Pakistan's Bhutto Killed in Attack

[Gorgon]

Assassinations work sometimes, that why they keep trying. Musharaf 3 times, Bhutto 2. Thats not necessarily the fault of the securiity arrangements, and it's bound to ve worse when you are trying to get elected and out shaking hands every day.

[Walsingham]

All I have to say is just think how things could have turned out differently if Bush "stayed the course" in Afghanistan and hunted Al Qaeda and the Taliban to the last man instead of going into a worthless and useless war with the quagmire that is Iraq.

 

I thought you regarded all foreign wars as evil, including Afghanistan?

 

Anyway, Jags, you're ignoring my central point, either because I haven't explained it properly, or deliberately. None of those methods you mention would seriously hamper an assassination attempt. Re-read my post:

 

"Jags, the jammers are for IEDs not suicide bombers. And even then they don't work against command wires (obviously). I don't think he was remiss to not provide them. I mean it's the kind of trash you could foist on a corporate client as a sort of comp on insurance, but it's just fluff. as for bomb detection equipment, anyone who tells you they have some is selling lead to gold.

 

"But for the denial of the detonation jammers and bomb detection equipment requested, her death would not have occurred."

 

Is completely false."

 

the point is that bomb jammers don't jam, and bomb detectors usually fail to detect. The simple fact of the matter is that just about anyone can be killed if they don't practice a variety of security precautions too long to list in entirety, but very few of which seem to have been actioned.

 

She chose to maximise political effect while running a risk. If it had paid off I've no doubt it would have paid handsomely. However, I believe the odds were extremely poor, and she made a bad choice.

 

If she was indeed shot by a sniper then this opens the floor slightly to other candidates. It could have been govt with an insurance explosion. However, it doesn't change the fact that she was deliberately exposing herself to harm in a predictable slow-moving mass rally. At the very least she was inviting the slaughter of her own supporters!

[Sand]

I thought you regarded all foreign wars as evil, including Afghanistan?

 

I only regard foreign wars as a bad idea when we start them. Afghanistan government, and their proxy Al Qaeda, attacked us therefore we had the right to annihilate them. We should have brought our full military power against the Taliban and Al Qaeda and focused on them till everyone in those organizations was nothing but a smoldering corpse. Iraq was no threat to the US therfore any military action against them was unjustified.

[Walsingham]

I thought you regarded all foreign wars as evil, including Afghanistan?

 

I only regard foreign wars as a bad idea when we start them. Afghanistan government, and their proxy Al Qaeda, attacked us therefore we had the right to annihilate them. We should have brought our full military power against the Taliban and Al Qaeda and focused on them till everyone in those organizations was nothing but a smoldering corpse. Iraq was no threat to the US therfore any military action against them was unjustified.

 

You stole my biscuits! I annihilate you! *chases offender around with nuke on a stick*

[Gorgon]

They will be a dead man by morning mein Keizer.

[Brdavs]

The question of weather or not she took a too big a risk is unimportant and a laughable one at that...Why not apply the same logic everywhere then, US(bhutto) is to blame for 9/11(her death), with their neocolonial practices at the ME(her practicing political life on rallys), they(she) really should have seen it coming and withdraw from the arena(public life)! No, lol?

 

The more interesting debate is who gains from this... There can be no doubt that any tears over the loss of the most prolific opposition leader shed by Musharraf & the Military cliqe are crocodile ones to put it mildly heh, giving her policies... It would come as no big shock if history one day establishes that they not only "let" it happen but perheps even did it themselves (several insinuations floating arround allready).

However history does have this nasty tendency of being a pawn of the victors... much like we don`t (want to) hear about the crime of tens of thousands of tons of depleted uranium being dropped on Pakistanis neighbour we won`t (want to) hear about possible dirty deeds relating to Musharraf, the nuke holder and west supporter... noone ever said the pice of victory wouldnt be high (on others) lol...

One can`t help but note the irony that in order to secure victory for "good" we`re selling our soul to the devil hehe...

[Walsingham]

Brdavs, help me out a little here. you're saying Mush is crying crocodile tears, but he's royally screwed now. He had been making progress with Bhutto at a personal level for months; hence her return. He desperately needed to forge a workable alliance with progressive pro-democracy elements in the country against the Islamists. A fact commented on for at least the last three years since TIME did their feature on him.

 

How does her dying help him out?

[Sand]

If you are truly a cynic you can see Bush setting Bhutto up that she will get killed by terrorists, thus justifying a stronger US military pressence in Pakistan, placing Musharraf as a puppet ruler using martial law to take a firm hold on the country. This gives us another border in which we can surround Iran with. Iraq on one side, Afghanistan and Pakistan on the other. Prepping up for an invasion.

[Guard Dog]

If you are truly a cynic you can see Bush setting Bhutto up that she will get killed by terrorists, thus justifying a stronger US military pressence in Pakistan, placing Musharraf as a puppet ruler using martial law to take a firm hold on the country. This gives us another border in which we can surround Iran with. Iraq on one side, Afghanistan and Pakistan on the other. Prepping up for an invasion.

You (and Pop, WITHTEETH, and others) have posted a number of time about how dumb the current admin is, and how dumb Bush in particular is. But at the same time you think he is capable of the most devious and subtle of Machiavellian plots. Hmmm. Sounds like a logical disconnect to me.

 

But cynicisim does fit you like a second skin.

[Sand]

Just because one can make dumb decisions does not mean one is stupid. Besides, I don't think that is the case here. I was just stating how one could interpret these set of events and how it possibly can aid Bush's agenda.

Edited December 29, 2007 by Sand

[tarna]

Jags, the jammers are for IEDs not suicide bombers. And even then they don't work against command wires (obviously). I don't think he was remiss to not provide them. I mean it's the kind of trash you could foist on a corporate client as a sort of comp on insurance, but it's just fluff. as for bomb detection equipment, anyone who tells you they have some is selling lead to gold.

 

But for the denial of the detonation jammers and bomb detection equipment requested, her death would not have occurred.

 

Is completely false.

 

You correctly say that Musharraf would have to be an idiot to not do all he could to protect her, since it was in his interests. But you conclude this makes him an idiot. I suggest that his continued survival in the toughest political position in the world indicates he is not an idiot. I conclude that in fact he did everything he could, bearing in mind he can't trust his own security intelligence service.

However, the facts state otherwise: Musharraf received at least 4 requests for additional security measures (tinted windows/jammers/police mobiles) from Bhutto herself as well as 3 senators.

Gotta support Walsingham here. There is no such thing as a detonation jammer ( try jamming a light switch ), tinted windows would not have helped here and more police officers probably would not either. What killed Bhutto was her own actions to circumvent security and 'win' the popular approval of those that she was courting. I saw a video of her standing with her upper torso out of her sunroof waving to the crowd. A gunman standing in the crowd about 45 degrees to her right fired a handgun ( revolver? ) and her falling/ducking toward her right side onto the car's roof and the video going askew ( sp? ). Schrapnel may have killed her but a gunshot definitely was fired toward her and there is little in the way of security that could have protected her under those conditions.

 

The point that the 3 senators also asked that these security points be added does nothing to give the features credit. Senators are as ignorant as anyone else and are usually only looking to their next photo-op than being actually knowledgable in what they are talking about. Senators need ( but don't recognise ) someone ( A freeking tech! How tough is this to recognise? Stupid f***s! ) that can screen their public comments before they look stupid to those that actually 'know' how this stuff works.

 

Really sucks as I was looking forward to her winning the election and bringing real local change to the region's political scene. A popular vote placing a US-supporting democratic leader in an Islamic country in tormoil. Such a thing would be a real ally as opposed to a puppet government.

[SteveThaiBinh]

Here's a rather good piece of balance to all the (perfectly understandable) praise that's been heaped on Bhutto's shoulders the last few days. Bear in mind that the author is the former wife of one of Bhutto's political opponents and critics, but nevertheless, it's an interesting read I think.

 

In the aftermath of her brutal murder, it's tempting and more comfortable to whitewash her flaws and focus only on the obvious strengths: the charisma, the fortitude, the tenacity. But it would be wrong to allow her record in government to be obscured by the fact of her death.

 

Of all the accusations levelled against her, including oligarchic looting of the Treasury ($1.5 billion according to Pakistan's National Accountability Bureau), political expediency and nepotism (her husband, known as "Mr Ten Per Cent" was made Minister of Investments), the most irrefutable was that she did almost nothing for Pakistan during her two terms in power.

 

As the first democratically elected female leader of a Muslim country her potential was limitless, but she never even tried to repeal the Hudood Ordinances, Pakistan's heinous laws that make no distinction between rape and adultery.

[Brdavs]

Brdavs, help me out a little here. you're saying Mush is crying crocodile tears, but he's royally screwed now. He had been making progress with Bhutto at a personal level for months; hence her return. He desperately needed to forge a workable alliance with progressive pro-democracy elements in the country against the Islamists. A fact commented on for at least the last three years since TIME did their feature on him.

 

How does her dying help him out?

 

 

Her return was brokered by the US. Thinking that it was a consequence of Musharaffs progress with Bhutto "at a personal level" is silly tbh. You need only to take a look at the past few months.

How does this help him out? It puts a BIG dent into any democraticall reforms. Afterall the most logical focal point of a fragmented opposition is now nomore... It`s no mistery neither M. nor (his) army or intelligence services that run Pakistan have ZERO interest in any meaningfull democraticall reforms and are fighting the outside pressure as much as they can... Every puppet has its limits thoe heh... Pervez knows he won`t get toppled by the US and can at the end of the day afford to get heavy handed with martial law and pushing back of elections as he is needed for PR and other reasons. If US does interveene now it`ll be to back him up against "his" ppl heh...

 

The bigger mystery here is just what`s the logic behind the US backing said processes of bringing in Bhutto... Granted M. `s position is shaky and bringing her on the scene would be a possible "investment into the future"... But given the relativly (ever) strong (er) anti Musharaff/US climate of the populus one cant help but see this as a gamble as an "unfavourable element" might emerge victorious... Iran all over again... we`re pro democracy AS LONG AS we set it up so that "our guy" gets elected heh... It was almost funny to watch US on a course to force an intervention in Pakistan (to secure the nukes) on themselves... I guess the estimation was one could have both the cake and eat it by splitting power between the two apaesing a large portion of the opposition, atleast for the time being...

Edited December 30, 2007 by Brdavs

[Walsingham]

Thanks for explaining, Brdavs. Your position makes more sense to me now. I guess all I'd come back with is:

 

1) There had been discussions between Mush and Bhutto. Yes they were instigated by the US, but the gen I had was that Mush genuinely felt the two could work together.

 

2) Your angle on how Mush gains makes sense, but is only superior to a Bhutto alliance if US backing alone could hold his position. This is almost certainly not the case, and I think Mush knows that. An alliance with Bhutto could be expected to work because she needed him as an ally within/against the Army.

 

3) I think it's a mistake to view Mush as a US puppet in the old Cold War sense. It obfuscates some of the subtleties in his power base and objectives.

[roshan]

Since Bhutto was discussed in this forum, I thought some would be interested in the following facts:

 

She resorted to anti-Indianism to please voters

Francois Gautier

December 31, 2007

 

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh [images] described Benzair Bhutto as 'one of the outstanding leaders of our sub-continent, who always looked for reconciliation between India and Pakistan'.

 

Most magazines are doing cover stories on her.

 

Bhutto is on the verge of becoming a 'martyr of democracy'. It is a sad that a mother of three children was so brutally killed and we all mourn her terrible death.

 

Nevertheless, truth must be told. For, as usual, what the press says is not exactly what happened.

 

Firstly, under Bhutto, anti-Indian terrorism in the Kashmir region was fostered and increased. Benazir was also directly responsible for the ethnic cleansing of Hindus in Kashmir.

 

"She was instrumental in sponsoring jihad, openly inciting militants to intensify terrorism in India," says Ajai Sahni, the executive director of the New Delhi-based Institute for Conflict Management. "I find it very difficult to discover a single element with her relationship to India that is positive and for the betterment of her country or the region," he adds.

 

Remember how she was shouting her slogans of azaadi, and exhorting the people of Kashmir to cut Jagmohan, then governor of the state, into pieces, as in "jag-jag, mo-mo, han-han". She would say this while making chopping motions with her right hand as it moved from her left wrist to the elbow, leaving nobody in any doubt as to what she meant.

 

Secondly, under Bhutto, the Taliban formed and, helped by Pakistan's intelligence service, swept across Afghanistan and later hosted Osama bin Laden. It is a bit of an irony that she may have been killed by the very people she helped foster if at all she was murdered.

 

Thirdly, she deliberately increased tension levels and then threatened India with a pre-emptive nuclear strike. The tension peaked when Bhutto repeated her late father's immortal boast of waging a 1,000-year war against India. Even Rajiv Gandhi was forced to mock her in Parliament, asking if those who talked of a 1,000-year war could last even a 1,000 hours.

 

And fourthly, in her last speech before she died, she alluded to India as one of the threats Pakistan had to face, implying that if she was elected she would deal firmly with it.

 

Then why is it that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh calls her a friend of India and that Indians mount candlelight vigils in the Gateway of India for her?

 

I interviewed Benazir Bhutto [images] twice, the second time as she was campaigning to be re-elected for a second term. The first question I asked, was about Kashmir, as she was the one who had called for Azad Kashmir, a Kashmir free from India, which had triggered the ethnic cleansing of most of the Hindus of the Valley of Kashmir -- 400,000 of them had to flee their ancestral land.

 

"You know," she answered, "You have to understand the Pakistani point of view on Kashmir. If one goes by the logic of Partition, then at least the Kashmir valley, which is in great majority Muslim -- and it should be emphasised that for long the Hindus Pandits in Kashmir exploited and dominated the Muslims, who are getting back at them today -- should have reverted to Pakistan. But let us say that officially we want to help grant Kashmiris their right to self-determination."

 

"That's the only reason?" I continued.

 

"No," answered Benazir. "It should be clear also that Pakistan never forgot the humiliating loss of Bangladesh at the hands of India, although India claims it only helped Bangladesh to gain its freedom in the face of what the Bangladeshis say was Pakistani genocide. Zia's emergence was a result of that humiliation."

 

"But Zia hanged your father�" I interrupted.

 

"Yes and I hate him and god the almighty already punished him for that," said Benazir, alluding to Zia's death in a plane crash. "But Zia did one thing right, he started the whole policy of proxy war by supporting the separatist movements in Punjab and Kashmir, as a way of getting back at India."

 

"What about Pakistan' nuclear bomb?" I asked.

 

"That's my father's work," she said proudly. "He realised, after having lost the 1965 and 1971 wars with India, that both numerically and strategically, we can never beat India in a conventional conflict. Thus he initiated the programme by saying that 'We will get the nuclear bomb, even if we have to eat grass'."

 

"But is it not a dangerous weapon if it falls in the hands of the fundamentalists of your country?" I asked.

 

"No such danger," Benazir answered. "Anyway, it is not only a deterrent against India's military conventional superiority and an answer to India's own nuclear capability, but also the ultimate weapon to re-assert Islam's moral superiority."

 

"We in Europe are going to unite in a Common Market, why don't Pakistan and India forget their differences and form some kind of confederation with other South Asian countries, instead of killing each other?" I asked.

 

"Pakistan and India were never one country," answered the imperious lady. "They were only kept together by force, whether by Mauryan, Moghul or British rule. Hindus have recognised the reality of Islam, and we needed our own country to feel free."

 

I was flabbergasted: here was a lady educated in Oxford and Harvard, who mouthed such irrational statements. She spoke good English, was pretty, articulate and pleased the press.

 

But when in power, she had to resort to anti-Indianism to please her voters. Her husband was known as Mr 10 Per Cent. She was hounded out of power twice for incompetence and corruption.

 

Is she then a martyr of democracy?

 

History will tell.

 

Francois Gautier is the editor in chief of Paris-based La Revue de l'Inde

 

www.rediff.com/news/2007/dec/31gautier.htm

[Xard]

Ahh... this shall be great source of lulz

[roshan]

Why?

[Xard]

Imagine posting this on some liberal websites, newsgroups etc.

[samm]

lol then, Xard! I hope this board is liberal enough to a) spot the deliberate inaccuracies and attributions in the quoted as well as the articles praising Bhutto and b) recognize that dictator musharraf is by no means the lesser "evil"

[Xard]

before you guys start accusing me of believing everything this article said:

 

I didn't read it yet

 

Just some bits here and there

[Tale]

I only know one thing. Pakistan has some hot women. Went to school with a young girl that was born in Pakistan and by Allah was she beautiful. Old pictures of Bhutto show she used to be quite the looker as well.

[Sand]

There are always two sides to every coin.

[Tale]

There are always two sides to every coin.

Why are we talking about coins? I thought this was a discussion of Bhutto.

[SteveThaiBinh]

It is. And as the Jemima Khan piece I posted earlier pointed out, there is a tendency when someone dies to dwell on their good points rather than give a balanced account of their achievements. Nevertheless, if Bhutto stirred up anti-Indian sentiment in Pakistan, I doubt she was unique in doing so.

[roshan]

lol then, Xard! I hope this board is liberal enough to a) spot the deliberate inaccuracies and attributions in the quoted as well as the articles praising Bhutto and b) recognize that dictator musharraf is by no means the lesser "evil"

 

What inaccuracies?