Bhutto Murder

[Paul Rigby]

So I stand corrected...

No need. Sit down. Pour a drink. Enjoy some more lone nuttery:

http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewtopic...p;&start=40

Posted: 28 Dec 2007 08:13 pm

If all the conjectures point that if the job was not completed from outside then the only way it was done was from inside the car when it sped away. Some one inside the car did the rest.

http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewtopic...;&start=120

Posted: 29 Dec 2007 04:18 am

Bullets in abdomen will confirm that it is either armour piercing bullets, confirming army's involvement or someone shooting from inside the SUV, which means someone close to BB is involved in the assassination.

[Len Colby]

So I stand corrected...

No need. Sit down. Pour a drink. Enjoy some more lone nuttery:

http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewtopic...p;&start=40

Posted: 28 Dec 2007 08:13 pm

If all the conjectures point that if the job was not completed from outside then the only way it was done was from inside the car when it sped away. Some one inside the car did the rest.

http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewtopic...;&start=120

Posted: 29 Dec 2007 04:18 am

Bullets in abdomen will confirm that it is either armour piercing bullets, confirming army's involvement or someone shooting from inside the SUV, which means someone close to BB is involved in the assassination.

As if citing the undocumented claims of a blogger weren’t bad enough you’ve gotten so desperate that you are quoting forum posts? What’s next, are you going to cite a conversation you overheard on the bus? Information barked to you by Sam your neighbor’s dog?

Even if we forget that they are posts, they don’t support you theory note the use of the condition in the first, Tevye sang “If I were a rich man, Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum.…I'd build a big tall house with rooms by the dozen, Right in the middle of the town.” It wouldn’t be accurate to say “the milkman said he was going to build a large house downtown”. The first merely stated the obvious IF she weren’t killed outside the car she had to be killed in it.

The second also has already been discussed the poster’s assumption that she was shot in the abdomen was based on Naik’s faulty 2nd (or 3rd) hand account. No other information in support of this was posted on the thread. The author seems not to be a very careful researcher because he (?) asked who was in the SUV when that was answered in the same quote he referred to.

[David G. Healy]

So I stand corrected...

No need. Sit down. Pour a drink. Enjoy some more lone nuttery:

http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewtopic...p;&start=40

Posted: 28 Dec 2007 08:13 pm

If all the conjectures point that if the job was not completed from outside then the only way it was done was from inside the car when it sped away. Some one inside the car did the rest.

http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewtopic...;&start=120

Posted: 29 Dec 2007 04:18 am

Bullets in abdomen will confirm that it is either armour piercing bullets, confirming army's involvement or someone shooting from inside the SUV, which means someone close to BB is involved in the assassination.

As if citing the undocumented claims of a blogger weren’t bad enough you’ve gotten so desperate that you are quoting forum posts? What’s next, are you going to cite a conversation you overheard on the bus? Information barked to you by Sam your neighbor’s dog?

Even if we forget that they are posts, they don’t support you theory note the use of the condition in the first, Tevye sang “If I were a rich man, Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum.…I'd build a big tall house with rooms by the dozen, Right in the middle of the town.” It wouldn’t be accurate to say “the milkman said he was going to build a large house downtown”. The first merely stated the obvious IF she weren’t killed outside the car she had to be killed in it.

The second also has already been discussed the poster’s assumption that she was shot in the abdomen was based on Naik’s faulty 2nd (or 3rd) hand account. No other information in support of this was posted on the thread. The author seems not to be a very careful researcher because he (?) asked who was in the SUV when that was answered in the same quote he referred to.

As the longtime ago Lone Nutter Steve Keating use to tell me, "you're a hoot!"

[Guest David Guyatt]

Mush has asked Scotland Yard to investigate the assassination and come up with a report about it.

Yikes, you couldn't make this up...

Anyway, they're only to happy to oblige. Naturally.

Scotland Yard is not politicised in the slightest.

Besides, they do have considerable experience in the terrorism field. Such as shooting lone Brazilian electrical terrorists.

And handling such deadly emergencies as the decidedly dicey terrorist 7/7 bombings.

In other words they are highly qualified at applying necessary quantities of white paint to whatever they undertake.

I wonder if the eventual report has already been pre-written in Langley? I'm referring, of course, to the report that will authoritatively state that it was a two-man "lone" assassin terrorist cell operating with no involvement of Pakistan or western governments.

[Paul Rigby]

What’s next, are you going to cite...Information barked to you by Sam your neighbor’s dog?

Naargh, intellectual mis-match: the dog's a Jack Russell, and thus has a mind of its own. You'd be out-foxed.

[Christopher Hall]

Mush has asked Scotland Yard to investigate the assassination and come up with a report about it.

Yikes, you couldn't make this up...

Anyway, they're only to happy to oblige. Naturally.

Scotland Yard is not politicised in the slightest.

Besides, they do have considerable experience in the terrorism field. Such as shooting lone Brazilian electrical terrorists.

And handling such deadly emergencies as the decidedly dicey terrorist 7/7 bombings.

In other words they are highly qualified at applying necessary quantities of white paint to whatever they undertake.

I wonder if the eventual report has already been pre-written in Langley? I'm referring, of course, to the report that will authoritatively state that it was a two-man "lone" assassin terrorist cell operating with no involvement of Pakistan or western governments.

I got quite a chuckle out of PM engaging Scotland Yard.

What next, the LAPD?

[Ron Ecker]

And to think that when I was growing up, "Scotland Yard" and "the FBI" were the legendary living embodiments (so I thought) of the axiom "Crime does not pay."

Turns out that crime pays handsomely, if you work for government agencies like Scotland Yard and the FBI, or you have them covering up for you.

[Len Colby]

What’s next, are you going to cite...Information barked to you by Sam your neighbor’s dog?

Naargh, intellectual mis-match: the dog's a Jack Russell, and thus has a mind of its own. You'd be out-foxed.

Let me get this straight, you have a neighbor named Sam who has a dog which you think barks information to you and is capable of independent thought? You don’t happen to work for the postal service do you?

[Mark Stapleton]

Mush has asked Scotland Yard to investigate the assassination and come up with a report about it.

Yikes, you couldn't make this up...

Anyway, they're only to happy to oblige. Naturally.

Scotland Yard is not politicised in the slightest.

Besides, they do have considerable experience in the terrorism field. Such as shooting lone Brazilian electrical terrorists.

And handling such deadly emergencies as the decidedly dicey terrorist 7/7 bombings.

In other words they are highly qualified at applying necessary quantities of white paint to whatever they undertake.

I think Musharraf was impressed by the great job the Yard did in solving the Bob Woolmer case.

[Paul Rigby]

'I'm shocked to learn there is gambling going on here' - Casablanca Police Chief in 'Ricks'' - Casablanca

US Steps Up Plans For Military Intervention In Pakistan

By Bill Van Auken

20 November, 2007

WSWS.org

Whatever limited lip service the US State Department gives to the call for ending the martial law regime imposed by Musharraf in Pakistan, the real aims and methods of the American ruling establishment—Democratic and Republican alike—emerge clearly in the Kagan-O’Hanlon article.

What is now being seriously contemplated is yet another colonial-style war in a region that stretches across the Middle East and Central and South Asia, from Iraq to Pakistan, with the objective of salvaging, with or without Musharraf, the Pakistani military—the corrupt and repressive instrument with which Washington has been aligned for decades.

OpEdNews

Original Content at:

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_pe...knoll_in_pa.htm

January 3, 2008

A Grassy Knoll in Pakistan

By Peter Chamberlin

All things have come full circle in the mountains of Pakistan. The “great game” has been played-out. The cycle of death which we unleashed upon the world there, bringing the war on terrorism home to us, now draws us inexorably into the vacuum of its violent ending. The convulsions now wracking that country threaten to become a revolutionary explosion capable of bringing down the foundations of the world.

The rapidly building democratic-revolution is now entering the “critical mass” stage. Its expansion is accelerating beyond human control. The assassination of Benazir Bhutto was a calculated risk, intended to derail democracy in Pakistan because Islamic extremists were making the democratic transition from militias into political parties. For this reason, it is unlikely that she was assassinated by real Islamists, true Taliban. It is more likely that the hit on Bhutto was connected to the Administration’s getting the “green light” (the day before the attack), to move large numbers of Special Forces “trainers” into the tribal regions.

Even though Bhutto was allegedly stirring the cauldron, “...demanding after returning to Pakistan that the ISI be restructured; and in a press conference during her house arrest in Lahore in November she went as far as asking Pakistan army officers to revolt against the army chief” (1) recent revelations by various neocon-men points to a covert US plan to eliminate her.

"A large number of ISI agents who are responsible for helping the Taliban and al-Qaeda should be thrown in jail or killed. What I think we should do in Pakistan is a parallel version of what Iran has run against us in Iraq: giving money [and] empowering actors. Some of this will involve working with some shady characters, but the alternative - sending US forces into Pakistan for a sustained bombing campaign - is worse," Steve Schippert was quoted as saying a November 2007 issue of Weekly Standard. (1. Steve Schippert | November 28, 2007 at 12:39 am “For what it’s worth, the author attributed a comment to me that I did not make in the Weekly Standard article. While I ascribe fully to what the unnamed intelligence source who actually said it did in fact say, they are not my words.”)

Musharref seems to be laboring under the illusion that the United States government supports his efforts to contain the building political explosion, when, in fact, the explosion of Pakistan is what the neocon traitors have been waiting for. With big “events” come big opportunities. Bush does not intend to do anything to help him stave off the inevitable. Their aim, all along, has been to plan for the day after the catastrophic event, for the day when their real plans could be fully implemented. The Pakistani leader let their ceaseless warnings about the day after move him into cooperating with them, in allowing the new expansion of the war into Pakistan. The actual neo-con objective, according to Professor Michel Chossudovsky, is:

“...fomenting social, ethnic and factional divisions and political fragmentation, including the territorial breakup of Pakistan. This course of action is also dictated by US war plans in relation to both Afghanistan and Iran.

This US agenda for Pakistan is similar to that applied throughout the broader Middle East Central Asian region. US strategy, supported by covert intelligence operations, consists in triggering ethnic and religious strife, abetting and financing secessionist movements while also weakening the institutions of the central government.

The broader objective is to fracture the Nation State and redraw the borders of Iraq, Iran, Syria, Afghanistan and Pakistan” (2)

By cooperating with Bush and Cheney, Musharraf is supporting their efforts to revive the CIA training operation which had originally destabilized Pakistan. This had proven to be a winning strategy against powerful adversaries like the Soviet Union, but when the same strategy was tried elsewhere, where there were no large technological forces to attack, the trained militias targeted civilians. When it was transferred to the illegal “contra” war against Nicaragua it was quickly perverted, degenerating into organized death squads. “Targeted assassinations” and death squads, by trained, paid “militias” (mercenary armies) will overthrow regimes and terrorize the populations that dare to resist the American secret assault, will it will win no hearts and minds for the causes of democracy or freedom.

In the article, “Key Pentagon strategist plots global war on terror” (Dec. 30), we learn that the man who planned the strategy and directed the actions of the former Afghan Mujajedeen has been given the same job in the new improved “Global War On Terror,” patterned after it.

“In the Pentagon's newly expanded Special Operations office, Assistant Secretary of Defense Michael Vickers is working to implement the U.S. military's highest-priority plan: a global campaign against terrorism that reaches far beyond Iraq and Afghanistan.

The plan details the targeting of al-Qaida-affiliated networks around the world and explores how the United States should retaliate in case of another major terrorist attack. The most critical aspect of the plan, Vickers said in a recent interview, involves U.S. Special Operations forces working through foreign partners to uproot and fight terrorist groups.

Vickers, a former Green Beret and CIA operative, was the principal strategist for the biggest covert program in CIA history: the paramilitary operation that drove the Soviet army out of Afghanistan in the 1980s... he directed an insurgent force of 150,000 Afghan fighters and controlled an annual budget of more than $2 billion in current dollars.

Today Vickers' plan to build a global counterterrorist network [to fight covert wars in 49 countries].”

According to the Guardian, Vickers will expand the Special Forces units now in Pakistan, to “...train the Frontier Corps and recruiting local militias to take on the insurgents.” We will train a large roving Frontier Corps paramilitary force, as well as local Islamic militias.

“A new and classified American military proposal outlines an intensified effort to enlist tribal leaders in the frontier areas of Pakistan in the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban, as part of a broader effort to bolster Pakistani forces against an expanding militancy, American military officials said.

Militants have extended their reach beyond the tribal areas. If adopted, the proposal would join elements of a shift in strategy that would also be likely to expand the presence of American military trainers in Pakistan, directly finance a separate tribal paramilitary force that until now has proved largely ineffective and pay militias that agreed to fight Al Qaeda and foreign extremists, officials said.

The “war on terrorism,” focused primarily on a fictional global insurgency named “al Qaida,” that, in fact, fought for American interests in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Croatia and Chechnya is an exercise in hypocrisy. The more “evidence” that is provided to us, to prove the al Qaida connection to every act of terrorism, the more evident it becomes that the war is a fraud, based on a cover-up of a treasonous attack, intended to whitewash history and to paint America as a heroic nation, dedicated to bringing freedom and democracy to all people. The United States’ claim to be promoting democracy, while it exports state terrorism, has demolished the hopes of all those who still believe in American “good will,” all over the world.

Informed people all over the world cannot fathom how the American administration can seriously claim to be pursuing “al Qaida-connected terrorists,” when they know that “al Qaida,” the terrorist organization never existed. Thanks to revelations by British MP Robin Cook in the Guardian, and French intelligence agent Pierre-Henry Bunel at the Wayne Madsen Report, people know that when the United States needed a new enemy, after the demise of the Soviet empire, they decided to call “the base” (an international computer data base in Saudi Arabia of Afghan fighters), designated as “al Qaida” [an email address], an international terrorist network.

“Bin Laden was, though, a product of a monumental miscalculation by western security agencies. Throughout the 80s he was armed by the CIA and funded by the Saudis to wage jihad against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. Al-Qaida, literally "the database", was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians.” - Robin Cook

"The truth is, there is no Islamic army or terrorist group called Al Qaida. And any informed intelligence officer knows this. But there is a propaganda campaign to make the public believe in the presence of an identified entity representing the 'devil' only in order to drive the 'TV watcher' to accept a unified international leadership for a war against terrorism. The country behind this propaganda is the US and the lobbyists for the US war on terrorism are only interested in making money." - Pierre-Henry Bunel

“Elements associated with al Qaida” has become the new official catch-all phrase, used as often as possible, to incite terror among the American people and to justify new attacks by American forces and American-supported militia groups. We are going into Pakistan in force, to train new Pakistanis to fight other Pakistanis that we had trained too well in the past. How will we separate the “friendly” al Qaida from the unfriendly ones, when we bundle the whole bunch together under the rubric “al Qaida?”

Why are Islamists like Ayman al Zawahiri considered al Q., after they provided the US Islamic fighters in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Macedonia, as well other Islamic recruits who served US interests in Chechnya? The Islamic mercenaries were fighting for us when the embassies were bombed in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, even after bin Laden and Zawahiri announced the establishment of "The International Islamic Front for Holy War Against Jews and Crusaders," (an umbrella organization linking Islamic extremists in scores of countries around the world, the bin Laden group that was renamed Al Qaida). The militant group, now called al Qaeda was the instant answer to the 9/11 attacks, even though it was never what it was alleged to be, the ultimate terrorist bogeyman. The conjunction of US and al Qaida interests all over the Muslim world should warn thinking individuals, whenever attacks happen to occur in just the places that the neo-con war planners would most like to invade.

It is more than reasonable to question where al Qaida ends and the secret world of their CIA trainers begins. Was it other trained al Qaida agents who pre-planted the demolitions that brought the towers down, obtained US security codes, timed the attacks into ongoing war games and stood down fighter cover, or was that part of the act of war the CIA’s domain? Questioning further along that line, was Pakistan’s ISI (secret service) still acting as the CIA’s surrogate, when ISI head General Mahmud Ahmad allegedly had Sheik Omar wire Mohammed Atta $100,000? According to Chossudovsky:

“The FBI had information on the money trail. They knew exactly who was financing the terrorists. Less than two weeks later, the findings of the FBI were confirmed by Agence France Presse (AFP) and the Times of India, quoting an official Indian intelligence report (which had been dispatched to Washington). According to these two reports, the money used to finance the 9-11 attacks had allegedly been "wired to WTC hijacker Mohammed Atta from Pakistan, by Ahmad Umar Sheikh, at the instance of [iSI Chief] General Mahmoud [Ahmad].”

According to the AFP (quoting the intelligence source):

"The evidence we have supplied to the U.S. is of a much wider range and depth than just one piece of paper linking a rogue general to some misplaced act of terrorism."

The name “Sheikh Omar” should set off alarms to those who are paying attention. He was the one who Bhutto fingered on the David Frost interview on 2nd November 2007 (2:15), “Omar Sheikh, the man who murdered Osama bin Laden.” Omar is mentioned in connection with a man that Bhutto feared might be involved in threats against her.

President Musharraf, in his book In the Line of Fire stated that the Sheikh was originally recruited by British intelligence agency, MI6 to go to the Balkans. Here is another shadowy figure linked to al Qaida, Western intelligence agencies and the US program, organized by Bill Clinton, to bring radical Islamist Jihadis to the war in Yugoslavia. They fought on the US side, in a war prosecuted by the United States, as an Islamic paramilitary force.

The new secret world war, based on the contra strategy, follows on the heels of what has been described as a “winning strategy” in Iraq, where the strategy was implemented and proven to be faulty. In Iraq, another former military/CIA contra trainer, James Steele has helped to implement the “El Salvador option,” injecting the same training that he provided to Central American “death squads” during the illegal covert war against Nicaragua. But we know that the scenario, as it played-out in Iraq, produced the same results as in El Salvador, that of further polarizing the populace and turning the people against the US efforts. But, in Iraq, the policy was judged successful, by some, because of the unexpected bonus of inciting religious sectarian civil warfare. Between this new policy of promoting religious civil war and hiring armies of mercenaries, Bush & co. think that they are now winning in Iraq. For this reason, they plan to repeat the pattern in Pakistan.

We have seen elements of this new war strategy backfire in Gaza and Lebanon, where the political forces associated with Elliott Abrams sought to create viable insurgencies, like Mohammad Dahlan’s U.S.-backed Preventive Security Services who were ran out of Gaza and the Lebanese Fatah al-Islam faction, allied with Said Hariri, who were driven from the Nahr el-Bared Palestinian refugee camp near Tripoli. These small forces were far too weak to successfully engage the Lebanese government, or the Hamas government in Gaza, yet the US was willing to gamble on them.

Joint efforts between the CIA and the Israeli Mossad to train offshoots of the PKK terrorist organization in Iraq, for cross-border attacks upon Iran, have also gone astray, leading to Turkish military action in Iraq, to eliminate the intolerable terrorist attacks upon it, that were a bi-product of misguided American efforts. Similar efforts to train Jundallah terrorists in Pakistan to attack Iran succeeded in killing a few Iranians, but managed to bring international opprobrium on the US for its support of terrorism.

The new program to inflict mass terrorism upon Pakistan’s Western Provinces will backfire as well, further compounding America’s military dilemma, while increasing the suffering and tribal hatred of the Pakistani and Afghan people exponentially.

If America would only stop being the world’s number one sponsor of terrorism, then its leaders might realize that promoting real democracy is the only answer to the global unrest. In Pakistan, democratic forces will sweep Musharraf and the Americans completely out of power there. Both he and Bush must decide to do whatever is necessary to make that “clean sweep” a relatively peaceful one. There is no room for a dictator in any democracy – not in Pakistan, or America. If the attempt by the Pakistani government to cover-up the Bhutto assassination, by claiming that she was not shot is any indication of the path that Musharraf has chosen for Pakistan, then there will be no chance for peace in that beleaguered country.

Authors Website: Morty's Cabin

Authors Bio: antiwar activist/writer thirty years. Op-ed writer The Herald-Dispatch, Huntington, WV

(1) http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?con...va&aid=7709

(2) http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?con...va&aid=7705

(3) http://www.bestcyrano.org/THOMASPAINE/?p=143

(4) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnychOXj9Tg

[Paul Rigby]

OpEdNews

Original Content at:

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_pe...knoll_in_pa.htm

January 3, 2008

A Grassy Knoll in Pakistan

By Peter Chamberlin

In the article, “Key Pentagon strategist plots global war on terror” (Dec. 30), we learn that the man who planned the strategy and directed the actions of the former Afghan Mujajedeen has been given the same job in the new improved “Global War On Terror,” patterned after it.

"In the Pentagon's newly expanded Special Operations office, Assistant Secretary of Defense Michael Vickers is working to implement the U.S. military's highest-priority plan: a global campaign against terrorism that reaches far beyond Iraq and Afghanistan.

The plan details the targeting of al-Qaida-affiliated networks around the world and explores how the United States should retaliate in case of another major terrorist attack. The most critical aspect of the plan, Vickers said in a recent interview, involves U.S. Special Operations forces working through foreign partners to uproot and fight terrorist groups.

Vickers, a former Green Beret and CIA operative, was the principal strategist for the biggest covert program in CIA history...

http://naknews.co.in/newsdet.aspx?11297

CIA agents killed Bhutto: Hilal War

'JKPPP will setup trust in memory of Benazir Bhutto, her father soon'

News Agency of Kashmir 1/3/2008 7:46:39 PM

Srinagar, Jan 03 (NAK): Blaming American Intelligence Agency CIA for the killing of Benazir Bhutto, JKPPP Kashmir Chapter Chairman Hilal Ahmad War today said he has decided to set up a trust in the memory of slain Pakistan’s former Prime Ministers Benazir Bhutto and her father Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

“The trust will be set up shortly and aims and objectives will be formulated in the meeting of the central executive committee of the party soon” Hilal War informed reporters here today.

JKPPP chairman Hilal Ahmad War alleged Benazir Bhutto and her father were eliminated at the behest of "American intelligence agency CIA as the two leaders were opposed to the US policy of making Pakistan a satellite state for carrying out its plans".

"Bhutto killing is part of the policy of the US to disintegrate Pakistan into four independent states” War told reporters in a press conference.

“US was creating atmosphere in which it can give good reason for the takeover of nuclear arsenal of Pakistan," he claimed.

War alleged that the conglomerate led by Mirwaiz Umer Farooq was only interested in entering the "palaces of power", adding "This group has been all along trying to make Kashmir a protectorate of the United States," he claimed. (NAK)

[Guest David Guyatt]

JKPPP chairman Hilal Ahmad War alleged Benazir Bhutto and her father were eliminated at the behest of "American intelligence agency CIA as the two leaders were opposed to the US policy of making Pakistan a satellite state for carrying out its plans".

"Bhutto killing is part of the policy of the US to disintegrate Pakistan into four independent states” War told reporters in a press conference.

The alleged reason - supposing it is true -- sounds about right to me. I wonder how many now are the number of assassinated/ruined politicians/prime ministers who have not gone along with US wishes?

[Mark Stapleton]

'hold of' the rich-Right-white-Christian-man's-burden-batton.

Peter,

I doubt conversion to Christianity is a strict requirement for admittance to the exclusive rich white man's club.

Great thread, though. Kudos to yourself, Paul and the other posters for making the picture clearer.

[Paul Rigby]

PERVEZ HOODBHOY: ...So, the deal was that they—that is, the Bush administration—wanted to give a civilian face to Pakistan’s military government, and Benazir Bhutto was very happy to oblige, because she had been out of it all for now almost a decade.

I wonder at the depth of resistance within the Pakistan military to US imperialism? If so, expect to see a great deal more film on the assassination from Pakistan media - well, the bits with strong CIA backing anyway - appearing within and on mainstream Anglo-American media.

Pakistan warns requests for Musharraf to step down 'sedition'

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistan accused an international think tank Saturday of "promoting sedition" for issuing a report urging President Pervez Musharraf to resign before parliamentary elections next month.

The reaction against the strongly worded report by the International Crisis Group shows the government's sensitivity to criticism as it fends off accusations that Musharraf's allies may have had a hand in the Dec. 27 assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto.

The report, released earlier this week by the Brussels-based think tank, called on the United States to use the Pakistani military to persuade the former general to resign, saying Musharraf was "a serious liability, seen as complicit" in Bhutto's death.

For the rest of the piece, follow this link:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2008-01-05-pakistan_N.htm

[Paul Rigby]

I wonder at the depth of resistance within the Pakistan military to US imperialism? If great, expect to see a great deal more film on the assassination from Pakistan media - well, the bits with strong CIA backing anyway - appearing within and on mainstream Anglo-American media.

Fascinating piece from Global Research site:

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7709

The plan to topple Pakistan's military?

By Ahmed Quraishi

Global Research, December 30, 2007

The New Nation, Pakistan - 2007-12-12

Editor's note

The following article in the Asian Times and New Nation, Pakistan was published several weeks prior to the assassination of Benzir Bhutto.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Islamabad - On the evening of September 26, 2006, Pakistani strongman Pervez Musharraf walked into the studio of Comedy Central's Daily Show with Jon Stewart, the first sitting president anywhere to dare do this political satire show.

Stewart offered his guest some tea and cookies and played the perfect host by asking, "Is it good?" before springing a surprise: "Where's Osama bin Laden?"

"I don't know," Musharraf replied, as the audience enjoyed the rare sight of a strong leader apparently cornered. "You know where he is?" Musharraf snapped back, "You lead on, we'll follow you."

What General Musharraf didn't know then is that he really was being cornered. Some of the smiles that greeted him in Washington and back home gave no hint of the betrayal that awaited him.

As he completed the remaining part of his US visit, his allies in Washington and elsewhere, as all evidence suggests now, were plotting his downfall. They had decided to take a page from the book of successful "color revolutions" where Western governments covertly used money, private media, student unions, NGOs and international pressure to stage coups, basically overthrowing individuals not fitting well with Washington's agenda.

This recipe proved its success in former Yugoslavia, and more recently in Georgia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan.

In Pakistan, the target is a president who refuses to play ball with the US on Afghanistan, China and Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan.

To get rid of him, an impressive operation is underway:

. A carefully crafted media blitzkrieg launched early this year assailing the Pakistani president from all sides, questioning his power, his role in Washington's "war on terror" and predicting his downfall.

. Money pumped into the country to pay for organized dissent.

. Willing activists assigned to mobilize and organize accessible social groups.

. A campaign waged on the Internet where tens of mailing lists and "news agencies" have sprung up from nowhere, all demonizing Musharraf and the Pakistani military.

. European- and American-funded Pakistani NGOs taking a temporary leave from their real work to serve as a makeshift anti-government mobilization machine.

. US government agencies directly funding some private Pakistani television networks; the channels go into an open anti-government mode, cashing in on some manufactured and other real public grievances regarding inflation and corruption.

Some of Musharraf's shady and corrupt political allies feed this campaign, hoping to stay in power under a weakened president.

All this groundwork completed and chips were in place when the judicial crisis broke out in March. Even Pakistani politicians were surprised at a well-greased and well-organized lawyers' campaign, complete with flyers, rented cars and buses, excellent event-management and media outreach.

Currently, students are being recruited and organized into a street movement. The work is ongoing and urban Pakistani students are being cultivated, especially using popular Internet Web sites and "online hangouts". The people behind this effort are mostly unknown and faceless, limiting themselves to organizing sporadic, small student gatherings in Lahore and Islamabad, complete with banners, placards and little babies with arm bands for maximum media effect. No major student association has announced yet that it is behind these student protests, which is a very interesting fact glossed over by most journalists covering the story.

Only a few students from affluent schools have responded so far, and it's not because the Pakistani government's countermeasures are effective. They're not. The reason is that social activism attracts people from affluent backgrounds, closely reflecting a uniquely Pakistani phenomenon where local non-governmental organizations are mostly founded and run by rich, Westernized Pakistanis.

All of this may appear to be spur-of-the-moment and Musharraf-specific. But it all really began almost three years ago, when, out of the blue and recycling old political arguments, Akbar Bugti launched an armed rebellion against the Pakistani state, surprising security analysts by using rockets and other military equipment that shouldn't normally be available to a smalltime village thug. Since then, Islamabad has sat on a pile of evidence that links Bugti's campaign to money and ammunition and logistical support from Afghanistan, directly aided by the Karzai administration and India, with the US turning a blind eye.

For reasons not clear to our analysts yet, Islamabad has kept quiet on Washington's involvement with anti-Pakistan elements in Afghanistan. But Pakistan did send an indirect public message to America recently.

"We have indications of Indian involvement with anti-state elements in Pakistan," declared the spokesman of the Pakistan Foreign Office in a regular briefing in October. The statement was terse and direct, and the spokesman, Tasnim Aslam, quickly moved on to other issues.

This is how a Pakistani official explained Aslam's statement: "What she was really saying is this: We know what the Indians are doing. They've sold the Americans on the idea that [the Indians] are an authority on Pakistan and can be helpful in Afghanistan. The Americans have bought the idea and are in on the plan, giving the Indians a free hand in Afghanistan. What the Americans don't know is that we, too, know the Indians very well. Better still, we know Afghanistan very well. You can't beat us at our own game."

Bugti's armed rebellion coincided with the Gwadar project entering its final stages. No coincidence here. Bugti's real job was to scare the Chinese away and scuttle Chinese President Hu Jintao's planned visit to Gwadar a few months later to formally launch the port city.

Gwadar is the pinnacle of Sino-Pakistani strategic cooperation. It's a modern city that is supposed to link Pakistan, Central Asia, western China with markets in Mideast and Africa. It's supposed to have roads stretching all the way to China. It's no coincidence that that country has also earmarked millions of dollars to renovate the Karakoram Highway linking northern Pakistan to western China.

Some reports in the US media, however, have accused Pakistan and China of building a naval base in the guise of a commercial seaport directly overlooking international oil-shipping lanes.

The Indians and some other regional actors are also not comfortable with this project because they see it as commercial competition.

What Bugti's regional and international supporters never expected is Pakistan moving firmly and strongly to nip his rebellion in the bud. Even Bugti himself probably never expected the Pakistani state to react in the way it did to his betrayal of the homeland. He was killed in a military operation where scores of his mercenaries surrendered to Pakistan army soldiers.

United States intelligence and their Indian advisors could not cultivate an immediate replacement for Bugti. So they moved to Plan B. They supported Abdullah Mehsud, a Pakistani Taliban fighter held for five years in Guantanamo Bay, and then handed him over back to the Afghan government, only to return to his homeland, Pakistan, to kidnap two Chinese engineers working in Balochistan, one of whom was eventually killed during a rescue operation by the Pakistani government.

Islamabad could not tolerate this shadowy figure, who was creating a following among ordinary Pakistanis masquerading as a Taliban while in reality towing a vague agenda. He was eliminated earlier this year by Pakistani security forces while secretly returning from Afghanistan after meeting his handlers there. Again, no surprises here.

This is where Pakistani political and military officials finally started smelling a rat. All of this was an indication of a bigger problem. There were growing indications that, ever since Islamabad joined Washington's regional plans, Pakistan was gradually turning into a "besieged-nation", heavily targeted by the US media while being subjected to strategic sabotage and espionage from Afghanistan.Afghanistan, under America's watch, has turned into a vast staging ground for sophisticated psychological and military operations to destabilize neighbouring Pakistan.

During the past three years, the heat has gradually been turned up against Pakistan and its military along Pakistan's western regions:

. A shadowy group called the BLA, a Cold War relic, rose from the dead to restart a separatist war in southwestern Pakistan. . Bugti's death was a blow to neo-BLA, but the shadowy group's backers didn't repent. His grandson, Brahmdagh Bugti, is currently enjoying a safe shelter in the Afghan capital, Kabul, where he continues to operate and remote-control his assets in Pakistan.

. Saboteurs trained in Afghanistan have been inserted into Pakistan to aggravate extremist passions here, especially after the Red Mosque operation.

. Chinese citizens continue to be targeted by individuals pretending to be Islamists, when no known Islamic group has claimed responsibility. . A succession of "religious rebels" with suspicious foreign links have suddenly emerged in Pakistan over the past months claiming to be "Pakistani Taliban". Some of the names include Abdul Rashid Ghazi, Baitullah Mehsud, and now the Maulana of Swat. Some of them have used, and are using, encrypted communication equipment far superior to what the Pakistani military owns.

. Money and weapons have been fed into the religious movements and al-Qaeda remnants in the tribal areas.

Exploiting the situation, assets within the Pakistani media started promoting the idea that the Pakistani military was killing its own people. The rest of the unsuspecting media quickly picked up this message. Some botched US and Pakistani military operations against al-Qaeda that caused civilian deaths accidentally fed this media campaign.This was the perfect timing for the launch of Military, Inc: Inside Pakistan's Military Economy, a book authored by Ayesha Siddiqa Agha, a columnist for a Pakistani English-language paper and a correspondent for "Jane's Defence Weekly", a private intelligence service founded by experts close to British intelligence.

Ahmed Quraishi is an investigative reporter, currently hosting a weekly political talk show titled Worldview from Islamabad.

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Target: Pakistan military

The book was launched in Pakistan in early 2007 by Oxford Press. And, contrary to most reports, it is openly available in Islamabad's biggest bookshops. The book portrays the Pakistani military as an institution that is eating up whatever little resources Pakistan has.

The Pakistani military's successful financial management, creating alternate financial sources to spend on a vast military machine and build a conventional and nuclear near-match with a neighboring adversary five times larger - an impressive record for any nation by any standard - was distorted in the book and reduced to a mere attempt by the military to control the nation's economy in the same way it was controlling its politics.

The timing was interesting. After all, it was hard to defend a military in the eyes of its own proud people when the chief of the military is ruling the country, the army is fighting insurgents and extremists who claim to be defending Islam, grumpy politicians are out of business, and the military's side businesses, meant to feed the nation's military machine, are doing well compared to the shabby state of the nation's civilian departments.

A closer look at Siddiqa, the author, revealed disturbing information to Pakistani officials. In the months before launching her book, she was a frequent visitor to India where, as a defense expert, she cultivated important contacts. On her return, she developed friendship with an female Indian diplomat posted in Islamabad. Both of these activities - travel to India and ties to Indian diplomats - are not a crime in Pakistan and don't raise interest anymore. Pakistanis are hospitable and friendly people and these qualities have been amply displayed to the Indians during the four-year-old peace process.

What is interesting is that Siddiqa left her car in the house of the said Indian diplomat during one of her recent trips to London. And, according to a report, she stayed in London at a place owned by an individual linked to the Indian diplomat in Islamabad.

The point is this: Who assigned her to investigate the Pakistani Armed Forces and present a distorted image of a proud and efficient Pakistani institution?

>From 1988 to 2001, Siddiqa worked in the Pakistan civil service and the Pakistani civil bureaucracy. Her responsibilities included dealing with Military Accounts, which come under the Pakistan Ministry of Defense. She had 13 years of experience in dealing with the budgetary matters of the Pakistani military and people working in this area.

Siddiqa received a year-long fellowship to research and write a book in the US. There are strong indications that some of her Indian contacts played a role in arranging financing for her book project through a paid fellowship. The final manuscript of her book was vetted at a publishing office in New Delhi.

All of these details are insignificant if detached from the real issue at hand. And the issue is the demonization of the Pakistani military as an integral part of the media siege around Pakistan, with the US media leading the way in this campaign.

Some of the juicy details of this campaign include:

. The attempt by Siddiqa to pit junior officers against senior officers in Pakistan Armed Forces by alleging discrimination in the distribution of benefits. Apart from being malicious and unfounded, her argument was carefully designed to generate frustration and demoralize Pakistani soldiers.

. The US media insisting on handing over Khan to the US so that a final conviction against the Pakistani military can be secured. . Benazir Bhutto demanding after returning to Pakistan that the ISI be restructured; and in a press conference during her house arrest in Lahore in November she went as far as asking Pakistan army officers to revolt against the army chief, a damning attempt at destroying a professional army from within.

Some of this appears to be eerily similar to the campaign waged against the Pakistani military in 1999, when, in July that year, an unsigned full-page advertisement appeared in major American newspapers with the following headline: "A Modern Rogue Army With Its Finger On The Nuclear Button."

Until this day, it is not clear who exactly paid for such an expensive advertisement. But one thing is clear: the agenda behind that advertisement is back in action.

Strangely, just a few days before Bhutto's statements about restructuring the ISI and her open call to army officers to stage a mutiny against their leadership, the conservative US magazine The Weekly Standard interviewed an American security expert who offered similar ideas:

"A large number of ISI agents who are responsible for helping the Taliban and al-Qaeda should be thrown in jail or killed. What I think we should do in Pakistan is a parallel version of what Iran has run against us in Iraq: giving money [and] empowering actors. Some of this will involve working with some shady characters, but the alternative - sending US forces into Pakistan for a sustained bombing campaign - is worse," Steve Schippert was quoted as saying a November 2007 issue of Weekly Standard.

In addition to these media attacks, which security experts call "psychological operations", the US media and politicians have intensified over the past year their campaign to prepare the international public opinion to accept a western intervention in Pakistan along the lines of Iraq and Afghanistan:

Newsweek came up with an entire cover story with a single storyline:

Pakistan is a more dangerous place than Iraq.

. Senior American politicians, Republican and Democrat, have argued that Pakistan is more dangerous than Iran and merits similar treatment. On October 20 , Senator Joe Biden told ABC News that Washington needs to put soldiers on the ground in Pakistan and invite the international community to join in. "We should be in there," he said. "We should be supplying tens of millions of dollars to build new schools to compete with the madrassas. We should be in there building democratic institutions. We should be in there, and get the rest of the world in there, giving some structure to the emergence of, hopefully, the reemergence of a democratic process." . The International Crisis Group (ICG) has recommended gradual sanctions on Pakistan similar to those imposed on Iran, e.g. slapping travel bans on Pakistani military officers and seizing Pakistani military assets abroad.

The process of painting Pakistan's nuclear assets as pure evil lying around waiting for some do-gooder to come in and "secure" has reached unprecedented levels, with the US media again depicting Pakistan as a nation incapable of protecting its nuclear installations. On October 22, Jane Harman from the US House Intelligence Panel gave the following statement: "I think the US would be wise - and I trust we are doing this - to have contingency plans [to seize Pakistan's nuclear assets], especially because should [Musharraf] fall, there are nuclear weapons there."

The US media has now begun discussing the possibility of Pakistan breaking up and the possibility of new states of "Balochistan" and "Pashtunistan" being carved out of it. Interestingly, one of the first acts of the shady Maulana of Swat, after capturing a few towns, was to take down the Pakistani flag from the top of state buildings and replace them with his own party flag.

The "chatter" about Musharraf's eminent fall has also increased dramatically in the mainly US media, which has been very generous in marketing theories about how Musharraf might "disappear" or be "removed" from the scene. According to some Pakistani analysts, this could be an attempt to prepare the public opinion for a possible assassination of the Pakistani president.

Another worrying thing is how US officials are publicly signaling to the Pakistanis that Bhutto has their backing as the next leader of the country. Such signals from Washington are not only a kiss of death for any public leader in Pakistan, but the Americans also know that their actions are inviting potential assassins to target Bhutto.

If she is killed in this way, there won't be enough time to find the real culprit, but what's certain is that unprecedented international pressure will be placed on Islamabad while everyone will use their local assets to create maximum internal chaos in the country. A dress rehearsal of this scenario has already taken place in October when no less than the UN Security Council itself intervened to ask the international community to "assist" in the investigations into the assassination attempt on Bhutto on October 18. This generous move was sponsored by the US and, interestingly, had no input from Pakistan which did not ask for help in investigations in the first place.

Some Pakistani security analysts privately say that US "chatter" about Musharraf or Bhutto getting killed is a serious matter that can't be easily dismissed. Getting Bhutto killed can generate the kind of pressure that could result in permanently putting the Pakistani military on a back foot, giving Washington enough room to push for installing a new pliant leadership in Islamabad.

Getting Musharraf killed isn't a bad option either. The unknown Islamists can always be blamed, the military will not be able to put another soldier at the top, and circumstances will be created to ensure that either Bhutto or someone like her is eased into power.

The US is very serious this time. They cannot let Pakistan get out of their hands. They were kicked out of Uzbekistan last year, where they were maintaining bases. They are in trouble in Afghanistan and Iraq. Iran continues to be a mess for them and Russia and China are not making it any easier. Pakistan must be "secured" at all costs.

This is why most Pakistanis have never seen US diplomats in Pakistan active like this before. And it's not just the current US ambassador, who has added one more address to her other most-frequently-visited address in Karachi, Bhutto's house. The new address is the office of GEO, one of two news channels shut down by Islamabad for not signing the mandatory code-of-conduct. Thirty-eight other channels are operating and no one has censored the newspapers. But never mind this. The Americans have developed a "thing" for GEO. No solace of course for ARY, the other banned channel.

There's also Bryan Hunt, the US consul-general in Lahore, who wears the national Pakistani dress, the long shirt and baggy trousers, and is moving around these days issuing tough warnings to the Pakistani government and Musharraf to end emergency rule, resign as army chief and give Bhutto access to power.

Pakistan's options

So what should Islamabad do in the face of such a structured campaign to bring Pakistan down to its knees and forcibly install a pro-Washington administration?

There is increasing talk in Islamabad these days about Pakistan's new tough stand in the face of this malicious campaign.

As a starter, Islamabad blew the wind out of the visit of US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte who came to Pakistan recently "to deliver a tough message" to the Pakistani president. Musharraf, to his credit, told him he won't end emergency rule until all objectives are achieved.

These objectives include:

. Cleaning up northern and western parts of the country of all foreign operatives and their domestic pawns.

. Ensuring that Washington's plan for regime-change doesn't succeed. . Purging the Pakistani media of all those elements that were willing or unwilling accomplices in the plan to destabilize the country.

Musharraf has also told Washington publicly that "Pakistan is more important than democracy or the constitution". This is a bold position. This kind of boldness would have served Musharraf better had it come a little earlier. But even now, his media management team is unable to make the most out of it.

Washington will not stand by watching as its plan for regime change in Islamabad goes down the drain. In case the US insists on interfering in Pakistani affairs, Islamabad, according to sources, is looking at some tough measures:

. Cutting off oil supplies to US military in Afghanistan. Pakistani officials are already enraged at how Afghanistan has turned into a staging ground for sabotage in Pakistan. If Islamabad continues to see Washington acting as a bully, Pakistani officials are seriously considering an announcement where Pakistan, for the first time since October 2001, will deny the US use of Pakistani soil and air space to transport fuel to Afghanistan.

. Reviewing Pakistan's role in the "war on terror". Islamabad needs to fight terrorists on its border with Afghanistan. But our methods need to be different to Washington's when it comes to our domestic extremists. This is where Islamabad parts ways with Washington. Pakistani officials are considering the option of withdrawing from the war on terror while maintaining Pakistan's own war against the terrorists along Afghanistan's border.

Talks with the Taliban. Pakistan has no quarrel with Afghanistan's Taliban. They are Kabul's internal problem. But if reaching out to Afghan Taliban's Mullah Omar can have a positive impact on rebellious Pakistani extremists, then this step should be taken. The South Koreans can talk to the Taliban. Karzai has also called for talks with them. It is time that Islamabad does the same.

The US has been telling everyone in the world that they have paid Pakistan $10 billion over the past five years. They might think this gives them the right to decide Pakistan's destiny. What they don't tell the world is how Pakistan's help secured for them their biggest footprint ever in energy-rich Central Asia.

If they forget, Islamabad can always remind them by giving them the same treatment that Uzbekistan did last year.

Ahmed Quraishi is an investigative reporter, currently hosting a weekly political talk show titled Worldview from Islamabad