Jeff Koopersmith will be taking a three-year sabbatical (in Pakistani prison) following his latest dispatch, straight from Islamabad…
November 6, 2007 – ISLAMABAD (apj.us) – On March 18th I wrote that Pakistani President-General Pervez “Perv” Musharraf – bosom war buddy of Condi Rice, George W. Bush, and Dick Cheney – was “toast”.
In May I wrote ““Mushy” a.k.a. “Perv” is simply freaking out. Recent news stories report that he has also met with his National Security Council to see “what could be done” about ‘his nation in crisis’ – a crisis of citizens opposing not only him but his continuing military, and some say Neonazi, rule.”
Well, okay. I’ll say it today. “Was I wrong? Huh? Was I wrong?”
I happened to be in Karachi a few days ago to see my main squeeze Benazir “Benzie” Bhutto (that’s what she was called at Harvard) – figuring that she would end up – sometime in the next two hundred years – president of Pakistan when Perv decided that heading the military was enough for a man of his age.
I should have known better, but what the heck? “Benzie” needed my support. I also took the opportunity to try and convince her to ditch the Gucci sunglasses and the seven pounds of makeup air-gunned onto to her face – but she insisted this was the “style” in Pakistan, so I deferred.
Anyway Benzie was in her glory. In Karachi she’s better than the youngest waitress at Hooters. She got into her Pope mobile and started cruising down the main avenues along with about twenty million of her worshipers. Then…
BLAMMO!
… a car blew up next to her astrolabe and maybe a couple hundred Pakistanis bit the dust but a few were lucky enough to just lose both their legs.
So that ended her Carnival of Max Factor and she took quick leave to her house.
Since I knew Benzie was going to Dubai the next day to grab some cash, I retired to Islamabad and checked into the Serena Hotel near the diplomatic enclave on Lake Rawal where I hoped to do a little shark or piranha fly fishing. The Islamabad Serena is a semi-great hotel – It’s almost impossible to get food poisoning there and only thirty percent of its staff has signed with Al Qaeda. The best thing is that they have a separate gym for men and women. I like that – but I wonder why?
Here I was in Islamabad on Saturday; where I hoped I would be able to witness the Supreme Court finally rule that Perv Musharraf could not be both the president and the head of the armed forces as well as the local chief of the Pakistan Formula One & Model Train Association.
I met some Pakistani lawyer friends in the lobby of my hotel and we discussed where to have something to eat. The choice was fantastic! Pizza Hut, Arizona Grill, Kentucky Fried Chicken, China Town (how cn you not love a Chinatown in Pakistan?) Subway, Hot Spot Bolan Saltish, which has a wide variety of local bochalistic Pakistani dishes, Jahangir Balti & Bar BQ, or last, and truly least – the “Melody Food Park”. The Melody Food Park is a typical calculation in Islamabad, and hundreds of thousands of people come here to enjoy three-week-old food. If you are looking for budget restaurants in Islamabad then you must go to the Melody Food Park where there are around 2500-3000 different ‘restaurants’ serving dishes of your choice, but not food.
In the end we settled on “Pappasallis,” which is Islamabad's oldest (two years) but very popular Italian restaurant. It even has a dance floor though no one uses it.
Anyway about twenty of us marched into Pappasallis, ordered a lot of pasta and pizza which looked strewn with roach parts. I was assured it was "local" ingredients.