Benazir Bhutto killed in suicide bombing

[butchersapron]

A lot to get your head around with this whole thing.

While reading all the different links etc I read that she had had her brother shot and killed.

It's 'widely suspected' due to the manner the timing...very good piece here:

Pakistan's flawed and feudal princess

Within her party, she declared herself the lifetime president of the PPP and refused to let her brother Murtaza challenge her. When he persisted in doing so, he ended up shot dead in highly suspicious circumstances outside the family home. Murtaza's wife Ghinwa and his daughter Fatima, as well as Benazir's mother, all firmly believed that Benazir gave the order to have him killed.

 

[butchersapron]

...and whilst we're at it, let's get rid of these illusions about corruption charges being dropped for lack of evidence. No, they were dropped in a US brokered deal in which she agreed not to challenge Mushareef but to instead act a sticking plaster on his regime and cool down popular revolts in order to stabilise the state until she got her own turn.

 

[fattboy]

Couldn't it be argued that this is already to their advantage?

exactly

 

[Kid_Eternity]

...and whilst we're at it, let's get rid of these illusions about corruption charges being dropped for lack of evidence. No, they were dropped in a US brokered deal in which she agreed not to challenge Mushareef but to instead act a sticking plaster on his regime and cool down popular revolts in order to stabilise the state until she got her own turn.

Well fucking said, the delusions of those idiots ready to turn her into another Diana is fucking staggering...

 

[goldenecitrone]

Well fucking said, the delusions of those idiots ready to turn her into another Diana is fucking staggering...

Too right. The bravest thing Diana ever did was driving round Paris at night without a seat belt with a pissed up driver high on cocaine at the wheel.

 

[mears]

...and whilst we're at it, let's get rid of these illusions about corruption charges being dropped for lack of evidence. No, they were dropped in a US brokered deal in which she agreed not to challenge Mushareef but to instead act a sticking plaster on his regime and cool down popular revolts in order to stabilise the state until she got her own turn.

All America all the time.

Do you think there is some uncorruptable white knight in Pakistan ready to lead the state on a path towards enlightenment?

I would imagine all Pakistani politicians have skeletons in their closet.

Bhutto seemed secular, and modern, someone the west could deal with - but she is now dead. Maybe at his point she was as good as it gets in Pakistan.

 

[nino_savatte]

Given the military involvement in so many facets of Pakistani life, it'd be more surprising if there were no connection.

Quite, though the media has been quick to finger the shadowy Al-Qaeda.

 

[ViolentPanda]

All America all the time.

No, mostly America most of the time.

Do you think there is some uncorruptable white knight in Pakistan ready to lead the state on a path towards enlightenment?

Now there's a sentence that says a heap about it's author.

I would imagine all Pakistani politicians have skeletons in their closet.

The word "Pakistani" is superfluous.

Bhutto seemed secular, and modern, someone the west could deal with - but she is now dead. Maybe at his point she was as good as it gets in Pakistan.

And here we have it, a near-admission that a "seeming" of democracy, of modernity and secularism is all that some people need or want. Not the people of Pakistan, of course, but people like mears, with their grasping hands extended, ready to grab hold of whatever they can get.
Bhutto did less than fuck-all in her last two governments, she in fact helped the Pakistani military to roll back Pakistani democracy, as did Sharif in his. Both of them were happy to do so as long as they were able to secure their own power bases.
A majority of Pakistanis need and long for democracy of the sort that they were promised in the late 1940s. That's real democracy, not a quasi-democracy fig-leafed by a figurehead who happens to be politically acceptable to the west.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Quite, though the media has been quick to finger the shadowy Al-Qaeda.

It's simple to do, it promotes the "us and them" myth that continues to be propagated, and entirely misses addressing history, cause and effect. Quite a result for any "interested party".

 

[zoltan]

All America all the time.

Do you think there is some uncorruptable white knight in Pakistan ready to lead the state on a path towards enlightenment?

I would imagine all Pakistani politicians have skeletons in their closet.

Bhutto seemed secular, and modern, someone the west could deal with - but she is now dead. Maybe at his point she was as good as it gets in Pakistan.

She was out for herself and her own lot - thats a family trait and sadly a trait in Pakistani politics - as good as she gets ? for who ? the people on the bottom in pakistan would still be living in shit, even if their newly elected female leader could take tea at the white house and discuss Melville and Henry James all night

Just cos she was modern, educated and spoke good english dosnt mean she would be any less of a twat and embezzeler.

Its OK tho - the family line will go on and there will be aqnother highrkly educatred, fluent English speaking candidate to carry on the family line of electioneering anf the subsequent filling of pockets

 

[ViolentPanda]

She was out for herself and her own lot - thats a family trait and sadly a trait in Pakistani politics - as good as she gets ? for who ? the people on the bottom in pakistan would still be living in shit, even if their newly elected female leader could take tea at the white house and discuss Melville and Henry James all night

Just cos she was modern, educated and spoke good english dosnt mean she would be any less of a twat and embezzeler.

Its OK tho - the family line will go on and there will be aqnother highrkly educatred, fluent English speaking candidate to carry on the family line of electioneering anf the subsequent filling of pockets

Exactly. Another in a long line of figureheads fig-leafing the asset-stripping of their own nations, exemplifying the whole "fuck you Jack, I'm alright" philosophy of market capitalism.

 

[goldenecitrone]

All America all the time.

You should be flattered to live in a country that has such a disproportionate effect on the rest of the world. 150 years ago it would have been Britain.

 

[ViolentPanda]

You should be flattered to live in a country that has such a disproportionate effect on the rest of the world. 150 years ago it would have been Britain.

I think the word you were looking for was "ashamed" rather than "flattered".

 

[Dillinger4]

It's 'widely suspected' due to the manner the timing...very good piece here:

Pakistan's flawed and feudal princess

Within her party, she declared herself the lifetime president of the PPP and refused to let her brother Murtaza challenge her. When he persisted in doing so, he ended up shot dead in highly suspicious circumstances outside the family home. Murtaza's wife Ghinwa and his daughter Fatima, as well as Benazir's mother, all firmly believed that Benazir gave the order to have him killed.

I always thought it was Bhuttos husband who ordered Murtza killed for humiliating him.

 

[goldenecitrone]

I think the word you were looking for was "ashamed" rather than "flattered".

Bollocks to that. Accept that fact that you are a citizen of a country that has an improportionate effect round the globe, sometimes good, sometimes bad, and try to do your own little bit to redress the balance.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Bollocks to that. Accept that fact that you are a citizen of a country that has an improportionate effect round the globe, sometimes good, sometimes bad, and try to do your own little bit to redress the balance.

In mears's case, that's not what he's about or what he's on about. All he's doing is carping that we "always" blame America, and refusing to accept the degree of responsibility the US has. he's not interested in redressing the balance, he's interested in what he can get out of it.

 

[goldenecitrone]

In mears's case, that's not what he's about or what he's on about. All he's doing is carping that we "always" blame America, and refusing to accept the degree of responsibility the US has. he's not interested in redressing the balance, he's interested in what he can get out of it.

Maybe, I don't know the guy. I don't know what he does for a living. Here's a message to you mears, Happy New Year and try to redress the balance.

And to you too, VP, Have a great New Year, hope it's the best one yet.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I always thought it was Bhuttos husband who ordered Murtza killed for humiliating him.

To be fair, it's one of the few charges the Pakistan intelligence community haven't try to pile on him at one time or another.

Besides, Mr Ten Percent was more than capable of humiliating himself, and did so over and over again.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Maybe, I don't know the guy. I don't know what he does for a living. Here's a message to you mears, Happy New Year and try to redress the balance.

And to you too, VP, Have a great New Year, hope it's the best one yet.

You too.

 

[mears]

You should be flattered to live in a country that has such a disproportionate effect on the rest of the world. 150 years ago it would have been Britain.

So people around here criticize the US not because of their policies but their power in relation to the rest of the world?

 

[nino_savatte]

For fuck's sake, someone change that stuck record.

 

[Lock&Light]

For fuck's sake, someone change that stuck record.

Seems to me that the record is stuck on both sides.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

Don't start again; final warning due to festive cheer.

 

[CyberRose]

New footage suggests Bhutto was shot, running counter to the official government version from the government saying she died cos she banged her head after the explosion. They insisted she was not shot. The reporter suggests this was because they didn't want everyone to know what a security failure it had been (why they think letting someone in with a suicide bomb is less of a security risk than someone with a gun I'm not quite sure!!)

 

[david dissadent]

New footage suggests Bhutto was shot, running counter to the official government version from the government saying she died cos she banged her head after the explosion. They insisted she was not shot. The reporter suggests this was because they didn't want everyone to know what a security failure it had been (why they think letting someone in with a suicide bomb is less of a security risk than someone with a gun I'm not quite sure!!)

Idiots, it makes them look as guilty as sin, as if they are covering up a government conspiracy rather than just a security fuck up.

Unless offcoarse they are covering up a government conspiracy.

 

[newharper]

Saw this yesterday,

The chief suspects in the Bhutto assassination, as of forty eight hours ago, were lower and mid-level officers of Pakistan’s ISI, intelligence agency, and the Pakistani army.

It's by Richard Sale, who was Intelligence correspondent for UPI till Mearch 2007certainly and he proceeds to put the boot into ISI.

He gives a U.S. version of the history of ISI re Bhutto's Taliban and Musharraf, then comes up to date.

Bhutto was certainly a marked woman from the time she returned to Pakistan. If parts of the ISI detested Musharraf, they abominated her. She said two things that sealed her fate. She said that if elected PM, she would allow US forces to hunt for bin Laden on Pakistani soil, and that she would allow the Vienna-based IAEA to interrogate the rogue nuclear scientist, AQ Khan about his nuclear smugglings to North Korea, Iran, Libya, etc. After those statements, she had no chance of surviving.

Then analyses Pakistan's terrorist level and comes to a breezy conclusion.

But Bhutto had profound enemies in the army and air force where she was seen as a front man for American interests, a proxy, "a bought dog," as one former Pakistani official said to me.
If I can offer an opinion, I think the Bush diplomacy that resurrected her was purblind to the point of dense stupidity, and, under the guise of promoting democracy, she was misled by her own sense of vanity and invulnerability and her liking to be liked by Americans.

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2008/01/bhuttos-murder.html#more

 

[Belushi]

Looks like Musharraf has taken a right kicking in the elections, PPP seems to be ahead of Sharifs Muslim League. Zardari (Bhutto's widower) is proposing a coalition government with Sharif.

Early indications are of the religious parties faring relatively badly.

 

[nino_savatte]

That's good news. With any luck, the military will keep their beaks out of the political process and a secular state can emerge from all of this.