Big day today. Musharraf will cast aside his uniform and appear in civilian garb. As long as he does not not appear in his regulati0n boxers it is okay with me. He has been castigated as a dictator and Pakistan has been suspended from the Commonwealth, not for the first time. Only the British and the BBC seem to think that membership of the Commonwealth is important, nobody else gives a toss. All countries, except Britain, belong to the third world and meetings give the leaders an opportunity to go shopping with their wives at taxpayers expense. To me Musharraf does not seem to be any more of a dictator than Bush is or Blair has been. They all claim to have won free and fair elections and to have 'popular mandate'. In the case of Bush we know he won less votes than Al Gore and was elected through the means of Electoral College and hanging chads in Florida whose governor was and is his brother. Not to mention the biased Supreme Court packed with conservatives. As for Blair, he did win three elections with large majorities but with less than half the people exercising their right to vote he can hardly claim to have support of the majority. Also in the 'first past the post' system a candidate might win despite getting a minority of votes because opposition votes are split between the Liberals and the Conservatives. Despite all this it did not stop the duo from killing half a million people in an illegal war in Iraq. If you ask them they will claim to have the people's mandate just as Musharraf does. Berlusconi won quite illegaly by controlling the media and succeeded in subverting investigations into criminal activities by claiming immunity as Prime Minister. Jacques Chirac also claimed immunity from investigation because he was President. His predecessor Mitterand was able to suppress strong rumours of his involvement in the Vichy regime. Despite their despotic behaviour these gentlemen at least had the decency not to claim to be a Very Important Person or VIP. Whatever their actions they tried to maintain an outward show of humility and respect for the law. Not so our lot. These have labelled themselves not only to be very important but very, very important and cause a lot of grief and money with their security. No sharam no izzat.