Bhutto Post-Mortem Contrasted to JFK autopsy

[Douglas Caddy]

U.S. Experts Criticize Bhutto Post-Mortem

By LAWRENCE K. ALTMAN

The New York Times

December 31, 2007

Leading American experts in forensic pathology this weekend deplored the failure of Pakistani officials to order an autopsy of Benazir Bhutto, saying that the standard medical procedure was a crucial part of any credible investigation of a murder.

Exhuming the body of Ms. Bhutto, 54, a former prime minister who was killed Thursday at a political rally, could still be extremely useful in determining more precisely whether she was shot, hit by shrapnel from a suicide bomb or, less likely, died from striking her head against an object in the vehicle in which she was riding, the experts said in interviews.

A reporter for The New York Times read the experts the entire medical report on Ms. Bhutto.

Proper examination of the autopsy material, the clothing Ms. Bhutto wore when she was killed and the debris in the area surrounding the explosion could also help determine which extremist group made a bomb or fired a bullet, if either caused her death.

Ms. Bhutto’s case recalls that of President John F. Kennedy, who was slain in 1963. Controversy still swirls around the assassination, in part because of a flawed autopsy.

Not performing an autopsy of Ms. Bhutto “was a severe mistake, especially in the light of past problems with the murders of national leaders,” because it will fuel speculation, said Dr. Michael M. Baden, who is a top forensic official for the New York State Police as well as a former New York City chief medical examiner.

Seven doctors, but no forensic pathologist, signed Ms. Bhutto’s medical report. None were “trained to pick up the finer points of gunshot wounds” and other causes of criminal deaths, Dr. Baden said. For example, her doctors said they did not feel a bullet or foreign body, but did not probe for evidence of one.

“With Kennedy, the treating doctors were wrong about the entrance and exit wounds” of the bullet-damaged skull, said Dr. Baden, who was chairman of the forensic pathology panel of the House of Representatives select committees on the assassinations of Kennedy and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Dr. Baden said he suspected that Ms. Bhutto died from a bullet that left two or three tiny fragments seen on X-rays before it exited the skull through a wound that the Pakistani doctors did not notice in part because they apparently did not shave the bloodied thick scalp hair.

Dr. Werner U. Spitz, former chief medical examiner in Detroit, said he could not understand why the government did not try to quench “the thirst of the Pakistani people to know the facts, because they are all angry, and if you confronted them with the facts, maybe the anger” would disappear.

Dr. Spitz said he suspected that Ms. Bhutto died after being hit by a bullet fired from a high-powered rifle.

Dr. Vincent J. DiMaio, a former chief medical examiner in San Antonio, who also deplored the lack of an autopsy in Ms. Bhutto’s case, said he suspected that a fragment that was propelled against her head was a more likely explanation for her death than a bullet wound.

[Ron Ecker]

Dr. Spitz said he suspected that Ms. Bhutto died after being hit by a bullet fired from a high-powered rifle.

A sniper with a rifle makes the most sense to me for shooting someone in a motorcade (with notable precedent). A guy shooting from the crowd near the passing car would be a distracting patsy, as would the suicide bomber if it was two different people. And for the assassins it would make an autopsy (conveniently frowned upon in Islam) out of the question.

Edited December 31, 2007 by Ron Ecker

[Myra Bronstein]

U.S. Experts Criticize Bhutto Post-Mortem

By LAWRENCE K. ALTMAN

The New York Times

December 31, 2007

Leading American experts in forensic pathology this weekend deplored the failure of Pakistani officials to order an autopsy of Benazir Bhutto, saying that the standard medical procedure was a crucial part of any credible investigation of a murder.

Exhuming the body of Ms. Bhutto, 54, a former prime minister who was killed Thursday at a political rally, could still be extremely useful in determining more precisely whether she was shot, hit by shrapnel from a suicide bomb or, less likely, died from striking her head against an object in the vehicle in which she was riding, the experts said in interviews.

A reporter for The New York Times read the experts the entire medical report on Ms. Bhutto.

Proper examination of the autopsy material, the clothing Ms. Bhutto wore when she was killed and the debris in the area surrounding the explosion could also help determine which extremist group made a bomb or fired a bullet, if either caused her death.

Ms. Bhutto’s case recalls that of President John F. Kennedy, who was slain in 1963. Controversy still swirls around the assassination, in part because of a flawed autopsy.

Not performing an autopsy of Ms. Bhutto “was a severe mistake, especially in the light of past problems with the murders of national leaders,” because it will fuel speculation, said Dr. Michael M. Baden, who is a top forensic official for the New York State Police as well as a former New York City chief medical examiner.

Seven doctors, but no forensic pathologist, signed Ms. Bhutto’s medical report. None were “trained to pick up the finer points of gunshot wounds” and other causes of criminal deaths, Dr. Baden said. For example, her doctors said they did not feel a bullet or foreign body, but did not probe for evidence of one.

“With Kennedy, the treating doctors were wrong about the entrance and exit wounds” of the bullet-damaged skull, said Dr. Baden, who was chairman of the forensic pathology panel of the House of Representatives select committees on the assassinations of Kennedy and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Dr. Baden said he suspected that Ms. Bhutto died from a bullet that left two or three tiny fragments seen on X-rays before it exited the skull through a wound that the Pakistani doctors did not notice in part because they apparently did not shave the bloodied thick scalp hair.

Dr. Werner U. Spitz, former chief medical examiner in Detroit, said he could not understand why the government did not try to quench “the thirst of the Pakistani people to know the facts, because they are all angry, and if you confronted them with the facts, maybe the anger” would disappear.

Dr. Spitz said he suspected that Ms. Bhutto died after being hit by a bullet fired from a high-powered rifle.

Dr. Vincent J. DiMaio, a former chief medical examiner in San Antonio, who also deplored the lack of an autopsy in Ms. Bhutto’s case, said he suspected that a fragment that was propelled against her head was a more likely explanation for her death than a bullet wound.

It's impossible for me to watch the Pakistani government's assassination of Bhutto without noting the similarities to the US government's assassination of President Kennedy:

-The quickly changing accounts of her wounds--first bullet holes, then they ultimately claim she bumped her nogin on the SUV.

-The immediate cleanup of the crime scene--literally hosing down the rally site just like the SS washing up the limo and the clothes.

-Obviously the lack of a legitimate autopsy.

-The professionalism of the hit and the back up plans of back up plans.

Maybe, since it's not so close to home, Americans will take note of the obvious in Pakistan and be able to see it in retrospect in their own backyard.

[Pat Speer]

The similarities between the JFK and Bhutto case keep growing. Note that Bhutto was supposed to meet with two Americans that evening, and give them a report on the Pakistani Intelligence agency's assault on democracy. Note that the two Americans were Patrick Kennedy and ARLEN SPECTER!!!! Can it get any creepier?

Bhutto report: Musharraf planned to fix elections

By Saeed Shah | McClatchy Newspapers

* Posted on Monday, December 31, 2007

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NAUDERO, Pakistan — The day she was assassinated last Thursday, Benazir Bhutto had planned to reveal new evidence alleging the involvement of Pakistan's intelligence agencies in rigging the country's upcoming elections, an aide said Monday.

Bhutto had been due to meet U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., and Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., to hand over a report charging that the military Inter-Services Intelligence agency was planning to fix the polls in the favor of President Pervez Musharraf.

Safraz Khan Lashari, a member of the Pakistan People's Party election monitoring unit, said the report was "very sensitive" and that the party wanted to initially share it with trusted American politicians rather than the Bush administration, which is seen here as strongly backing Musharraf.

"It was compiled from sources within the (intelligence) services who were working directly with Benazir Bhutto," Lashari said, speaking Monday at Bhutto's house in her ancestral village of Naudero, where her husband and children continued to mourn her death.

The ISI had no official comment. However, an agency official, speaking only on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak on the subject, dismissed the allegations as "a lot of talk but not much substance."

Musharraf has been highly critical of those who allege that his regime is involved in electoral manipulation. "Now when they lose, they'll have a good rationale: that it is all rigged, it is all fraud," he said in November. "In Pakistan, the loser always cries."

According to Lashari, the document includes information on a "safe house" allegedly being run by the ISI in a central neighborhood of Islamabad, the alleged headquarters of the rigging operation.

It names as the head of the unit a brigadier general recently retired from the ISI, who was secretly assigned to run the rigging operation, Lashari said. It charges that he was working in tandem with the head of a civilian intelligence agency. Before her return to Pakistan, Bhutto, in a letter to Musharraf, had named the intelligence official as one of the men she accused of plotting to kill her.

Lashari said the report claimed that U.S. aid money was being used to fix the elections. Ballots stamped in favor of the Pakistan Muslim League-Q, which supports Musharraf, were to be produced by the intelligence agencies in about 100 parliamentary constituencies.

"They diverted money from aid activities. We had evidence of where they were spending the money," Lashari said.

Lashari, who formerly taught environmental economics at Britain's Cranfield University, said the effort was directed at constituencies where the result was likely to be decided by a small margin, so it wouldn't be obvious.

Bhutto was due to meet Specter and Kennedy after dinner last Thursday. She was shot as she left an election rally in Rawalpindi early that evening. Pakistan's government claims instead that she was thrown against the lever of her car's sunroof, fracturing her skull.

(Shah is a McClatchy special correspondent.)

McClatchy Newspapers 2007

[John Simkin]

There is a problem about motive. The American government paid Butto large sums of money to go back to Pakistan. Bush's intention was for Butto to work as a "democratic front" for Musharraf. Butto's death has therefore caused political problems for Bush. I therefore fail to see the sense of the CIA being involved in the death of Butto. She was Bush's type of foreign politician - corrupt.

[Paul Rigby]

There is a problem about motive. The American government paid Butto large sums of money to go back to Pakistan. Bush's intention was for Butto to work as a "democratic front" for Musharraf. Butto's death has therefore caused political problems for Bush. I therefore fail to see the sense of the CIA being involved in the death of Butto. She was Bush's type of foreign politician - corrupt.

The problem here, John, is that a consistent theme of neo-con polemics has been the CIA's pursuit of different policies and agendas. Bush is, when all is said and done, a transient politician, and thus of little consequence.

[Myra Bronstein]

There is a problem about motive. The American government paid Butto large sums of money to go back to Pakistan. Bush's intention was for Butto to work as a "democratic front" for Musharraf. Butto's death has therefore caused political problems for Bush. I therefore fail to see the sense of the CIA being involved in the death of Butto. She was Bush's type of foreign politician - corrupt.

The problem here, John, is that a consistent theme of neo-con polemics has been the CIA's pursuit of different policies and agendas. ...

The US support of Butto does make it more confusing. But why should we assume that the US support of her was straightforward and sincere?

I think it's possible that the actual goal was to lure her back to Pakistan and to her death. And that's pure speculation, so possible motives are also speculation:

-To create enough of a crisis to justify going into Pakistan to try to neutralize nukes,

-To create enough of a crisis to justify going into Pakistan to get access to the oil pipeline in neighboring Afghanistan,

-To create a diversionary crisis,

-To do a favor to Musharraf by getting rid of his major competator,

-Many other possibilities.

Again, pure speculation not at all based on evidence of understanding of the situation. That I lack.

The only thing I feel fairly sure of is that the Butto hit was an official gov't operation.

[Ron Ecker]

Note that the two Americans were Patrick Kennedy and ARLEN SPECTER!!!! Can it get any creepier?

Yes, it's even creepier when you consider that Bhutto was said to be shot in the neck, which we all know is Arlen Specter's favorite place for a bullet wound.

[Charles Drago]

The similarities between the JFK and Bhutto case keep growing. Note that Bhutto was supposed to meet with two Americans that evening, and give them a report on the Pakistani Intelligence agency's assault on democracy. Note that the two Americans were Patrick Kennedy and ARLEN SPECTER!!!! Can it get any creepier?

I long have been troubled by Patrick Kennedy's -- my congressman -- and his family's social interactions with accessories after the fact in the murder of JFK.

Most glaring case in point: Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg and Senator Edward Kennedy presented a Profiles in Courage Award to Gerald Ford.

Congressman Kennedy is, to my knowledge, the only relative of JFK who has publicly opined on the particulars of the Dallas conspiracy. In a newspaper interview a few years back, he forcefully stated his belief that Castro killed his uncle John.

The family must play the game, so none of this should surprise us.

But it all is so very, very sad.

Charles

[Douglas Caddy]

There is a problem about motive. The American government paid Butto large sums of money to go back to Pakistan. Bush's intention was for Butto to work as a "democratic front" for Musharraf. Butto's death has therefore caused political problems for Bush. I therefore fail to see the sense of the CIA being involved in the death of Butto. She was Bush's type of foreign politician - corrupt.

Cui Bono in Pakistan

Who Killed Bhutto?

By ROBERT FISK

www.counterpunch.org

Weekend edition December 31, 2007

http://www.counterpunch.org/fisk12312007.html

Weird, isn't it, how swiftly the narrative is laid down for us. Benazir Bhutto, the courageous leader of the Pakistan People's Party, is assassinated in Rawalpindi--attached to the very capital of Islamabad wherein ex-General Pervez Musharraf lives--and we are told by George Bush that her murderers were "extremists" and "terrorists". Well, you can't dispute that.

But the implication of the Bush comment was that Islamists were behind the assassination. It was the Taliban madmen again, the al-Qa'ida spider who struck at this lone and brave woman who had dared to call for democracy in her country.

Of course, given the childish coverage of this appalling tragedy--and however corrupt Ms Bhutto may have been, let us be under no illusions that this brave lady is indeed a true martyr--it's not surprising that the "good-versus-evil" donkey can be trotted out to explain the carnage in Rawalpindi.

Who would have imagined, watching the BBC or CNN on Thursday, that her two brothers, Murtaza and Shahnawaz, hijacked a Pakistani airliner in 1981 and flew it to Kabul where Murtaza demanded the release of political prisoners in Pakistan. Here, a military officer on the plane was murdered. There were Americans aboard the flight--which is probably why the prisoners were indeed released.

Only a few days ago--in one of the most remarkable (but typically unrecognised) scoops of the year--Tariq Ali published a brilliant dissection of Pakistan (and Bhutto) corruption in the London Review of Books, focusing on Benazir and headlined: "Daughter of the West". In fact, the article was on my desk to photocopy as its subject was being murdered in Rawalpindi.

Towards the end of this report, Tariq Ali dwelt at length on the subsequent murder of Murtaza Bhutto by police close to his home at a time when Benazir was prime minister--and at a time when Benazir was enraged at Murtaza for demanding a return to PPP values and for condemning Benazir's appointment of her own husband as minister for industry, a highly lucrative post.

In a passage which may yet be applied to the aftermath of Benazir's murder, the report continues: "The fatal bullet had been fired at close range. The trap had been carefully laid, but, as is the way in Pakistan, the crudeness of the operation--false entries in police log-books, lost evidence, witnesses arrested and intimidated--a policeman killed who they feared might talk--made it obvious that the decision to execute the prime minister's brother had been taken at a very high level."

When Murtaza's 14-year-old daughter, Fatima, rang her aunt Benazir to ask why witnesses were being arrested--rather than her father's killers--she says Benazir told her: "Look, you're very young. You don't understand things." Or so Tariq Ali's exposé would have us believe. Over all this, however, looms the shocking power of Pakistan's ISI, the Inter Services Intelligence.

This vast institution--corrupt, venal and brutal--works for Musharraf.

But it also worked--and still works--for the Taliban. It also works for the Americans. In fact, it works for everybody. But it is the key which Musharraf can use to open talks with America's enemies when he feels threatened or wants to put pressure on Afghanistan or wants to appease the " extremists" and "terrorists" who so oppress George Bush. And let us remember, by the way, that Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter beheaded by his Islamist captors in Karachi, actually made his fatal appointment with his future murderers from an ISI commander's office. Ahmed Rashid's book Taliban provides riveting proof of the ISI's web of corruption and violence. Read it, and all of the above makes more sense.

But back to the official narrative. George Bush announced on Thursday he was "looking forward" to talking to his old friend Musharraf. Of course, they would talk about Benazir. They certainly would not talk about the fact that Musharraf continues to protect his old acquaintance--a certain Mr Khan--who supplied all Pakistan's nuclear secrets to Libya and Iran. No, let's not bring that bit of the "axis of evil" into this.

So, of course, we were asked to concentrate once more on all those " extremists" and "terrorists", not on the logic of questioning which many Pakistanis were feeling their way through in the aftermath of Benazir's assassination.

It doesn't, after all, take much to comprehend that the hated elections looming over Musharraf would probably be postponed indefinitely if his principal political opponent happened to be liquidated before polling day.

So let's run through this logic in the way that Inspector Ian Blair might have done in his policeman's notebook before he became the top cop in London.

Question: Who forced Benazir Bhutto to stay in London and tried to prevent her return to Pakistan? Answer: General Musharraf.

Question: Who ordered the arrest of thousands of Benazir's supporters this month? Answer: General Musharraf.

Question: Who placed Benazir under temporary house arrest this month? Answer: General Musharraf.

Question: Who declared martial law this month? Answer General Musharraf.

Question: who killed Benazir Bhutto?

Er. Yes. Well quite.

You see the problem? Yesterday, our television warriors informed us the PPP members shouting that Musharraf was a "murderer" were complaining he had not provided sufficient security for Benazir. Wrong. They were shouting this because they believe he killed her.

Robert Fisk is a reporter for The Independent and author of Pity the Nation. He is also a contributor to CounterPunch's collection, The Politics of Anti-Semitism. Fisk's new book is The Conquest of the Middle East.

[Myra Bronstein]

The similarities between the JFK and Bhutto case keep growing. Note that Bhutto was supposed to meet with two Americans that evening, and give them a report on the Pakistani Intelligence agency's assault on democracy. Note that the two Americans were Patrick Kennedy and ARLEN SPECTER!!!! Can it get any creepier?

I long have been troubled by Patrick Kennedy's -- my congressman -- and his family's social interactions with accessories after the fact in the murder of JFK.

Most glaring case in point: Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg and Senator Edward Kennedy presented a Profiles in Courage Award to Gerald Ford.

Congressman Kennedy is, to my knowledge, the only relative of JFK who has publicly opined on the particulars of the Dallas conspiracy. In a newspaper interview a few years back, he forcefully stated his belief that Castro killed his uncle John.

The family must play the game, so none of this should surprise us.

But it all is so very, very sad.

Charles

Yes it is sad Charles.

Perhaps playing the game is akin to respectfully requesting that the Big Bag please not kill us and/or our kids--please and thank you. The game is something that John F. Kennedy Jr. didn't play, the same JFK Jr. that died in a beyond suspicious airplane incident along with his wife and possible heir.

I really don't know, but I can only imagine what it'd be like to be in a family that's been hunted and slaughtered for generations.

[Douglas Caddy]

The similarities between the JFK and Bhutto case keep growing. Note that Bhutto was supposed to meet with two Americans that evening, and give them a report on the Pakistani Intelligence agency's assault on democracy. Note that the two Americans were Patrick Kennedy and ARLEN SPECTER!!!! Can it get any creepier?

I long have been troubled by Patrick Kennedy's -- my congressman -- and his family's social interactions with accessories after the fact in the murder of JFK.

Most glaring case in point: Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg and Senator Edward Kennedy presented a Profiles in Courage Award to Gerald Ford.

Congressman Kennedy is, to my knowledge, the only relative of JFK who has publicly opined on the particulars of the Dallas conspiracy. In a newspaper interview a few years back, he forcefully stated his belief that Castro killed his uncle John.

The family must play the game, so none of this should surprise us.

But it all is so very, very sad.

Charles

Yes it is sad Charles.

Perhaps playing the game is akin to respectfully requesting that the Big Bag please not kill us and/or our kids--please and thank you. The game is something that John F. Kennedy Jr. didn't play, the same JFK Jr. that died in a beyond suspicious airplane incident along with his wife and possible heir.

I really don't know, but I can only imagine what it'd be like to be in a family that's been hunted and slaughtered for generations.

A friend told me some 20 years ago that while attending the tennis matches at Forest Hills, New York, he walked around a corner and almost bumped into Senator Edward Kennedy who was walking alone in the opposite direction. For a brief moment Senator Kennedy's face turned white. My friend said he realized afterwards that the Senator for that instant had the fear that the assassin had come for him.

[Pat Speer]

There is a problem about motive. The American government paid Butto large sums of money to go back to Pakistan. Bush's intention was for Butto to work as a "democratic front" for Musharraf. Butto's death has therefore caused political problems for Bush. I therefore fail to see the sense of the CIA being involved in the death of Butto. She was Bush's type of foreign politician - corrupt.

The perception in the U.S. is that Musharraf takes our money but is his own man. It seems reasonable to believe he killed Bhutto without first okaying it with the lame-duck George Bush.

[Cliff Varnell]

There is a problem about motive. The American government paid Butto large sums of money to go back to Pakistan. Bush's intention was for Butto to work as a "democratic front" for Musharraf. Butto's death has therefore caused political problems for Bush. I therefore fail to see the sense of the CIA being involved in the death of Butto. She was Bush's type of foreign politician - corrupt.

The problem here, John, is that a consistent theme of neo-con polemics has been the CIA's pursuit of different policies and agendas. Bush is, when all is said and done, a transient politician, and thus of little consequence.

John, being "pro-American" and being "pro-Bush" are two entirely different things.

Afghanistan now produces more heroin than the world can fix, snort, or smoke; Pakistan is

a main route for heroin. When it comes to the "politics of heroin" all ideological concerns

are off the table. As in all thriving black markets, aspiring middle-men (or -women) are

often assassinated.

Normally I'm not one to quote Robert Novak, but this is interesting:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...7123002237.html

Paul, the Bush Crime Family has been anything but transient -- in fact, the Harriman/Bush

Crime Family has been dictating American foreign policy (often alternating with Rockefeller

creatures like Kissinger or Brezinski) at least since the end of WW2.

http://www.tarpley.net/bush4.htm

[Frank Caramelli]

U.S. Experts Criticize Bhutto Post-Mortem

By LAWRENCE K. ALTMAN

The New York Times

December 31, 2007

Leading American experts in forensic pathology this weekend deplored the failure of Pakistani officials to order an autopsy of Benazir Bhutto, saying that the standard medical procedure was a crucial part of any credible investigation of a murder.

Exhuming the body of Ms. Bhutto, 54, a former prime minister who was killed Thursday at a political rally, could still be extremely useful in determining more precisely whether she was shot, hit by shrapnel from a suicide bomb or, less likely, died from striking her head against an object in the vehicle in which she was riding, the experts said in interviews.

A reporter for The New York Times read the experts the entire medical report on Ms. Bhutto.

Proper examination of the autopsy material, the clothing Ms. Bhutto wore when she was killed and the debris in the area surrounding the explosion could also help determine which extremist group made a bomb or fired a bullet, if either caused her death.

Ms. Bhutto’s case recalls that of President John F. Kennedy, who was slain in 1963. Controversy still swirls around the assassination, in part because of a flawed autopsy.

Not performing an autopsy of Ms. Bhutto “was a severe mistake, especially in the light of past problems with the murders of national leaders,” because it will fuel speculation, said Dr. Michael M. Baden, who is a top forensic official for the New York State Police as well as a former New York City chief medical examiner.

Seven doctors, but no forensic pathologist, signed Ms. Bhutto’s medical report. None were “trained to pick up the finer points of gunshot wounds” and other causes of criminal deaths, Dr. Baden said. For example, her doctors said they did not feel a bullet or foreign body, but did not probe for evidence of one.

“With Kennedy, the treating doctors were wrong about the entrance and exit wounds” of the bullet-damaged skull, said Dr. Baden, who was chairman of the forensic pathology panel of the House of Representatives select committees on the assassinations of Kennedy and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Dr. Baden said he suspected that Ms. Bhutto died from a bullet that left two or three tiny fragments seen on X-rays before it exited the skull through a wound that the Pakistani doctors did not notice in part because they apparently did not shave the bloodied thick scalp hair.

Dr. Werner U. Spitz, former chief medical examiner in Detroit, said he could not understand why the government did not try to quench “the thirst of the Pakistani people to know the facts, because they are all angry, and if you confronted them with the facts, maybe the anger” would disappear.

Dr. Spitz said he suspected that Ms. Bhutto died after being hit by a bullet fired from a high-powered rifle.

Dr. Vincent J. DiMaio, a former chief medical examiner in San Antonio, who also deplored the lack of an autopsy in Ms. Bhutto’s case, said he suspected that a fragment that was propelled against her head was a more likely explanation for her death than a bullet wound.

A few more similarities.

Bhutto's vehicle moved into a kill zone by "security". Watch the most played video by American media, the pre assassination one, seen on CNN etc. We see uniformed men raising their arms to signal other cars to stop, slow, or stay back. Bhutto's car then proceeds forward, but now separate from the trailing vehicles.

In the first hours (at least 5 here on the west coast) only still photographs shown. A clear indication of control over information, especially photographic.

A hurried, incomplete autopsy; halted, "at the family's request". This is where Musharrif could have let the family know that Heads of State (she was PM) get autopsies; thorough ones. Watch the coming months for info that Bhuttos's gravesite must be keep secure to prevent desecration. That's when they'll cover her tomb with twelve feet of cement. It will be done under strict security, opening the possibilities of alteration and destruction.

Just personnally; this is a horrible turn of events, but I can't help but think it would have happened had she been elected. The hatred of women in that part of the world is astounding.