There’s been much discussion here at Missive about the worsening state of the Pakistan/Afghanistan border prompting the increase of troop deployments to the embattled region.  However, while the U.S. has been worrying about how to quell the violence, the people of Pakistan are looking for the root of the problem, and many of them are pointing at current President Pervez Musharraf.

The North West Frontier Province (NWFP) assembly on Tuesday accused Musharraf of following policies that had triggered unrest in the province bordering Afghanistan, which has suffered the worst of a wave of Taliban violence that has hit Pakistan in the past year.

The NWFP assembly passed the motion by a huge margin of 107 votes to four. The no-confidence vote comes a day after lawmakers in Punjab province passed a similar proposal calling for the president to be impeached.

The two remaining regional assemblies are expected to pass similar resolutions. Sindh and Baluchistan are set to vote later this week. The resolutions are not binding but are designed to ramp up the pressure on former general to resign before he faces impeachment in national parliament.

On top of this mounting pressure, there is a call to have Musharraf tried for his alleged involvement in the assassination of Benazir Bhutto who was poised to take the office from Musharraf in elections prior to her death.

If the motion is passed by the joint session in the Parliament, Musharraf will be the first Pakistani President to be impeached.

He seized power in a 1999 military coup and dominated Pakistan for years, but he grew increasingly unpopular, especially after he fired dozens of judges and declared emergency rule last year.

Musharraf has been largely sidelined since his foes won February parliamentary elections but has shown no intention of leaving despite impeachment calls.

Popularity: 3% [?]

So here it is again, with only 6 months left as Commander in Chief President Bush and Vice President Cheney are both being reviewed by a congressional committee to decide whether or not the two men should be impeached for “a range of alleged legal and constitutional abuses”.

Congressman Dennis Kucinich, a former Democratic presidential candidate, introduced formal impeachment resolutions in the House of Representatives, listing numerous actions by President Bush and Vice President Cheney, and appeared as a witness at Friday’s hearing:

“The decision before us is whether Congress will endorse with its silence the methods used to take us into the Iraq war. The decision before us is whether to demand accountability for one of the gravest injustices imaginable. The decision before us is whether Congress will stand up to tell future presidents that America has seen the last of these injustices, not the first,” he said.

Standing in the way of formal impeachment hearings are not only the Republican party, but also Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.  There are many who argue that for the Prez to be impeached he must have committed some grave offence that represented putting himself before the citizens of the U.S. and that such a thing has not occurred.  However, others are saying that the offences committed against the Constitution itself are enough to warrant an impeachment.

As of the moment, it’s all just talk being thrown back and forth in a game of political posturing, but in an age where the past President was impeached for a blowjob that in fact affected no one but his immediate family, surely taking steps such as invasion of privacy, approving the use of torture, suspending habeas corpus, and countless other corruptions of the executive branch whether approved directly by the President, or by members of his hand-picked Cabinet, should be answered for.

If not, as former Congressman Bob Barr said, “If we don’t get a handle on this now, in some form or fashion, the next administration and the one after that, regardless of party, will take these abuses, these powers, these liberties with the fundamental institutions of our government, and take them to even higher and higher levels.”

Impeachment could become a preventative measure, to let the next governing body know that “we the people” will not allow such abuses to occur again.

Will impeachment happen?  I have to admit it’s rather unlikely, but hey… I’ve been wrong before.

Popularity: 4% [?]