When COPA - the Coalition on Political Assassinations was first being formed, it was suggested that some day a network of independent researchers who had already worked on solving the US political assassinations of the 60s, would be ready to help prevent or solve future political assassinations when ever they would occur.

While the assassination of Bhutto was shocking, and will have an impact on what now happens for some time to come, we shouldn't be surprised that political assassination is still being used as a routine tool of action, especially in that corner of the world.

The very first BBC commentator on Bhutto's murder that I heard mentioned the assassination of President Kennedy, and how that murder sparked the same type of questions, unrest and insecurity that this assassination has brought on.

In addition, 9/11 was preceeded by two days the political assassination of the leader of the Northern Alliance by the same perpetrators, but that muder went practically unnoticed and unhearled.

If you look at the early edition newspapers from September 11, 2001, there is, of course, no mention of the attacks that took place that day, but there is, burried somewhere in the back pages, a small news article about the assassination of the leader of the Northen Alliance in Afghanistan.

Now will this assassination, like the one in September 2001, be a preliminary attack, setting the stage for something bigger?

BK

according to FOX News OBL has a communique coming out today, sometime....

For a very enlightening 50 minute talk on who overthrew and had her father killed [hint: Kissinger et al], who had her brothers killed [hint: US proxies] and who likely killed her listen or view here: http://www.democracynow.org/2007/12/28/pak...benazir_bhuttos

...and the latest bull is that she died from self-inflicted wounds...the same old tattered how-to-kill-a-progressive by the regressives book is being used.....a well-worn book.

NB. The US Govt. announced a FEW HOURS BEFORE her assassination they were sending troops to Pakistan. I'll post the details later.
What did they know, and when did they know it?

Bhutto spoke with David Forst one month ago. In this interview she claimed that Sheikh Omar Saeed killed Osama Bin Laden.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIO8B6fpFSQ

Very interesting.

John

I doubt the US was behind the assassination she seems to have been Washington’s “Man in Pakistan”. The people/groups with motive for wanting to bump her off were:

1) Al Qeada and other Islamist extremist groups
2) General Musharaff
3) Nawaz Sharif who is now the most prominent secular opposition politician

As for who was behind the coup against her father I wouldn’t be surprised is the CIA had a role but I doubt Kissinger did since it happened during the Carter Administration. I’d like to see further evidence than the unreferenced claim by a political activist/journalist that the US was involved. That’s NOT what the radio show was about which focused more on the current situation.

“The US Govt. announced a FEW HOURS BEFORE her assassination they were sending troops to Pakistan”

I don’t think there was an announcement the story seems to have leaked out but Bush administration has wanted to do so for quite a while IIRC Obama said something about he would do so with or without Musharraff’s permission
I don't see a link between the two events

VERY Preliminary Thoughts

BK's post speaks to us in terms of our special responsibility to respond with hard-earned wisdom and courage to this and other political assassinations. His reference to events of 9/9/01 is spot-on.

Let's start calmly and with focus.

1. Who benefits?

2. Segregate the "how" question from the "who" and "why" inquiries -- to the degree that we can.

As I write, we have been told that the cause of death was head trauma caused when Bhutto dropped from her through-the-sunroof perch after having been shot. Immediately we are put in mind of the Rabin hit, and how evidence suggests that he might have been killed after initial shots were fired and he entered his security vehicle.

Who was inside her SUV?

How, if at all, was security stripped/denied?

Was her SUV equipped with security glass and armor?

Was an autospy conducted? If not, why not? If so, who was/were the prosector(s), and where is the report?

Etc. We all know the drill.

3. Now it's on to the cui bono? stage.

The short answer: Anyone who stands to gain from chaos in the region.

Include in that group the masters of George Bush -- which is to say, the perpetrators of 9-11.

4. If "follow the money" was Watergate's mantra, the investigative mantra of all other intel ops must be "question the timing."

So ... Why now?

Finally: How can we leverage the aftermath of this tragedy to assist in our efforts to define and achieve justice for JFK?

For starters.

Charles

Outstanding - the practical application of the key paradigm.

From the POV of the beneficiaries of the war on abstract nouns, the assassination is such a timely boon:

the nascent Caliphate gets nukes;

US special forces get bases on the Iran border;

India is compelled to move even further into the sea powers embrace;

the MIC gets a huge shot in the arm.

And that's only four. Yes, one sees at once why we can discount CIA involvement.

Paul

Three more:

the US protection racket can rachet up a level to ensure the newly-menaced Gulf States continue to trade oil in dollars; and spend their vast reserves on yet more US weaponry they will likely never use and will never really control;

the next US President will have her foreign policy options determined before she gets her feet under the White House desk;

a narrative has now been established which permits the US to despose of Musharraf and blame it on either Al Qaeda or Bhutto's supporters.

Favourite nonsense question of the moment comes from the Times online: Can Pakistan democracy survive?

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/worl...o&HBX_OU=50

Bronwen Maddox, take a bow.

U.S. Special Forces to Expand Presence in Pakistan
[this was on www.democracynow.org just a FEW HOURS BEFORE her assassination!]
In other news on Pakistan, the Washington Post reports U.S. Special Forces are expected to vastly expand their presence in Pakistan beginning in early 2008. The U.S. troops will reportedly take part in an effort to train and support Pakistani counter-insurgency forces and clandestine counterterrorism units. While the U.S. expands its presence in Pakistan, questions are being raised over how Pakistan has spent five billion dollars in U.S. aid sent since the Sept. 11 attacks. According to the New York Times, the money was supposed to have been spent to fight Al Qaeda and the Taliban. But now U.S. officials are admitting that funds were diverted to help finance weapons systems designed to counter India, another U.S. ally

I would again urge everyone to listen to this interview with a very saavy historian and Pakistani on who deposed and killed her father [Kissinger and Co.], her brothers and very likely her! http://www.democracynow.org/2007/12/28/pak...benazir_bhuttos

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Below, just gereral background.

Benazir Bhutto followed her father into politics, and both of them died because of it - he was executed in 1979, she fell victim to an apparent suicide bomb attack.

Her two brothers also suffered violent deaths.

Like the Nehru-Gandhi family in India, the Bhuttos of Pakistan are one of the world's most famous political dynasties. Benazir's father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was prime minister of Pakistan in the early 1970s.

His government was one of the few in the 30 years following independence that was not run by the army.

Born in 1953 in the province of Sindh and educated at Harvard and Oxford, Ms Bhutto gained credibility from her father's high profile, even though she was a reluctant convert to politics.

She was twice prime minister of Pakistan, from 1988 to 1990, and from 1993 to 1996.

Stubbornness

On both occasions she was dismissed from office by the president for alleged corruption.

The dismissals typified her volatile political career, which was characterised by numerous peaks and troughs. At the height of her popularity - shortly after her first election - she was one of the most high-profile women leaders in the world.

Young and glamorous, she successfully portrayed herself as a refreshing contrast to the overwhelmingly male-dominated political establishment.

But after her second fall from power, her name came to be seen by some as synonymous with corruption and bad governance.
Asif Zardari has faced numerous corruption charges


The determination and stubbornness for which Ms Bhutto was renowned was first seen after her father was imprisoned and charged with murder by Gen Zia ul-Haq in 1977, following a military coup. Two years later he was executed.

Ms Bhutto was imprisoned just before her father's death and spent most of her five-year jail term in solitary confinement. She described the conditions as extremely hard.

During stints out of prison for medical treatment, Ms Bhutto set up a Pakistan People's Party office in London, and began a campaign against General Zia.

She returned to Pakistan in 1986, attracting huge crowds to political rallies.

After Gen Zia died in an explosion on board his aircraft in 1988, she became one of the first democratically elected female prime ministers in an Islamic country.

Corruption charges

During both her stints in power, the role of Ms Bhutto's husband, Asif Zardari, proved highly controversial.

He played a prominent role in both her administrations, and has been accused by various Pakistani governments of stealing millions of dollars from state coffers - charges he denies, as did Ms Bhutto herself.

Many commentators argued that the downfall of Ms Bhutto's government was accelerated by the alleged greed of her husband.

None of about 18 corruption and criminal cases against Mr Zardari has been proved in court after 10 years. But he served at least eight years in jail.

He was freed on bail in 2004, amid accusations that the charges against him were weak and going nowhere.

Ms Bhutto also steadfastly denied all the corruption charges against her, which she said were politically motivated.

She faced corruption charges in at least five cases, all without a conviction, until amnestied in October 2007.
President Pervez Musharraf granted Ms Bhutto and others an amnesty


She was convicted in 1999 for failing to appear in court, but the Supreme Court later overturned that judgement.

Soon after the conviction, audiotapes of conversations between the judge and some top aides of then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif were discovered that showed that the judge had been under pressure to convict.


Ms Bhutto left Pakistan in 1999 to live abroad, but questions about her and her husband's wealth continued to dog her.

She appealed against a conviction in the Swiss courts for money-laundering.

During her years outside Pakistan, Ms Bhutto lived with her three children in Dubai, where she was joined by her husband after he was freed in 2004.

She was a regular visitor to Western capitals, delivering lectures at universities and think-tanks and meeting government officials.



Army mistrust

Ms Bhutto returned to Pakistan on 18 October 2007 after President Musharraf signed into law an ordinance granting her and others an amnesty from corruption charges.

Observers said the military regime saw her as a natural ally in its efforts to isolate religious forces and their surrogate militants.

She declined a government offer to let her party head the national government after the 2002 elections, in which the party received the largest number of votes.

In the months before her death, she had emerged again as a strong contender for power.

Some in Pakistan believe her secret talks with the military regime amounted to betrayal of democratic forces as these talks shored up President Musharraf's grip on the country.

Others said such talks indicated that the military might at long last be getting over its decades-old mistrust of Ms Bhutto and her party, and interpreted it as a good omen for democracy.

Western powers saw in her a popular leader with liberal leanings who could bring much needed legitimacy to Mr Musharraf's role in the "war against terror".

Unhappy family

Benazir Bhutto was the last remaining bearer of her late father's political legacy.

Her brother, Murtaza - who was once expected to play the role of party leader - fled to the then-communist Afghanistan after his father's fall.

From there, and various Middle Eastern capitals, he mounted a campaign against Pakistan's military government with a militant group called al-Zulfikar.

He won elections from exile in 1993 and became a provincial legislator, returning home soon afterwards, only to be shot dead under mysterious circumstances in 1996.

Benazir's other brother, Shahnawaz - also politically active but in less violent ways than Murtaza - was found dead in his French Riviera apartment in 1985.

Interim replacement: General Ashfaq Kiyani, loyal servant of the American totalitarian imperium

http://www.guardian.co.uk/pakistan/Story/0,,2233092,00.html

Sharif to follow, it would appear, but what then?

I'd point out that the city in which the assassination took place is the very HQ of both the Pakistani Military and the ISI [Pakistani CIA - trained and funded by the CIA]

Below, from the Telegraph.co.uk
Row breaks out over Benazir Bhutto's death
By Isambard Wilkinson, Pakistan Correspondent, and Bonnie Malkin
Last Updated: 2:57am GMT 29/12/2007


The burial of Benzair Bhutto was today marred by heavy violence across Pakistan as a bitter row broke out over how she died.
Telegraph TV: Eyewitness account of Bhutto's death (Note: Graphic images)
In pictures: Hundreds of thousands turn out for funeral
Benazir Bhutto's death and the US election

As hundreds of thousands mourned the murdered opposition leader, the country's Interior Ministry claimed she had died from hitting her vehicle's sunroof when she tried to duck after a suicide attack.

However, one of Miss Bhutto's aide rejected the government's explanation of her death as a "pack of lies".
Telegraph TV: Benazir Bhutto's funeral in Garhi Khuda Bakhsh


Brigadier Javed Cheema, a ministry spokesman, said Miss Bhutto had died from a head wound she sustained when she smashed against the sunroof's lever as she tried to shelter inside the car.

"The lever struck near her right ear and fractured her skull," Mr Cheema said.

But the explanation was ridiculed by Farooq Naik, Miss Bhutto's top lawyer and a senior official in her Pakistan People's Party.

"It is baseless. It is a pack of lies," he said.

"Two bullets hit her, one in the abdomen and one in the head. It was a serious security lapse."

The dispute came as Pakistani security forces were given orders to shoot on sight in an attempt to curb unrest as millions across the country mourned Miss Bhutto.

The former prime minister and leading opposition figure was laid to rest in her family's mausoleum a day after her assassination by Islamic extremists.

Her simple coffin, draped in the red, green and black flag of her Pakistan People's Party, was greeted by huge crowds at her ancestral grave in the village of Garhi Khuda Bakhsh in the southern province of Sind.

Accompanied by her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, and three children, her body was carried in a white ambulance as it made its way towards the white Mogulesque mausoleum surrounded by hundreds of thousands of mourners.

As she was being laid to rest alongside the tombs of her father and two brothers, her furious supporters across the country ransacked banks, waged shootouts with police and burned stations in a spasm of violence that threatened to plunge the country into deep turmoil less than two weeks before a crucial election.
Your view: What next for Pakistan? | Why Islamist radicals wanted her dead
Con Coughlin: Bhutto's death is victory for Islamic hardliners
World reaction in quotes | Obituary | Life in politics | In pictures: Day of violence

Paramilitary rangers were given the authority to use live rounds to stop rioters from damaging property in southern Pakistan. "We have orders to shoot on sight," said Major Asad Ali, the rangers' spokesman.

The shooting and suicide bomb attack that killed Miss Bhutto and 20 others has badly damaged President Pervez Musharraf's plans to "restore democracy" in nuclear-armed Pakistan, a key US ally in the war on terrorism.

He has blamed the attack on Islamic militants based near the country's border with Afghanistan, and pledged to "root them out", but an Interior Ministry spokesman today suggested al-Qa'eda may have been responsible.

"Benazir has been on the hit-list of al-Qa'eda," Brigadier Javed Cheema said. "Now there is every possibility that al-Qa'eda is behind this tragic attack to undermine the security of Pakistan."
Telegraph TV: Eyewitness account of killing (Note: Graphic images)


Later, a ministry spokesman said an al-Qa'eda phone call was intercepted after Miss Bhutto was killed and there was "irrefutable evidence" the group was trying to undermine the country.

The caretaker prime minister, Mohammedmian Soomro, said the government had no immediate plan to postpone the Jan 8 parliamentary elections, but increasingly chaotic scenes and a senior opposition leader's decision to boycott the poll, have put the polls in doubt.

"Right now the elections stand where they were," he said. "We will consult all the political parties to take any decision about it."

Thousands of mourners, many of them women and children, gathered around the Bhutto family's home in Sind. "Benazir is alive, Bhutto is alive," cried many of the mourners.

One of them, Nazakat Soomro, 32, said: "She was not just the leader of the PPP, she was a leader of the whole country. I don't know what will happen to the country now."

A mob in Karachi looted at least three banks and set them on fire, and engaged in a shoot out with police that left three officers wounded, police said.

About 7,000 people in the central city of Multan ransacked seven banks and a petrol station and threw stones at police, who responded with tear gas.

In the capital, Islamabad, about 100 protesters burned tyres in a commercial quarter of the city. Angry mobs burned 10 railway stations and several trains across Sind province, forcing the suspension of all train service between the city of Karachi and the eastern Punjab province, said Mir Mohammed Khaskheli, a senior railway official.
Nawaz Sharif: serious situation


The New York Times reported that the head of the medical college in Rawalpindi who attended to Miss Bhutto, said she was clinically dead on arrival.

Miss Bhutto was shot not far from where Pakistan's first prime minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, was killed by an assassin's bullet on Oct 16, 1951, and near where her father was hanged by the late dictator, General Zia al-Haq.

Dawn, Pakistan's leading broadsheet newspaper, reported: "Benazir Bhutto is dead. She died amidst her supporters who revered her, and her father before her, and from whom she derived her strength, her legitimacy as a leader. She died because the state proved inadequate in protecting her."

The acting head of Miss Bhutto's party, Amin Fahim, admitted that she could have survived the blast if she had not stood up through the sunroof of her vehicle to acknowledge her supporters.

"She fell down in the seat and we thought she was unconscious. She could have survived had she been sitting," said Mr Fahim.

Here is the www.democracynow.org transcript [url in post above]. Long, but well worth the read. IMO

JUAN GONZALEZ: Benazir Bhutto, the twice-elected Prime Minister of Pakistan, has just been buried in her home province of Sindh. She was assassinated Thursday evening after a political rally near the capital, plunging the country into a state of chaos.


Hundreds of thousands of people gathered in her ancestral village for her funeral, despite a long night of violence. As news of Bhutto’s death rippled across the country, Pakistan was engulfed by riots.


Benazir Bhutto, the fifty-four-year-old mother of three, comes from a family steeped in both politics and tragedy. Her father Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was a democratically elected populist leader in the 1970s who was executed by the military regime of General Zia-ul-Haq in 1979. One of her brothers was poisoned, and another shot to death.

AMY GOODMAN: Bhutto returned to Pakistan this October after being forced from power in 1996 on corruption charges. Her return was brokered by the United States. But Bhutto’s homecoming was met with a suicide bombing she narrowly survived. 140 people were killed in that attack.


Bhutto spoke out against the bombing and said she believes government officials might have been involved in the attack.

BENAZIR BHUTTO: We want to avoid bloodshed. We want to avoid loss of life. But I also want to say that if it means sacrificing our lives, if it means sacrificing our liberty to save Pakistan and to save democracy, because we believe democracy alone can save Pakistan from disintegration and a militant takeover, then we are prepared to risk our lives, and we are prepared to risk our liberty. But we are not prepared to surrender our great nation to the militants.


AMY GOODMAN: Benazir Bhutto, speaking in October after escaping a suicide bombing attempt. President Musharraf expressed his condolences to Bhutto’s family on Thursday after the assassination and announced a three-day period of mourning. He blamed “terrorists” for the attack and said terrorism is the country’s biggest hurdle.

PRESIDENT PERVEZ MUSHARRAF: [translated] I have always said that the biggest threat to Pakistan and this nation is from these terrorists. Today, on this sad occasion, I want to make a pledge. I want to make this pledge, and I seek unity and support from the nation, that they will support me in this, that we will not sit and rest until we get rid of these terrorists and root them out completely. This is the only way out for Pakistan and for the nation, because this is the biggest hurdle for our prosperity and progress.


AMY GOODMAN: Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf condemning the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. Nawaz Sharif, once Bhutto’s staunch political rival, also a former prime minister, visited the hospital shortly after Bhutto died. He blamed President Musharraf for allowing the “lapses in security” and announced that he would boycott the elections.

Three hours before the attack on Bhutto, gunfire killed four supporters of Nawaz Sharif in a rally outside Islamabad.

NAWAZ SHARIF: [translated] The attacks on the two biggest national political parties on the same day indicate the intention of Musharraf. It was a preconceived conspiracy. Now this fully proves that there can be no free elections in Musharraf’s presence. The chaos and killings cannot stop until Musharraf is there. There can be no peace in his presence, and the Federation of Pakistan cannot stand firm. And there is no doubt in that. In these circumstances, we have decided that after the barbaric killing of Benazir Bhutto, we are going to boycott the elections.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Pakistani opposition leader Nawaz Sharif announcing his boycott of the elections scheduled for January 8th. The government, however, has reportedly said it will go ahead with the elections.


President Bush also denounced the attack Thursday and held “murderous extremists” responsible.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: The United States strongly condemns this cowardly act by murderous extremists who are trying to undermine Pakistan’s democracy. Those who committed this crime must be brought to justice. Mrs. Bhutto served her nation twice as prime minister, and she knew that her return to Pakistan earlier this year put her life at risk. Yet she refused to allow assassins to dictate the course of her country. We stand with the people of Pakistan in their struggle against the forces of terror and extremism. We urge them to honor Benazir Bhutto’s memory by continuing with the democratic process for which she so bravely gave her life.


AMY GOODMAN: President Bush condemning the assassination of the former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

For the latest update on Pakistan, we turn first to Manan Ahmed, a historian of modern Pakistan and South Asian Islam. He blogs at Chapati Mystery and Juan Cole’s Informed Comment: Global Affairs. We welcome you, Manan, to Democracy Now!. First, talk about the latest that you understand is happening.

MANAN AHMED: Thank you for having me, Amy. The latest that I’ve—that’s being reported through national and local media in Pakistan is that the government has called for an all-party conference and for the sake of determining whether the elections will be held January 8th or not. And the government has stated that whatever the decision emerges out of the all-party conference, they would abide by it, which is a very important step since Nawaz Sharif, as we just heard, has issued a boycott of the election.

The Pakistan People’s Party has announced a forty-day mourning period. And other major political players, such as Jamaat-e-Islami, the Islamist parties, have so far—and MQM—have so far been on the fence about whether or not they will participate any further.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, Manan, given the forty-day mourning period declared by the People’s Party, how could the government even be considering going ahead with these elections, as we’re only talking about a little bit more than a week from now?

MANAN AHMED: Right, and that’s absolutely right. You know, it’s very hard to imagine an election taking place with campaigning and candidates standing, in the sense that if the government decides to go through with it, then the only clear indication would be that PLM-Q, the sort of the pro-government, pro-Musharraf party, has been put specifically in power. So the election, for all purposes, would appear to be rigged.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to go now to Britain to Tariq Ali, the British Pakistani historian, activist, commentator, one of the editors of the New Left Review, author of more than a dozen books, was recently back in Pakistan, where he was born. Tariq, talk about your response on Thursday when you heard the news, and talk about why Benazir Bhutto returned to Pakistan.

TARIQ ALI: Well, Amy, my first reaction was anger. I was livid that Bush and his acolytes in Britain had fixed this deal, pushing her to do a deal with Musharraf, forcing her to play a role, which, of course, she agreed to do—it has to be admitted—in Pakistan, which she was not capable of playing. She made some extremely injudicious remarks, saying that she would go back, she was the only person who could deal with terrorism, etc., etc. The fact was that this was not the case.

And, you know, to—I wrote at the time that it is a big, big problem when you try and arrange a political marriage between two parties who loathe each other. And so, Musharraf very rapidly, after her return, embarrassed her by instituting a state of emergency. And she then didn’t know whether to defend the state of emergency; finally, she attacked it. So the whole situation was a complete mess.

And now, everyone in Pakistan knows that an election organized in this fashion, under the leadership of a guy who’s become a master at rigging elections, is not going to achieve anything. So Benazir was advised by close advisers, including one of the central leaders of her party, Aitzaz Ahsan, who is still in prison, by the way, saying we must not participate in this election, it’s totally fake and rigged, it should be boycotted. She refused to accept that, because Washington insisted that she participate in this election, and she was torn in her loyalties. And finally, she, a woman of great physical courage, lacked the political courage to defy Washington. And I have to say this, it’s cost her her life. Had she decided to boycott the election, this would not have happened.

And for Washington to send her to Pakistan, reassuring her that she would be safe, is shocking. At the very least, if they were insistent on doing this, they could have provided her with a Marine guard like Karzai gets in Kabul. But, you know, they depended on the locals to guard her, and they obviously couldn’t do it. So she’s now dead. And it’s a tragedy. It’s a personal tragedy for her and her family. And it sort of has begun, embarked on a new crisis for Pakistan, which is going to get worse.

I mean, I think Musharraf’s days are numbered. I don’t think he will be, even if he has this fake election in a week or ten days’ time, which Bush is forcing him to do—I mean, I cannot understand, for the life of me, how the President of the United States can be so isolated and remote from reality as to insist that an election goes ahead when one of the central political leaders in the country, backed by Washington, has just been assassinated. I mean, what the hell are they going to achieve from this election? Nothing. It will not give legitimacy to anyone. It will create possibly, very rapidly afterwards, a new crisis, and then they will have to have a new military leader stepping in.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Tariq Ali, a British Pakistani historian, activist, commentator; also Manan Ahmed, historian of modern Pakistan and South Asian Islam. This is Democracy Now! We’re talking about Benazir Bhutto and Pakistan for the hour. Stay with us.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: For our radio listeners, you can go to our website to see the video images that we show throughout the broadcast today on Pakistan. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan Gonzalez. Our guests are Manan Ahmed, historian of modern Pakistan and South Asian Islam, as well as Tariq Ali, British Pakistani historian, activist and commentator, one of the editors of the New Left Review. Juan?

JUAN GONZALEZ: Yes, I’d like to ask Tariq Ali, I was struck by your counter-posing the physical courage of Benazir Bhutto with some of the lack of political courage. And this is something that you’ve remarked in many of your articles in the past, including interviews you had with her. I remember one article where you talked about a 1988 interview, I think it was, that you had with her when she was prime minister and how she was hemmed in by the political forces in Pakistan, but would not publicly tell her supporters what was going on. Could you talk about that in this sort of—this trend throughout her leadership of this lack of political courage.

TARIQ ALI: Well, Juan, this is absolutely right, and it’s been her tragedy and the country’s tragedy. When she came to power, elected for the first time, it is absolutely true she was hemmed in by the military on one side and an old rogue of a bureaucrat who had been made president on the other.

And she told me very openly, “I can’t do anything.” And I said to her at the time in Prime Minister’s house in Islamabad, “I understand that, but there are two things you have to do. One, you have to make it very clear to the people publicly that this is the reason I can’t deliver my promises on land reform, on health, on education. They won’t let me do anything. This is why I can’t make any readjustments in foreign policy. They have imposed their own foreign minister, Yacoub, on me, who insists we carry on as before,” etc. etc. She didn’t do that.

And I think by this time she had become a very different person politically from what she had been earlier and had decided that she didn’t want to be on the wrong side of history, so to speak. She more or less said that to me. And she realized or she thought that the only way to survive in this world was basically to do the bidding of the army at home and Washington abroad, two institutions which had led to the—which had basically bumped off her dad in 1979 and which were not going to do her any favors.

AMY GOODMAN: Tariq, explain that, how her father died and who was involved in his assassination, in his execution.

TARIQ ALI: Her father was probably the most popular politician in Pakistan, pledging massive social reforms. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who had been elected in the 1970 elections, had won a large majority in the country that we now know as Pakistan and had been elected on a very radical platform. He came to power.

He implemented some of his reforms, not all, became extremely autocratic, clashed with the United States on a number of issues, including Pakistan’s right to have nuclear weapons. Henry Kissinger warned him in private that if you do not desist on the nuclear issue, we will make a terrible example out of you. That’s what Bhutto wrote from his death cell. The United States organized a military coup d’etat. General Zia-ul-Haq took power in 1977, organized a trial against Bhutto, charging him with an absurd charge of murdering someone. The judges were pressured, and they found him guilty, and Bhutto was hanged in April 1979. It could not have happened without US support and approval, because Zia was a nobody, and Washington clearly green-lighted the murder.

And Bhutto, from his death cell, wrote a very moving document called “If I Am Assassinated,” in which he said there are two hegemonies—these are his words. He said, “There are two hegemonies that dominate our country. One is an internal hegemony, and the other is an external hegemony. And unless we challenge the external hegemony, we will never be able to deal with the internal one,” meaning Washington is the external hegemony and the army is the internal one. And this is a problem which still haunts Pakistan and which, I have to say, has now created this new crisis.

And unfortunately, his daughter decided to collaborate with both of these hegemonies. One has to say this. Her second period in office was a total disaster, because not only did she do nothing for the poor or her natural constituency, but basically it became an extremely corrupt government, and she and her husband accumulated $1.5 billion through corruption. This is well known to everyone.

Now, when the United States decided they wanted to put her back in there, they told her, we are going to whitewash you so clean no one will even know. And this is what the global media and networks have been doing. Look, I knew her well. I’m very upset that she’s dead. But the piety being displayed on the global media networks is beyond belief. You know, it’s as if there’s no past, no history in this country or its politicians.

JUAN GONZALEZ: I’d like to ask Manan Ahmed about that, as well. She is being obviously lionized, especially in the US press, as a martyr, and she was considered, of among the leaders, the potential leaders of Pakistan, the one that would most go after terrorism or extremism, but she herself, when she was in her second period as prime minister, helped back the Taliban in Afghanistan, didn’t she?

MANAN AHMED: Yes, that’s right. I mean, there was a history of political deals made not just in Afghanistan, but also in Sawat region, I mean, the region that currently is a huge source of aggravation for the military regime with separatist movement. And during her second tenure, she allowed an Islamist agenda to be implemented, although curtailed to a certain extent. So, I mean, the sort of mythology of her being a sole democratic, modern, secular force in Pakistan is absolutely erroneous.

The key, I think, here is just as Tariq Ali has pointed out, is that the emphasis on her being the sole democratic sort of voice in Pakistan is belied simply by the events of 2007, when, in Pakistan since March, the lawyers and the civil society has participated in a mass movement for judicial rights, rights of the judiciary, for democratic practices. And this is a movement which had nothing to do with Benazir Bhutto in any shape as an ideologue or as a leader. This was a true movement of democratic reform that Washington should have supported from the very beginning, or at least since August, when it became clear that it was clearly the will of the Pakistani people. And installing Benazir from outside or brokering a deal undercut whatever legitimacy that she may have had with the people of Pakistan, which is not denying the fact that, you know, she is—I’m sorry, she was a very popular leader. But legitimacy is the key term here, something that Musharraf’s regime is now sorely lacking, as well.

AMY GOODMAN: Let’s talk for a minute about Benazir Bhutto returning. The Washington Post reports the United States brokered Bhutto’s return to Pakistan in October in a deal where she could be prime minister, Musharraf could retain the presidency. In August of this year, Benazir Bhutto discussed her negotiations with General Musharraf.

BENAZIR BHUTTO: As far as my understanding with General Musharraf is concerned, the ban on the twice-elected prime minister must go before the election period kicks in. And if that ban does not go, then obviously the agreement is not there.


AMY GOODMAN: That was Benazir Bhutto in August. Tariq Ali, you begin an extended piece that you wrote over this twenty-four hours by talking about who in Washington, people like John Negroponte, who were instrumental in her return.

TARIQ ALI: Well, yeah. I mean, John Negroponte was the ghoulish go-between fixing up—trying to fix up the marriage between Benazir and Musharraf, backed, as always, by the ever-loyal acolytes in the British Foreign Office, who were also pushing this deal without any real understanding, in my opinion, of what was going on in the country or what the country needed.

And essentially, Amy, if one has to ask the question, what was the desperation? The notion that the Jihadis in Pakistan are on the verge of achieving power is total nonsense. There is no danger, in my opinion, of any Jihadis coming close to Pakistan’s nuclear facilities. The army is half-a-million strong, one of the toughest armies in the world. It will not permit anyone to get close to the nuclear facility, the Jihadis or the United States, if they tried. So that is not on.

The real crisis is a crisis in Afghanistan, which they don’t like talking about, an occupation which is going badly wrong, seeing the revival of the Taliban. The United States knows this fully well and is negotiating with the Taliban behind the scenes. They don’t even bother denying it.

So this is what is going on, and they needed a politician in Pakistan who could act on their behalf, like Karzai does in Kabul. And they picked Benazir, because they didn’t trust the Sharif brothers. They thought they were too close to the Saudis, which is true, by the way. So they picked on Benazir to do the deal, because they thought Musharraf on his own was too closely attached to extremely retrograde elements and that Benazir would be able to swing it. But, you know, nothing in Pakistan can be swung without the army.

So they were the key players, and they, ’til now, have been backing Musharraf. And they backed Musharraf’s decision to impose an emergency, which completely pulled the rug underneath Benazir’s feet. And it’s at this point that the United States should have realized that an election in these conditions is completely foolish. It was not going to deliver anything. It was going to be rigged. There was no secret about it. Benazir herself said this: “I fear this is going to be a rigged election.” Well, if that is the case, why participate in it?

AMY GOODMAN: Our top story yesterday, before we learned of Benazir Bhutto’s assassination, was Pakistan, and it was the news that had come out about questions being raised over how Pakistan had spent $5 billion in US aid sent since the September 11th attacks. According to the New York Times, the money was supposed to have been spent to fight al-Qaeda and the Taliban, but now US officials are admitting that the funds were diverted to help finance weapons designed to counter India, another US ally. Tariq Ali?

TARIQ ALI: Well, this is totally true, and why are they surprised? It’s been happening for years. You know, I remember during the war in Afghanistan when the Russians were there in the ’80s. The United States, you know, sent billions into Pakistan in both money and weapons, including very advanced weapons, to help the Pakistan army and the Jihadi groups fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. And the same thing was happening: weapons were being sold on the open market, weapons money was being diverted. And when the Pentagon sent in its auditors to check what was happening to the money, one of the largest arms dumps, where a lot of American equipment was stored, suddenly blew up the day before the team delegation arrived from the United States in Ojri. I happened to be in the country then, and the blast was heard all over the city. So that is what they do. So no one should be surprised that this is what is being done.

I mean, essentially, the Pakistani—or sections inside the Pakistani military have never got used to the idea that they are no longer strong in Afghanistan, that they no longer control Kabul, and they believe that after NATO leaves, they’ll take it back. And for the United States, the choice is either to use the Pakistan army as a cop to control Afghanistan or to fix a regional deal so that Afghanistan’s stability is guaranteed by Russia, Iran, India and Pakistan. That is the way to go, not deal unilaterally with the Pakistani military. But no one is listening in Washington, because they’re completely visionless at the moment. So the fact that these billions have been spent to provide security to fight one particular enemy and now being used to shore up the country against another supposed enemy shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. That’s how things happen there.

JUAN GONZALEZ: I’d like to ask Manan Ahmed, the day that President Musharraf declared his state of the emergency a couple of months ago, there was a long article in the New York Times. Buried at the very end of that article on the coup within a coup, in essence, was the result of a public opinion poll that had been conducted by a Washington firm in Pakistan, which showed that President Musharraf had a popularity rating slightly better than George Bush, but not much, but that Osama bin Laden was viewed favorably by more than 40% of the Pakistani people, an astounding figure, in my mind. And I’m wondering, your sense of this continued unrest and instability in Pakistan, now this assassination, the impact of these changes on the growth of fundamentalism within the Pakistani population.

MANAN AHMED: I think—I mean, part of the quote/unquote “threat” of, you know, an Islamist Pakistan is rather overblown. The recent history, both electoral politics and political discourse in the country clearly points that the Islamists have not been able to gather much support, even, you know, besides the sort of polls about Osama bin Laden and George Bush.

But that’s not to say that in the last two years there hasn’t been a marked increase in lack of stability and sort of, you know, what the Pakistani press calls foreign intervention in the areas in Balochistan, which is a separatist crisis, a crisis of federal versus state rights—it’s a very real crisis with a long history—and in the sort of northwestern regions, Sawat, Peshawar. So there is something to the fact that militants, whether within Pakistan or from Afghanistan, are operating with greater autonomy.

Now, the military, of course, has the means and the power to deal with them. And they’ve been trying to do so with great casualties, I must add, in the last two years. But the basic point is that Musharraf lacks legitimacy from the people of Pakistan to fully commit to such actions in Balochistan and in the northwestern regions. And that political legitimacy translates to, you know, failure to act as strong as they would really like to do to carry out these operations. And that legitimacy is not going to come from even through the sort of, you know, civilian presidential role that he has now put upon himself. That legitimacy can only come from a democratically elected people. And again, Pakistan’s history is very clear that were inactions to happen, even now, the people will elect someone who—you know, parties who are not lockstep with some extremist ideology, as the mainstream media, at least in the United States, would have you believe.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Manan Ahmed, historian of modern Pakistan and South Asian Islam. He’s speaking to us from Chicago. We’re also speaking with Tariq Ali, British Pakistani historian, activist, commentator, is one of the editors of the New Left Review, author of more than a dozen book. When we come back, I also want to ask about the increase of US troops expected in Pakistan in 2008. This is a Democracy Now! special on the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. Stay with us.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: Hundreds of thousands of people have come out to mourn the death of Benazir Bhutto, the former Pakistani prime minister. She was assassinated yesterday. Our guests are Tariq Ali, British Pakistani historian, activist, commentator, knew Benazir Bhutto; Manan Ahmed, historian of modern Pakistan and South Asian Islam.

Another part of our headlines yesterday, before the assassination, a top headline, the Washington Post reporting that US Special Forces expecting to vastly expand their presence in Pakistan in early 2008. The US troops reportedly taking part in an effort to train and support Pakistani counterinsurgency forces and clandestine counterterrorism units. Tariq Ali, talk about the significance of this.

TARIQ ALI: Well, I think, you know, the significance of this is that the United States refuses to understand that there is a big political problem which cannot be dealt with militarily. And that political problem can be summed up as follows, that the people of Afghanistan—like it or dislike it—do not like being occupied by foreign powers. They didn’t like being occupied by the Russians, and they don’t like being occupied by the United States and the NATO armies in their country. And as long as this foreign occupation lasts, there will be, you know, forms of resistance against it.

Now, this crisis and instability in Afghanistan is seeping across the border into northwestern Pakistan. Pakistan is, you know, sending troops to fight some of the people who come over the border, some who belong to Pakistan, who are fighting against NATO. They order their soldiers to kill, and Pakistani soldiers are refusing to open fire. That is essentially what’s going on.

And the reason they’re refusing to open fire is because for the last twenty-five years this ideology implanted in their heads when they’re being trained to be soldiers in the Pakistan army is that your enemy is the Hindu. Your enemy is India. Your enemy is the traditional enemy of Pakistan and of Muslims, and these are the people you’ll be fighting. This is what they’ve been led to believe.

Now they are being told that your enemies are other Muslims from a neighboring Muslim country, and so there’s a massive crisis, a big psychological crisis, for lots of soldiers who are not fighting. In fact, you often read in the Pakistani press reports—twenty soldiers surrender, fifty soldiers surrender. And they are surrendering to groups of four or five armed Taliban or, you know, non-Taliban fighters from Afghanistan. This is impossible to understand, except in political terms.

So training more specialized troops isn’t going to do the trick, if there’s this basic problem, which is, as Juan was asking earlier, when you have some of these opinion polls, the reason people say that if there’s a choice between Bush and bin Laden, they’ll back bin Laden, or between—it’s not because they’re extremists in that sense, but they don’t like the fact that Pakistan is totally on its knees as a state before Washington and the United States. It doesn’t argue with them. It doesn’t resist them on any level at all. So the fact that it’s independent is neither here nor there. So sending in more US troops is actually going to make things much, much worse for pro-US politicians in that country. And they should be prepared for that.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Tariq, I’d like to ask you, in an article in November, an extensive article on Pakistan, you delved in much detail into the death of one of Benazir Bhutto’s brothers, Murtaza Bhutto, who—there’s been much made of the history of violence in the family, of violent deaths of her father and both of her brothers. But you go in particular detail into the differences that had developed over the years between Benazir and her brother. Could you talk about that?

TARIQ ALI: Well, this was a big tragedy for this family. But, yeah, I mean, essentially what happened is that when Murtaza Bhutto returned to the country, their mother, Nusrat Bhutto, was chairperson of the Pakistan People’s Party. Benazir was the prime minister of Pakistan. And the mother wanted Murtaza, as a member of the family and of the party, to be made chief minister of the province of Sindh. At this point, Benazir’s husband, Asif Zardari, said that this was intolerable, because he and Murtaza weren’t exactly close. And Benazir then sacked her mother as chairperson of the party and became chairperson for life of the party herself. Her brother was being provoked by the local bureaucracy in Sindh. And finally, one day, returning to his home, his father’s home, from where his father had been picked up by General Zia’s commandos, he found a police ambush. The police were hoping that he would open fire, but he didn’t. He came out, out of his car with his bodyguards to surrender, and they shot him dead on the street, while his sister was prime minister.

Now, you know, there was a judicial inquiry into this, where the Murtaza Bhutto’s family lawyers accused Benazir’s husband of being responsible for having organized all this. The judicial inquiry, appointed by Benazir, said what while they couldn’t exactly pin the—you know, point the finger at any one person, there was absolutely no doubt that the murder of Murtaza Bhutto had been organized and ordered from the highest level. Well, you know, they didn’t have to say much more.

And Murtaza’s daughter, Fatima, in an op-ed piece for the LA Times a few—four or five weeks ago, actually accused Benazir’s husband of having carried out her father’s murder eleven years ago. Just before the media, independent media, was taken off the air by Musharraf, one of the largest networks, Geo, was interviewing Benazir and asked her, said, “How was it that when you were prime minister, your brother lay bleeding to death outside his house? Were you—you know, what did you know about that?” She walked out of the studio.

So this is a very awkward question, but I have studied all the documentation now, and I have little doubt that the murder was ordered at the highest levels. Whether she knew it was going to happen is an open question. She is the only one who knew, and she is now dead. But there is absolutely no doubt that unless an instruction from someone at Prime Minister’s house, the police force in Karachi would not have killed the prime minister’s brother. Things do not happen that way.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you, Tariq Ali, about this quote of Senator Barack Obama’s top campaign strategist, David Axelrod, who responded to the assassination by highlighting Hillary Clinton’s vote to support the US invasion of Iraq. He said, quote, “Barack Obama had the judgment to oppose the war in Iraq, and he warned at the time that it would divert us from Afghanistan and al-Qaeda, and now we see the effect of that. Senator Clinton made a different judgment. Let’s have that discussion,” he said.

TARIQ ALI: Well, I mean, you know, I think both of them were wrong, quite honestly. I think obviously Hillary Clinton was foolish, if not crazy, to support the war in Iraq. She couldn’t see beyond her nose. And it’s good that Obama opposed it. But for Obama and, I may say, many others who say that the only reason they can’t do anything in Afghanistan is because they are bogged down in Iraq is nonsense. I mean, they took Afghanistan without a fight. There was no—in the early years, there was no resistance at all. And the reason for that is that the Taliban didn’t fight. The Pakistani army told them, “Don’t fight back now. We don’t want to have any more people killed. Let them take over the country.”

AMY GOODMAN: But the point of Axelrod’s comment, the top strategist for Barack Obama, was responding to the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, saying that here you have the war in Iraq, it diverted us from Afghanistan and al-Qaeda, and now we see the effect of this, responding to Benazir Bhutto. And this has caused a bit of an uproar here saying—as he’s saying that Hillary Clinton is, you know, partially responsible by supporting the war and then seeing the surge of al-Qaeda in other places.

TARIQ ALI: Well, Amy, I mean, all I can say to that is, you know, politicians will say anything in the run-up to the primaries. But let’s assume they hadn’t invaded Iraq, OK? And let’s assume that they had sent twice as many soldiers into Afghanistan. I mean, the Russians, after all, did that. The notion that this would have somehow transformed the situation in Afghanistan is a joke. We don’t even know to this day whether al-Qaeda was behind Benazir Bhutto’s killing. I’m amazed to see newspaper headlines in quite a lot of Western newspapers. There is no evidence for it. For her to be killed not far from military headquarters, Pakistan’s military capital, in the heart of the city, I personally find it very difficult to believe that any group of religious extremists could have carried this out without some support from some agency within the establishment. I can’t believe it. So they assume that al-Qaeda carried this out.

But to return to Obama, if you’d had, you know, three times as more US troops in Afghanistan, casualties would have been higher. People would have—more people would have been fighting it. The real problem in Afghanistan is that they occupied it without having any understanding whatsoever what they were going to do. They put Karzai in, and they couldn’t do anything to transform the lives of ordinary people in that country. You have large-scale corruption with Karzai and his cronies getting rich, with Karzai’s brother actually in charge of the heroin trade and arms smuggling. That’s the problem, that the people they put in had—were feathering their own nests. So I think Obama is out of line on this. I mean, there is no guarantee that if he had sent twice or three times as many troops, that the situation would have been any better. It could have been worse.

JUAN GONZALEZ: I’d like to ask Manan Ahmed about the whole issue of the assassination and also its impact on the Bush administration policies regarding Pakistan. Clearly, all indications, or at least in the press in the US, are pointing to al-Qaeda. But as Tariq Ali raises the issue of the government’s involvement is not—is certainly not out of the question. Your sense of the security precautions for Benazir Bhutto and also the impact on the Bush administration’s policies there?

MANAN AHMED: Right. On the security front, there was lots of reports in local media in the last three or four days about the rally and specific threats made against Benazir Bhutto at that specific rally. And in fact, there was a report issued by the government saying the security at Liaquat Bagh is going to be foolproof and, you know, we’re taking all steps to make sure that she has—you know, that she’s completely secure. So, obviously, you know, reality did not jibe with whatever aversion that the government was sort of publicly proclaiming.

But I want to sort of step back a little bit and talk about this notion of how the United States has, since 1951, when Liaquat Ali Khan was assassinated, another prime minister of Pakistan, and military regimes were put in place—there has been the—you know, American foreign policy has been towards developing individuals, you know, people that they can sort of work with and trust in these key areas in Pakistan and other Southeast Asia and the world. And so, you have a political climate which is geared towards cult of personality or charismatic leadership, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto being another key example, Benazir’s father, and then Benazir herself when she comes back. And so, a lot of, you know, discussions, such as Tariq Ali, the history that he sort of described about Bhutto’s machinations in power and her turmoil in her family life, goes to the fact that Pakistan was not allowed or did not have an adequate political sort of social structure—political structure throughout its history. So you have these personalities that at some point drop in and drop out, are assassinated, are blown out of the sky, as General Zia-ul-Haq was, and you end up to this day, where Benazir Bhutto is assassinated—entire foreign policy in the White House hinged on her—there is a complete vacuum of any leadership, outside of her, in that party at the moment.

So, you know, even if elections, as the White House is saying, that, you know, elections should go forth—which, again, is ludicrous—on January the 8th, well, who is going to stand on those elections in terms of leadership, true leadership? There is none in the People’s Party, since Benazir sort of gathered all that influence into her own person, even in exile. And the same situation is true in other main parties in Pakistan.

So the way forward for the Bush administration is to support, you know, true democratic reform in Pakistan, which is a lot harder than occupying Iraq or occupying Afghanistan. It is. It’s very hard, and there is no guarantee that things will turn out to Washington’s liking. But there is a guarantee that people of Pakistan will have a true hope of going forward in their country and experiencing freedom and democracy as, you know, the Bush administration reminds us is the right of every human being.

AMY GOODMAN: Tariq Ali, finally—we have fifteen seconds—what you see as the future of Pakistan right now?

TARIQ ALI: Well, I think that General Musharraf’s days are numbered. He has blown it. He was entrusted by Washington with pushing through this deal with Benazir. He wasn’t able to do it. She was murdered on his watch. So I think sooner rather than later they’ll be looking for someone else to remain—to replace him. And Pakistan’s dark night will continue. We will enter into a new cycle of military rulers and corrupt politicians.

AMY GOODMAN: Tariq Ali, we have to leave it there. Tariq Ali, British Pakistani historian, activist and commentator; Manan Ahmed, historian of modern Pakistan and South Asia, blogs at Juan Cole’s Informed Comment, as well as Chapati Mystery.
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It might also be time to re-evaluate some posts here: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...pakistan+lemkin
I'll stand by my original 'hunch' that all we see happening in Pakistan is being pushed and run by the US Secret Government - with minor variations on 'theme' ad libed by the Pakistanis themselves. Centcom's Chief there and Chaney just before Martial Law - Negroponte brokering Bhutto's return. Kissinger and Co. having gotten rid of her father......US announcing sending US Troops into Pakistan as 'advisors' just hours before the assassination......ISI Chief having sent money to M. Atta before 9/11 - OBL hiding in Pakistan.......ad nauseum. Coincidence, these are NOT.

Love to know how a bullet hit her in the abdomen if the shooter was indeed firing from below - and Bhutto was protected from the chest down!




Doubt it - see above!

Does anyone have a reliable source for the inhabitants of Bhutto's vehicle at the time of the shooting?

FWIW, I was intrigued by the (what I believe to be) first responses from the leaders of the US and UK.

Bush talked of "extremists" and Browne of "terrorists". There is a distinction....they are running, apparently, a War on Terror, not extremism. We all know it's democracy that is suffering. I just wonder if Bushes statement was worded with consideration and gives insight into his thinking if that's not an oxymoron.

I await the foundation of Al Qaeda Pakistan, nearly as ludicrous as the perfectly times formation of Al Qaeda Iraq, one of the most insulting abuses of peoples intelligence.

Winston we were always at war with.....!!!!

Karachi, 27 Dec. (AKI) - (by Syed Saleem Shahzad) - A spokesperson for the al-Qaeda terrorist network has claimed responsibility for the death on Thursday of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

“We terminated the most precious American asset which vowed to defeat [the] mujahadeen,” Al-Qaeda’s commander and main spokesperson Mustafa Abu Al-Yazid told Adnkronos International (AKI) in a phone call from an unknown location, speaking in faltering English. Al-Yazid is the main al-Qaeda commander in Afghanistan.


http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Secur...=1.0.1710322437

Very obliging. I wonder if he was paid in dollars - or euros?

Very interesting images.....

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/12/28/b...lo_n_78599.html

Paul - neither you nor I can say with any certainty what happened. Speculation about a US-inspired / motivated assassination may be perfectly correct.... but you cannot discount a simple assassination by opposing factions who were not motivated / coerced / paid by / whatever US interests.

Greg,

I shall assume that your tongue is embedded in your cheek on this one.

So who made that last-minute decision?

The question is begged: Who was in the vehicle with Bhutto?

The Rabin template in its broadest form is strongly suggested.

Charles

By his own account, the acting head of her political party was apparently with her in the SUV. He said they saw her fall and "we thought she was unconscious." If he was in fact in the SUV and was not complicit, then the hypothesis that she was shot by someone in the SUV without this person knowing it seems akin to Greer shooting JFK without Jackie or the Connallys knowing it.

If I'm not mistaken, Rabin had no friends or cohorts with him in the car that he entered, only a "bodyguard" and a driver, and he could thus be shot in the car without friendly witnesses.

Agreed, Ron.

But is it not too soon to absolve the "acting head of her political party" by taking his word for things? What do we really know about this person who, upon Ms. Bhutto's death, rose to the top? Who was the "we" who saw Bhutto fall and who "thought she was unconscious"?

How long after Rabin's assassination did we learn details about his death car?

I am suggesting NOTHING OTHER THAN KEEPING ALL RATIONAL ANALYSES ON THE TABLE UNTIL WE ARE SUFFICIENTLY INFORMED TO MAKE AT LEAST PRELIMINARY DECISIONS.

And I'm not necessarily suggesting she was "shot by someone in the SUV." (emphasis added) Rather, I submit that we should give strong consideration to the possibility that one or more parties in the vehicle may have been in on the plot and charged with the responsibility to make sure Ms. Bhutto suffered fatal wounds.

Let's try to eliminate these possibilities according to the lessons we've learned over too many years of inquiry into too many similar tragedies.

Charles

After the attempt to kill her a few weeks back, with 139 others dying in that blast, Bhutto must have known she was on borrowed time. She had courage.

Perhaps the assassins wanted to make certain they didn't stuff it up this time.

The very fact that the 'reported' cause of death morphed from:
1] three shots - one to the neck, two to the chest....
2] the self-immolating bomber on the moped.....
3] bumping her head on the sunroof handle....
should ring a faint bell in the part of your cranium you store the info on Dallas....

Now....Kissinger warned her father if he didn't do as the USG said he'd paid the ultimate price...and was overthrown by a USG-backed military dictator and then executed on trumped-up charges....this should tickle some parts of your cerebrum where you store info on Central America and SouthEastAsian CIA executive action.....

Negroponte was the man appointed to broker the deal to get her back to her death and make her feel she had US guarentees of safety. Chaney and CENTCOMs commander were visiting just before she returned and hours before the return the USG announced it was sending 'military advisors' to Pakistan. The ISI had paid Atta for things 9/11. This is all connected and connected things about to happen.

The whole region is to be de-stabalized, put under puppet USG military regimes and the nukes secured by Special Forces of the US. Nothing good will come of this and democracy as a concept is on the wane all over the world....it is not due to terrorism from small groups, but from state terrorism. The USA is most accountable here. IMO The USA has no corner on the market of evil, but being the most powerful country has more than its share and is (sadly) leading the planet in that commodity now.

A personal take:
Benazir, the steely and vulnerable
By Lyse Doucet
BBC News



Benazir Bhutto could work the crowds for hours on end

She was hailed as one of the Muslim world's first democratically elected female leaders, and, at 35, one of the youngest ever prime ministers.

I will remember many faces of the Benazir Bhutto I saw over 20 years of following her turbulent political career: a charismatic populist who could hold forth for hours in her native Urdu language to huge, often frenzied crowds; a prime minister who would stride, head held high, through the corridors of power nodding "asalamaleikhum" to everyone on the way; a woman who could be downright silly; a mother who doted on her three children.

Over the years we have discussed everything from the nature of democracy to her latest diet, persistent allegations of corruption against her and her husband Asif Ali Zardari, and the unrelenting demands of her very political life.

She disappointed many during her two terms as prime minister. But whatever her flaws, she had courage.

The political game was in her blood. And, there was that deeply held belief - she would deny - that as a Bhutto she was "born to rule," that her destiny and Pakistan's was one and the same.

I have watched her closely since her momentous return from eight years in exile in October.

Emotional return

In our last meeting outside Islamabad in November she spoke with glee of returning to her homes in Pakistan and finding her bright - now congealed - nail polishes and the shalwar kameezes that no longer fitted and were out of fashion.

Benazir Bhutto commanded the unstinting loyalty of her supporters


Then we shifted to the tough political questions in a recorded interview.

But with perhaps one question too many on the controversial deal she had done with General Musharraf, and an interview she felt had now gone on too long, she suddenly snapped.

I saw, for a flash, a woman still overwhelmed by the emotion of a tumultuous return scarred by violence, and the pressures of controversial decisions she felt she had to take to have corruption charges dropped in order to come home.

Her eyes began to well with tears. But she also collected herself, in a flash.

And then hurried off to another round of meetings.

There was no doubting her energy and palpable happiness as she travelled across Pakistan again, with her trademark white "dupatta" or headscarf, always flanked by the same loyal women and men of her Pakistan People's Party who linked their fate to hers.

This was vintage Benazir - the same huge political processions we had reported on for years, that showered her with rose petals and the chants of Jeay Bhutto! (Long live Bhutto).

I could not see how she would have it any other way. It cost her her life.

Dynastic politics

It puzzled me when I first went to Pakistan in 1988 that, in this conservative Islamic country, so many would vote for her.

Benazir Bhutto was the political heir of her father, Zulfikar


When I asked why, many Pakistanis told me they were really voting for her charismatic father Ali Zulfikar Bhutto.

He was hanged in 1979 by the then military ruler General Zia ul Haq.

She was her father's daughter, the heir to his legacy.

She could be imperious, the scion, after all, of a dynastic feudal family.

She did not always make the wisest choices on everything from policy to some of the people around her.

She was BB to her friends, and "Pinky" to her closest.

Determined but vulnerable

In recent years even some of her dearest companions accused her of betraying their political principles.
I am not pregnant. I am fat. And, as the Prime Minister, its my right to be fat if I want to
Benazir Bhutto


But she was still adored by countless followers who supported her with a blind unswerving loyalty.

However, she sometimes vented her frustration that her life was not her own.

During her first term, she also earned the distinction of being the first prime minister to give birth in office.

And she withstood the barbs of politicians who said there was no provision for a prime minister to take maternity leave.

And then for years after, a woman with a weakness for sweets had to withstand questions from the press about her fluctuating weight.

One of my colleagues once asked her if she was pregnant again and she turned on him with a sharp retort: "No, I am not pregnant. I am fat. And, as the prime minister, its my right to be fat if I want to."

"Silk and steel," was how she described the late Indian leader Indira Gandhi in her memoirs.

This was Benazir too - a steely determination matched by very human vulnerability.

Lyse Doucet first reported for the BBC from Pakistan in 1988 and went on to become the BBC correspondent there from 1989 to 1993. She has continued to report on the country since then.

Presumablly she did.

I don´t if it was luck it seems like she made a habit of waving to the crowds the assassin could have been stalking her for a while

Because of the way she said it the most logical explanation is that she simply misspoke; people have suggested she meant Daniel Pearl whose murder Sheik Mohamed has been accused of. She:

-said this in a very matter of fact way as is she were saying commonly accepted,
- said it in the middle of a list of Sheik Mohamed’s other misdeeds (beheading English tourists etc)
- referred to it as a bad thing why would she think telling people in the west that her opponents were tied to the person who killed OBL indicated they couldn’t be trusted to fight terrorism?

Odd that Frost didn’t ask her any follow up questions, perhaps he wasn’t paying attention.

Peter wrote

From CNN:


I haven’t seen any references to her suffering injuries to her chest or any other references to her being shot or injured in the abdomen or anywhere below the neck.

I presume Naik’s information was 2nd or third hand since it was contradicted by one of the doctors who treated Bhutto and another party official





No reason to doubt it see above Fahim also seems to contradict Naik

And to bring the whole circus full circle here is: Qaeda link to Bhutto killing denied
The commander of a pro-Taliban group in Pakistan has told news agencies by phone that Baitullah Mehsud, another pro-Taliban figure, denies any involvement in Benazir Bhutto's death.
Maulana Omar said on Saturday: "He [Mehsud] had no involvement in this attack. This is a conspiracy of the government, army and intelligence agencies."

Who do you believe? As I don't think Al Queda pulled of 9/11 [and the ISI was partly involved in it], I don't think they [Al Queda] did this either...they are a creation of the CIA against the Russians in Afghanistan and other 'efforts' [ie drugs]....now a bit 'rogue' but the real Rouge Elephant on the planet is in the Beltway.

The evidence for this stems from a rather dubious source Indian intelligence which obviously has a lot of animosity towards the ISI which it blames for attack in Kashmir. I imagine Pakistan's new status as a close ally of Washington didn't go down well in Indian military/intelligence circles.

http://www.911myths.com/html/pakistan_s_is...to_9_11_fu.html



Citation?

Please detail the bases for your presumption.

Re: gunfire...

There was footage shown on TV here where you could see at least one person firing a pistol at her. You could see it right before the assassin detonated.

I'll see if the footage is online somewhere.

Try here: http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/...iew#cnnSTCVideo

The video showing the handgun is entitled "Details on how Bhutto died," which is 3 mins 10 secs long.

Clearer footage on this Indian website: http://broadband.indiatimes.com/videoshow/2660784.cms

No video needed. I just head a detailed rendition from two persons in the car directly behind - one meter behind stopped and watching what happened. Both reported the bullets [and saw the blood and bulletholes in the corpse after death] as well as the bomb go off immediately after. One must remember that this all occured just in the very city and not more than 1/2 Km from the head of Pakistani Military HQ and ISI HQ....like Dallas happening just between Langley and the Pentagon.......these were long interviews done on BBC World Service - I'm sure transcripts are available. They are now even talking of exhuming the body to prove the cause of death.

Two stills from video here:

http://www.teeth.com.pk/blog/2007/12/29/mo...fore-the-blast/

This intrigued me, as it seemed eerily reminiscent of something I remember reading on the Colosio assassination in Mexico:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/sto...ernational/home

Who else do you imagine made the decision? Do you think someone in the car told (ordered) her to stand up and wave? Wouldn't that draw suspicion on him or her (unless everyone else in the car was "in on it")? She seems to have been her own boss.

I can't get either of those to work for me; my anti-script / popup-blocker sometimes does this.

The stills from the webpage are NOT from the video I saw on the news. The footage I saw was taken from the left-hand side of the Bhutto vehicle, and you see the gunman on the far right (i.e. just behind the Bhutto vehicle). In the slo-mo version they showed, a hand appears and you can see flame from the pistol as it is fired.

Oh - beware Bhutto assassination video clips online. The major AV companies have warned that some hackers have inserted a script / CODEC into the file at some sites. See here:

http://blogs.pcworld.com/staffblog/archives/006132.html

http://www.avertlabs.com/research/blog/ind...eading-malware/

http://www.scmagazineus.com/Bhutto-assassi...article/100230/

It is a sad time for Pakistan. Benazir Bhutto defined her situation prior to her assassination. She said that she had requested and not been given sufficient protection. She was entitled to it as a candidate and as a prior Prime Minister. In addition, she said that if something happened to her, to look to Mushareff.

Ironically, she was wearing a bullet-proof vest, and should not have stuck her head out of the top of the vehicle.

Will this dreadful act even be properly investigated? There was no autopsy, so there will be no answers otherwise.

While not a perfect political figure she was a democrat and progressive - and she was a woman and had the backing of a vast majority of the common people. All the kinds of things the type of Military and Intelligence authoritarians hate....in Pakistan and in the USA (who have created the monster we see there now to a large extent - it is another one of our little monsters we've spread all over the world in our 'export of sic-democracy'] The good dye young at the hands of the venal old and aggressive. This has been from the beginning of recorded time and no doubt before that. People in power just play by their own rules. Those average persons are thrown fake democracy as a 'bone'....the real rulers [USA, UK, Pakistan..you name it.....] don't give a damn for the people...only for money, power and other negatives. The only real democracy comes from the bottom-up; not the top down; top-down is always evil and antidemocratic. That's what we have in the USA and that is what they have in Pakistan. The fact they are now lying in their teeth as to events to cause death, and pointing a finger at the latest boogeymen as having done it, only shows that those lying are the guilty ones...same in USA with Dallas, Memphis, Watergate, Iran-Contra, 9/11, et al. Those who are lying and covering up are the ones involved or knowlingly shielding those who are. It is a failed species, not just a set of failed nations....although it is that too.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dec. 28, 2007, 11:20PM
Blitzer kept Bhutto's concerns to himself
She e-mailed the CNN anchor about lapses in security

NEW YORK — It was a story CNN's Wolf Blitzer hoped he'd never have to report — an e-mail sent to him through an intermediary by Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto complaining about her security. Conditions of use: only if she were killed.

Bhutto, who was assassinated on Thursday, wrote to Blitzer that if anything happened to her, "I would hold (Pakistani President Pervez) Musharraf responsible."

Blitzer received the e-mail on Oct. 26 from Mark Siegel, a friend and longtime Washington spokesman for Bhutto, eight days after she narrowly escaped another attempt at her life.

Bhutto wrote to Blitzer: "I have been made to feel insecure by his (Musharraf's) minions," that specific improvements had not been made to her security arrangements, and that the Pakistani leader was responsible.

Blitzer agreed to the conditions before receiving the e-mail. He said Friday that he called Siegel shortly after seeing it and was told firmly it could only be used if she were killed. Siegel couldn't say why she had insisted on those conditions.

Blitzer reported on the e-mail late Thursday. He noted that Bhutto had written a piece for CNN.com that mentioned her security concerns and that American politicians had tried to intervene on her behalf to make her feel safer.

Blitzer was the only journalist sent such a message, Siegel said. He also sent the e-mail to U.S. Rep. Steve Israel, a New York Democrat.

Siegel said he did not believe Bhutto's opinions had changed since she wrote the e-mail. Her message specifically mentioned she had requested four police vehicles surrounding her vehicle when traveling; Siegel said it seemed evident from pictures taken at the assassination scene that the request wasn't fulfilled.

Bhutto did not necessarily believe that Musharraf wanted her dead, but felt many people around him did, he said.

Her husband contacted Siegel Thursday to make sure the e-mail message got out, he said.

Blitzer said he had no regrets about the way he handled the story. To report it while she was still alive would have meant going back on his word, he said.

"I don't think there is a clear black-and-white in this situation," he said. "I did what I think was right."

I agree Gary. Exactly my thoughts too. I cannot help feeling now, as I did when I first heard the news of her death, that the US sanctioned this assassination. The fact that Bush was quick to also blame “extremists” for it, merely reinforces this opinion.

It was a "done deal".

Regarding the assassin being lucky that Bhutto stood up to wave, there may have been other potential assassins in place along the route, especially if this was an intelligence operation, just as there were no doubt contingency plans in Dallas to guarantee success. I don't think people who planned this would put all their eggs in one basket. So the assassin may have been lucky only in that he was the one fated to have the honor of killing and maiming several people and blowing himself up. Had she not stood up, perhaps one of the last assassins stationed along the route would have moved in close enough to try to kill the SUV's occupants with explosion alone.