When Gen. Pervez Musharraf declared martial law last week in Pakistan, he said it was partly due to a rise in extremism in Pakistan. This is reflected in the official declaration of martial law, which notes:

there is visible ascendancy in the activities of extremists and incidents of terrorist attacks, including suicide bombings, IED explosions, rocket firing and bomb explosions and the banding together of some militant groups have taken such activities to an unprecedented level of violent intensity posing a grave threat to the life and property of the citizens of Pakistan.

After setting out extremism as ostensibly the primary purpose of the declaration, he adds that "some members of the judiciary are working at cross purposes with the executive and legislature in the fight against terrorism and extremism thereby weakening the government and the nation's resolve diluting the efficacy of its actions to control this menace." Therefore, the judiciary is partly to blame for the extremism, since it is ineffective due to its working "at cross purposes" with the rest of the government. This explains why Musharraf fired the Chief Justice at the same time he declared martial law. (Actually, it doesn't; he fired the Chief Justice because the Chief Justice has been a vocal critic of his; this declaration just gives a fun pretext for the firing.)

Even if Musharraf can appear to justify martial law by way of cracking down on extremism, that doesn't explain the most recent events coming out of Pakistan. We've learned that, in the aftermath of the declaration of martial law, the police "detained about 500 opposition party figures, lawyers and human rights advocates on Sunday." That's right: "extremists" turn out to be Musharraf's critics and opponents. Surprise! When a president declares martial law, it turns out that he uses the opportunity of the suspension of the constitution to imprison his opponents, critics, and anyone else he doesn't like. Who could have known?

In the meantime, former prime minister Benazir Bhutto has called for protests against Musharraf's declaration. "After the news conference, police officers fired tear gas and beat about 100 of her party workers when they tried to push through police barriers blocking access to the Parliament building." Because that's how you quell terrorist extremism: by beating protesters.

Fortunately, Musharraf doesn't have to suffer the anguish of beating protesters alone. Last Thursday, Venezuelan soldiers "used tear gas, plastic bullets and water cannons to scatter tens of thousands of demonstrators protesting constitutional reforms that would permit Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to run for re-election indefinitely."

Chavez wants the Venezuelan constitution re-written to, as stated above, allow him to run for re-election indefinitely, but also, the new constitution would degrade the autonomy of the Venezuelan armed forces, placing them under Chavez's sole authority, and degrade the autonomy of the Central Bank of Venezuela. Chavez claims that he needs to remain in power longer in order to complete his project of "21st-century socialism."

At the same time, over in the United States, we're having a surreal discussion about whether or not torture is okay. Scott sent me an article from counter-terrorism consultant Malcolm Nance, who says, definitively, "Waterboarding is a torture technique. Period." Nance, "a former Master Instructor and Chief of Training at the US Navy Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape School (SERE) in San Diego," has personally experienced and conducted waterboarding as part of SERE's interrogation training. Note, of course, that students are not subjected to waterboarding so that they can use it on suspects, but subjected to it so that they know what it's like.

Nance says that there are a lot of misconceptions about waterboarding. One misconception is that waterboarding is "simulated drowning." Says Nance, "It does not simulate drowning, as the lungs are actually filling with water. There is no way to simulate that. The victim is drowning. How much the victim is to drown depends on the desired result (in the form of answers to questions shouted into the victim’s face) and the obstinacy of the subject. "

Ultimately, he says, this will come back around to bite us. "Now American use of the waterboard as an interrogation tool has assuredly guaranteed that our service members and agents who are captured or detained by future enemies will be subject to it as part of the most routine interrogations," says Nance. "Waterboarding will be one our future enemy’s go-to techniques because we took the gloves off to brutal interrogation. Now our enemies will take the gloves off and thank us for it."

And, all the while, the world is a safer place.