Pakistan's Tipping Point: Musharraf Implicated In Bhutto Assassination

Hetep and Respect Jesusa bernardo, Your words describe how I feel in hearing the news.

More Bush Blow Back. Anything Bush and the Wicked Witch of the West put there hands on turns to cra@@##$p

Completely, Aunk.

"Bush and the Wicked Witch of the West" blessed the 2001 power grab in the Philippines and look where we are now....

Leave it to you to make a typically unsubstantiated (not to mention idiotic) claim that Paul Wellstone (not to mention MLK, RFK and Wallace) was assassinated by political opponents.

You forgot JFK and Malcom X.

And it wasn't the 'political process' they were a threat to. Just the established fascist regime that calls itself our 'protector'.

And don't forget Elvis.

PH,

Bill Harrison is absolutely right. You are an idiot. :-)

When political leaders are assassinated in the USA, the killers are always lone gunman. Got it?

Nonsense. Arthur Bremer had at least three people helping him. He talked to them all the time -- in his head.

Now get thee to a grassy knoll.

I do so enjoy 'daddy knows best' rightwingers. Its a cruel form of comedy but I have a weakness for it.

Panama? Venezuela? Splutter splutter.

I feel honored to be called an idiot by those who do so little to add value here at Newsvine.

In cases like this the facts don't get in the way of emotions. Even IF (a real big if) Musharraf had nothing to do with it, the appearance of it being him has a much bigger effect on what happens. In politics appearance is everything.

If Pakistan explodes, India will get very nervous. Two nuclear nations on the edge is not a good prospect for that part of the world.

Most of the people (Bhutto's party members, Nawaz Sharif & even Bhutto's husband) have said that Musharraf didn't provide her with adequate security. Bhutto had informed the Pakistani government that some people were planning to kill her, she even gave them the names still the government failed to provide adequate security to either Bhutto or Sharif. For that i think Musharraf & his government are to be blamed.

If I get a group of pre-schoolers to chant that Santa Claus did it, it would not then mean that Santa Claus is "implicated" (much less exists - though don't tell the poor pre-schoolers that). In the previous attempt, Bhutto seemed to have settled on "extremists" as the likely culprits - why would that not be the case, here? The timing of it just doesn't point to a Musharraf plot - there were better times to be done with her, and easier ways to do it, really. Is it possible he's aware of that and is just super-crafty, being behind this all the while? Possible, but I don't think likely, sensationalistic headline or not.

Security Security Security. There is no evidence that Musharraf put out a hit on her, not even that he looked the other way when he new someone under him was planning something, but it is all over the place that she was requesting basic security measures that she didn't get. And yes, she stuck her head out of the top of the roof which was. . . well, as we know now, a poor decision.
Anyway, does he not hold some responsibility, however much he despised her, to make sure that she was secure? It could be done flippantly, putzing around with not putting into action the security she needed or it may have been deliberate, everyone knowing that many people were wanting to kill her so he sat back and waited - maybe! Just putting out some ideas here.
Yes, he's got his own security to worry about, too.
And I'm not blaming Bush, but his administration made her presence on that day possible. Could this be considered another unprepared moment for this administration? Should they have made sure she was secure and her basic security requests were fulfilled? Okay, sorry Bill, not trying to turn this thread that way.
Anyway - is Musharraf guilty? Maybe in an idle and possibly inadvertent?? form of sabotage. Kinda like manslaughter. Orrrr, maybe more calculated.

Perhaps -- we're already seeing Bhutto's supporters charing that Musharraf was behind this though.

Thats amusing, What supporters? she could not even get the numbers to win a seat in the lower house. At most I would say she polled about five % of the vote. Dont pay any attention to that crap AP feeds you, she was a nothing like Shariff, thats why they wanted to boycott the vote, because they knew they could not even get a seat.

India doesn't seize the opportunity and do God knows what.

What makes you think that India would 'do God knows what'.

Killfile:
I don't know, there are so many ways this thing can go, I don't know what to think.

Mridul Chadha:

What makes you think that India would 'do God knows what'.

Pakistan and India have been going at it for years and it is still volatile.

Yes the situation is volatile but why do you think India would take an aggressive step in this situation.

The question is, how did a gun-toting suicide bomber get close to her in those circumstances?

Good question.

An inside job, maybe?

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

BTW: This should go below laughman's comment,. Arrrrgh!

Yes the situation is volatile but why do you think India would take an aggressive step in this situation.

I never said they would, but that we should hope they don't.

Yes you never said that, there isn't any reason for India or for that matter anybody to do anything to Pakistan now. There is enough chaos for a civil war which, in my opinion, is inevitable. I think there would be more attacks on political leaders - Nawaz Sharif & maybe Imran Khan too.

but that we should hope they don't.

Had India ever wanted that it would have done that in 1947-48, 1965, 1971, 1999, or 2001 - in each case it was Pakistan who initiated the war & lost every single time (except in 2001, when there wasn't any actual war).

That would be the right time to go in & get the nukes since Pakistan won't allow anyone to touch them now. But it should involve a multi-national special force, i don't know if India would like to be a part of it. I'm only worried about the nukes now, as far as the elections & the stability of Pakistan as a state is concerned, it is now immaterial to think about these things. Civil war seems inevitable.

The problem is that Pakistan's nukes are thought not to be even one-point safe and no one really knows where they are.

Yes the situation is volatile but why do you think India would take an aggressive step in this situation.

Chaos provides the perfect opportunity to assert dominance, so an aggressive action from India is certainly a possibility.

I don't think so. India got many chance in the past to 'assert its dominance' over Pakistan. India has never been the aggressor, Pakistan has attacked India 4 times in the past which has resulted in war while India has never attacked Pakistan. During the 1999 Kargil War it was Pakistan which violated the Shimla agreement & crossed into the Indian side of Line of Control, while defending its territory not even a single Indian soldier crossed the Line of Control because of direct orders to the Indian Army from the the then Indian Prime Minister Mr. Vajpayee. So i don't see India doing anything (let alone something aggressive).

Understood. I'm not much of an authority on the two countries relations and certainly wasn't inferring that India would do something aggressive in this situation.

KF, #8.11,

Bill, to clarify for those a little less well versed in nuclear weapons terminology -- "one point safe" means the safe mechanism is actually part of the bomb and is necessary to make it go off.

No, this is incorrect. One-point-safe means simply that if it takes one point i.e. one place in the explosive chain that could result in a detonation of the device, that there is a low probability that the nuclear energy yield will be greater than the equivalent energy from a certain amount of TNT. By definition, the probability is less than one per million, and the amount is 4 pounds. So any method that provides less than one in a million probability that the resulting explosion (set off at any one point that could detonate a bomb) will yield more than 4 pounds of TNT is called one point safe. Some methods are expected to be, or have been demonstrated to be better than others.

no problem, KF.

I didn't even noticw.

Al Qaeda or some similar group may well have been involved, (suicide bomber would tend to point in this direction), but it should hardly come as a surprise that such groups would target Benazir Bhutto.

The question is, how did a gun-toting suicide bomber get close to her in those circumstances?

Musharraf didn't have to plot anything. All it took was a few security people looking away at the right time.

As always in these situations, ask yourself: Cui bono?

I remain shocked that Al Qaeda didn't claim responsibility for Hurricane Katrina.

Bush already had that one locked up ;>o

Speaking of which, I'm surprised not to see an article or seed yet on how the president might be blamed for the assassination of Pinky Bhutto. Were any Texans known to be in Rawalpindi at the time? What about Halliburton executives?

Not Texas but ...

"Our foreign policy has relied on her presence as a stabilizing force. She had a big public following . . . Without her, we will have to regroup. It complicates life for the American government." -- Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), who is in Pakistan and was scheduled to meet Benazir Bhutto tonight

From Washington Post article

Good one, Zanshin. :-)

Pakistan Intelligence is now saying they have evidence of an Al-Qaeda link.

That's the same guy that Ms. Bhutto said was part of a group targeting her in a discussion she had with Arnaud de Borchgrave. Now the Pakistani Interior Ministry is saying she was killed by a fractured skull which resulted from her hitting her head on a lever when trying to duck back inside her vehicle and not gunshot wounds as previously reported.

Settle down, OF, you're becoming a bit incoherent. Don't let your BDD cloud your mind at a time like this.

oldfogey,

Are you going to write an article today. I think I'm going thru oldfogey withdrawals. :-)

Thanks for your concern, fellows. Bill I tend to get that way when overloaded with emotion. Mark, I was just about to write an ode to the one I love and then this Bhutto thing threw me for a loop. Keep watching, I am sure something will come pouring out soon.

Well I support your outburst OF. The storey of Pak. is a long storey of proxy wars and betrayal. I too find it inconceivable that people can look at this with some sort of Red White and Blue telescopic vision. How quickly people forget these days. Bhutto good friend of the Bin-Ladens, and killed her own brother a democratically elected representative, would have been wanted in Switzerland for Money Laundering and corruption. What have the US given Pak. A gun problem, a Drug problem, bombs, border disputes, 1965, the US betrayed Pak and East Pak became Bangladesh, They gave them the Mujahadeen, (Al-Qaeda) and then betrayed them. They gave them Nukes via AQ Khan, The war in Baluchistan, Kashmir, Afghanistan and the NW Frontier,

Oh yeah, and a finger puppet named Bhutto AKA Condi Rice's middle right finger.

I SPY, you never cease to entertain. More fun than a barrel of monkeys, maybe even a coupla barrels.

I have to object to at least a portion of "I Spy's" comments. Not the ones about Enron, the NYSE, or the price of oil.

The comments about moving people out of Israel because of a possible threat from Pakistan seem a bit much. Trust me, Israel is no pushover, and they can more than hold their own against any outside threats.

My opinion on Bhutto is that she should have stayed in England. My reason is because her motivation for returning to Pakistan was not to 'return in triumph' and free the country. While she was in England, she had a lot of visitors to her apartment. These people were often entertained by Bhutto while she would send her children to the back bedroom. Mostly, the visitors tried to talk her into returning to Pakistan. The reason they were there was to try for a place in any future Bhutto government.

In the two months or so since Bhutto's return, all she REALLY accomplished was to get hundreds of her countrymen blown up...and herself killed. I don't think she's a heroine. I think she just wanted back in power. When it quickly got to a point where she needed convoys of bulletproof cars and cell phone jammers just to move around, maybe she should have taken the hint.

In any event, all she brought to the country in her carry-ons was death, misery, and discord.

The comments about moving people out of Israel because of a possible threat from Pakistan seem a bit much. Trust me, Israel is no pushover

Someone might try to use it as an excuse, ie, blame Pakistan for an attack.

As for Bhutto the cow killed her own brother, I dont feel sorry for her, not one bit.

As for Bhutto the cow killed her own brother, I dont feel sorry for her, not one bit.

she was no angel, but no one accused her of that, afaik. They said her husband did it, but no charges were brought. You have a link, or you just tawkin?

A link, Oh if its not on the intaweb it cant be true. Ok then at the very least she was an accessory after the fact. Care to explain how it got covered up without her say so?

Hetep and Respect I spy, I heard this morning on WBAI that Bhutto, stole more then a billion dollars in her last stay in the country and left 50% of the people illiterate. It was also pointed out that more or less, the same small group of Western approved families, have been robing the country for the last 60 years.

Do you think that because she was backed by Bush, some of her people considered her a Cultural Traitor and that is why she was killed.

No Pak is like pre columbian America. Tribal. She comes from an elite's family groomed by the British when there was an East and West Pakistan, She would poll about five percent of the vote. She has only her local tribe supporting her. This is why Shariff and Bhutto where going to boycott the election, because they knew they would lose, in fact they would not even have enough votes to win a seat. They are both political nothings. Bhutto was bad for Pakistan, Her father was Hanged, probably wrongfully, and she embarked on a political career for revenge. Not the sort of thing you want a democratically elected leader to have as a core policy.

She was just another lacky of the west, in fact Condi's finger puppet. The Pak's. will never evert forgive the US for abandoning the Mujahadeen, as well as many other betrayals, and she was seen as pretender to the Islamic state. Pakistan Zinzibad, was not in her rhetoric.

Results from the last round of Pakistani parliamentary elections (minor parties omitted):

% of popular vote - Seats

Pakistan Muslim League (Quaid-e-Azam) 25.7% 126 seats

Pakistan Peoples Party Parliamentarians 25.8% 81 seats

Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal Pakistan (Religious party coalition)
Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan (Islamic Assembly)
Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (Assembly of Islamic Clergy)
Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan (Assembly of Pakistani Clergy)
Tehrik-e-Islami (Movement for Islam)
11.3% 63 seats Have not done well in local elections recently

Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz Sharif) 9.4% 19 seats

I guess support for Pinky's PPP has really fallen off uh, I SPY?

Pakistan Peoples Party Parliamentarians 25.8% 81 seats

That was before Bhutto and Shariff returned to the scene. The two of them on a joint ticket polled under 6% 1 seat. That's one seat between them. Vote percentage does not always = seats. You can poll 51% of the primary vote and not win a single seat.

That assertion doesn't square with this poll which was admittedly taken before their return but is as far off from your assertion as day is night. I presume you have some citation to buttress your claims?

Wow Bill you have minions...what next? Perhaps they should defend themselves.

Forest

Look the minions speak in simple sylables for all Pubs to understand. Good luck all.

The comments about moving people out of Israel because of a possible threat from Pakistan seem a bit much. Trust me, Israel is no pushover, and they can more than hold their own against any outside threats.

I Spy is confused. Its Iran's job to destroy the kufr in Israel-- Pakistan is supposed to focus on destroying the kufr in India. See?

I SPY #17.5

A link, Oh if its not on the intaweb it cant be true. Ok then at the very least she was an accessory after the fact. Care to explain how it got covered up without her say so?

not even. I mean a reference, a citation, something other than your mere assertion. You said BB had her brother killed. When I said (#17.4)

she was no angel, but no one accused her of that, afaik. They said her husband did it, but no charges were brought. You have a link, or you just tawkin?

you say "at the very least she was an accessory after the fact." So, did she have her brother killed or not? Yes? You have a reference?

Care to explain how it got covered up without her say so?

they must have uncovered it just enough so we can talk about it.

Reference to her own family.

they must have uncovered it just enough so we can talk about it.

After she was expelled from the country.

@ Bill Harrison. What are you on about quoting from an Alien source about inter Tribal Pak politics. Do you have any understanding of the Pak political process? Do you know how a parlimentary democracy works?:
The first Question you should ask is Who is Benazir Bhutto. The answer is she is the Fuedal overlord of Larkarna, a sparsely populated area of rural Cind.

Now let me explanify this for you in a way even an American can understand.

If America was still living before the first fleet ran aground at Plymoth you would have a number of Tribes. So you send a representative to all the tribes within the area now claimed to be the USA. You tell them, The is this person called Bhutto from some other tribe. She has been living outside the country with the enemy for many years. Now who are you going to vote for.? Your tribal chief of this stranger Bhutto.?

Now the wild card in these jurga's are the Punjabi's. They came to Pakistan during the Partition. Some went to East Pak, but most went to West Pak. They are a bit like Israeli's. They went their to create a Muslim Homeland. Now many of these people are the subject of a lot of interracial tension. For example, The Bugti Baluchs, have been killing them for starting settlements in Baluchistan for some time now, Think of it like Hamas in the Gaza strip. The main difference between the Punjabi's and the Israeli's is that the Punjabi's were initially welcomed and have not Violated any international laws or conventions. Thats not to say that the fighting is not as fierce. Another difficulty is that Pak has no western border. So how do you conduct a poll in a country where there is state mandated boundaries??

Anyone who thinks that Charlie Wilson trafficked in nuclear arms and started Enron, not to mention backslapping the Vine's resident anti-Semite is not to be trusted to tell time except maybe twice each day.

"Spy is confused. Its Iran's job to destroy the kufr in Israel-- Pakistan is supposed to focus on destroying the kufr in India. See? "

Putting words into my mouth is a typical tactic of this tyope, I said Pak would be blamed, not attack Israel. Big difference. I seer you needed two bites of that Cherry Rob from oakland, whats a matter scared someone might reveal something that is true??

@ Bill Harrison I am still waiting for your response to my question about Masood. Was that one too hard for you billy boy. It is a well known fact the Wilson was involved in the precursor to ENRON. Nice try Billy boy. Now you are resorting to out right lies. So are you going to answer that Q about Masood or is that a bit to close to the truth for you??

backslapping the Vine's resident anti-Semite LMAO, why dont you just say Nah nah nah nah your wrong Im right Billy boy.

I SPY, are you always this "charming"?

Most of his comments on NV are pretty inflammatory. Unless people in the discussion stop him, he can create some real negativity. I'm not sure if its better to confront him outright-- or just ignore him. Ideas anyone?

Krishna-

Very worthwhile link. I recommend it. Thanks!

You're welcome. I was quite surprised when I read it. The author [Scott Ott] is a fairly well known satirist-- some of his stuff is very funny. But--Ive never see him do a serious piece before. Turns out he's also good at serious writing.