how on one of his visits, he traveled virtually without security because he was protected as a guest of an elder.

According to The Nation, beyond possible court cases Musharraf has been told not to return to Pakistan due to a lack of “security arrangements.” This heralds back to the assassination of Benazir Bhutto when she returned. The UN's three person investigations panel's report left open many questions as to Musharraf, but no one raised it at the CFR event.

It was unclear if Musharraf viewed his appearance as part of his campaign, or more akin to a speaking tour. He said he's spoken in Hong Kong and is going to Nigeria, that his son in Palo Alto started his Facebook page on which he has 350,000 friends. But how many enemies? Watch this site.