It has been known for months that the Bush-Cheney administration and its allies have been manuevering to strengthen their political control of Pakistan, paving the way for the expansion and deepening of the “war on terrorism” across the region. The assassination of Benazir Bhutto does not change this agenda. In fact, it simplifies Bush-Cheney’s options.
It has been known for months that the Bush-Cheney administration and its allies have been manuevering to strengthen their political control of Pakistan, paving the way for the expansion and deepening of the “war on terrorism” across the region. The assassination of Benazir Bhutto does not change this agenda. In fact, it simplifies Bush-Cheney’s options.
Seeding chaos with a pretext
“Delivering democracy to the Muslim world” has been the Orwellian rhetoric used to mask Bush-Cheney’s application of pressure and force, its dramatic attempt at reshaping [1] of the Pakistani government (into a joint Bhutto/Sharif-Musharraf) coalition, and backdoor plans for a military intervention [2]. Various American destabilization plans, known for months by officials and analysts, proposed the toppling of Pakistan's military [3].
The assassination of Bhutto appears to have been anticipated. There were even reports of “chatter” among US officials about the possible assassinations of either Pervez Musharraf or Benazir Bhutto [4], well before the actual attempts took place.
As succinctly summarized in Jeremy Page’s article, "Who Killed Benazir Bhutto? The Main Suspects" [5], the main suspects are 1) “Pakistani and foreign Islamist militants who saw her as a heretic and an American stooge”, and 2) the Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, a virtual branch of the CIA. Bhutto’s husband Asif Ali Zardari directly accused the ISI of being involved in the October attack.
The assassination of Bhutto has predictably been blamed on “Al-Qaeda”, without mention of fact that Al-Qaeda itself is an Anglo-American military-intelligence operation.
Page’s piece was one of the first to name the man who has now been tagged as the main suspect: Baitullah Mehsud [6], a purported Taliban [7] militant fighting the Pakistani army out of Waziristan. Conflicting reports link Mehsud to “Al-Qaeda”, the Afghan Taliban, and Mullah Omar (also see here [8]). Other analysis links him to the terrorist A.Q. Khan [9].
Mehsud’s profile, and the reporting of it, echoes the propaganda treatment of all post-9/11 “terrorists”. This in turn raises familiar questions about Anglo-American intelligence agency propaganda involvement. Is Mehsud connected to the ISI or the CIA? What did the ISI and the CIA know about Mehsud? More importantly, does Mehsud, or the manipulation of the propaganda surrounding him provide Bush-Cheney with a pretext for future aggression in the region?
Classic “war on terrorism” propaganda
While details on the Bhutto assassination continue to unfold, what is clear is that it was a political hit, along the lines of US agent Rafik Harriri in Lebanon. Like the highly suspicious Harriri hit, the Bhutto assassination has been depicted by corporate media as the martyring of a great messenger of western-style “democracy”. Meanwhile, the US government’s ruthless actions behind the scenes have received scant attention.
The December 28, 2007 New York Times coverage of the Bhutto assassination offers the perfect example of mainstream Orwellian media distortion that hides the truth about Bush/Cheney agenda behind blatant propaganda smoke. This piece echoes White House rhetoric proclaiming that Bush’s main objectives are to “bring democracy to the Muslim world” and “force out Islamist militants”.
In fact, the openly criminal Bush-Cheney administration has only supported and promoted the antithesis of democracy: chaos, fascism, and the installation of Anglo-American-friendly puppet regimes.
In fact, the central and consistent geostrategy of Bush-Cheney, and their elite counterparts around the world, is the continued imposition and expansion of the manufactured “war on terrorism”; the continuation of war across the Eurasian subcontinent, with events triggered by false flag operations and manufactured pretexts.
In fact, the main tools used in the “war on terrorism” remain Islamist militants, working on behalf of Anglo-American military intelligence agencies---among them, “Al-Qaeda”, and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence, the ISI. Mehsud fits this the same profile.
Saving Bush-Cheney’s Pakistan
In an amusing quote from the same New York Times piece, Wendy Chamberlain, former US ambassador to Pakistan (and a central figure behind multinational efforts to build a trans-Afghan pipeline, connected to 9/11), proudly states: “We are a player in the Pakistani political system”.
Not only has the US continued to be a “player”, but one of its top managers for decades.
Each successive Pakistani leader since the early 1990s---Bhutto, Sharif and Musharraf---have bowed to Western interests. The ISI is a virtual branch of the CIA.
While Musharraf has been, and remains, a strongman for Bush-Cheney, questions about his “reliability”, and control---both his regime’s control over the populace and growing popular unrest, and elite control over his regime---have driven Bush-Cheney attempts to force a clumsy (pro-US, Iraq-style) power-sharing government. As noted by Robert Scheer, Bush-Cheney has been playing “Russian roulette” with Musharraf, Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif---each of whom have been deeply corrupt, willing fronts for the US [10].
The return of both Bhutto and the other former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has merely been an attempt by the US to hedge its regional power bets.
What exactly were John Negroponte and Condoleeza Rice really setting up the past few months?
Who benefits from Bhutto’s murder?
The “war on terrorism” geostrategy and propaganda milieu, the blueprint that has been used by elite interests since 9/11 to impose a continuing world war, is the clear beneficiary of the Bhutto assassination. Bush/Cheney and their equally complicit pro-war/pro-occupation counterparts in the Democratic Party enthusiastically support the routine use of “terror” pretexts to impose continued war policies.
True to form, fear, “terrorism”, “security” and military force, are once again, the focuses of Washington political rhetoric, and the around-the-clock media barrage.
The 2008 US presidential candidates and their elite campaign advisers, all but a few of whom enthusiastically support the “war on terrorism”, have taken turns pushing their respective versions of “we must stop the terrorists” rhetoric for brain-addled supporters. The candidates whose polls have slipped, led by 9/11 participant and opportunist Rudy Guiliani, and hawkish neoliberal Hillary Clinton, have already benefited from a new round of mass fear.
Musharraf benefits from the removal of a bitter rival, but now must find a way to re-establish order. Musharraf now has an ideal justification to crack down on “terrorists” and impose full martial law, with Bush-Cheney working from the shadows behind Musharraf---and continuing to manipulate or remove his apparatus, if Musharraf proves too unreliable or broken to suit Anglo-American plans.
The likely involvement of the ISI [11] behind the Bhutto hit cannot be overstated. ISI’s role behind every major act of “terrorism” since 9/11 remains the central unspoken truth behind current geopolitical realities. Bhutto, but not Sharif or Musharraf would have threatened the ISI’s agendas.
Bhutto, militant Islam, and the pipelines
Now that she has been martyred, many unflattering historical facts about Benazir Bhutto will be hidden or forgotten.
Bhutto herself was intimately involved in the creation of the very “terror” milieu purportedly responsible for her assassination. Across her political career, she supported militant Islamists, the Taliban, the ISI, and the ambitions of Western governments.
As noted by Michel Chossudovsky in America’s “War on Terrorism”, it was during Bhutto’s second term that Jamiat-ul-Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) and the Taliban rose to prominence, welcomed into Bhutto’s coalition government. It was at that point that ties between the JUI, the Army and the ISI were established.
While Bhutto’s relationship with both the ISI and the Taliban were marked by turmoil, it is clear that Bhutto, when in power, supported both---and enthusiastically supported Anglo-American interventions.
In his two landmark books, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia and Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia, Ahmed Rashid richly details the Bhutto regime’s connections to the ISI, the Taliban, “militant Islam”, multinational oil interests, and Anglo-American officials and intelligence proxies.
In Jihad, Rashid wrote:
“Ironically it was not the ISI but Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, the most liberal, secular leader in Pakistan’s recent history, who delivered the coup de grace to a new relationship with Central Asia. Rather than support a wider peace process in Afghanistan that would have opened up a wider peace process in Afghanistan, Bhutto backed the Taliban, in a rash and presumptuous policy to create a new western-oriented trade and pipeline route from Turkmenistan through southern Afghanistan to Pakistan, from which the Taliban would provide security. The ISI soon supported this policy because its Afghan protégé Gulbuddin Hekmatyar had made no headway in capturing Kabul, and the Taliban appeared to be strong enough to do so.”
In Taliban, Rashid provided even more historical detail:
“When Bhutto was elected as Prime Minister in 1993, she was keen to open a route to Central Asia. A new proposal emerged backed strongly by the frustrated Pakistani transport and smuggling mafia, the JUI and Pashtun military and political officials.”
“The Bhutto government fully backed the Taliban, but the ISI remained skeptical of their abilities, convinced that they would remain a useful but peripheral force in the south.”
“The US congress had authorized a covert $20 million budget for the CIA to destabilize Iran, and Tehran accused Washington of funneling some of these funds to the Taliban---a charge that was always denied by Washington . Bhutto sent several emissaries to Washington to urge the US to intervene more publicly on the side of Pakistan and the Taliban.”
Bhutto’s one mistake: she vehemently supported the pipeline proposed by Argentinian oil company Bridas, and opposed the pipeline by Unocal (favored by the US). This contributed to her ouster in 1996, and the return of Nawaz Sharif to power. As noted by Rashid:
“After the dismissal of the Bhutto government in 1996, the newly elected Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, his oil minister Chaudry Nisar Ali Khan, the army and the ISI fully backed Unocal. Pakistan wanted more direct US support for the Taliban and urged Unocal to start construction quickly in order to legitimize the Taliban. Basically the USA and Unocal accepted the ISI’s analysis and aims---that a Taliban victory in Afghanistan would make Unocal’s job much easier and quicken US recognition.”
Her appealing and glamorous pro-Western image notwithstanding, Bhutto’s true record is one of corruption and accommodation.
The “war on terrorism” resparked
Every major Anglo-American geostrategic crime has been preceded by a convenient pretext, orchestrated and carried out by “terror” proxies directly or indirectly connected to US military-intelligence, or manipulated into performing as intelligence assets. The assassination of Benazir Bhutto is simply one more brutal example.
This was Pakistan’s 9/11; Pakistan’s JFK assassination, and its impact will resonate for years.
Contrary to mainstream corporate news reporting, chaos benefits Bush-Cheney’s “war on terrorism”. Calls for “increased worldwide security” will pave the way for a muscular US reaction, US-led force and other forms of “crack down” from Bush-Cheney across the region. In other words, the assassination helps ensure that the US will not only never leave, but also increase its presence.
The Pakistani election, if it takes place at all, is a simpler two-way choice: pro-US Musharraf or pro-US Sharif.
While the success of Bush-Cheney’s 9/11 agenda has met with mixed results, and it has met with a wide array of resistance (“terroristic” as well as political), there is no doubt that the propaganda foundation of the “war on terrorism” has remained firm, unshaken and routinely reinforced.
As for Nawaz Sharif, who now emerges as the sole competitor for Musharraf, he, like Musharraf and Bhutto, is legendary for his accommodation to Anglo-American interests---pipelines, trade, and the continued US military presence. As Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie noted in the book Forbidden Truth, the October 1999 military coup led by Musharraf that originally toppled Sharif’s regime was sparked by animosity between the two camps, as well as “Sharif’s personal corruption and political megalomania”, and “concerns that Sharif was dancing too eagerly to Washington’s tune on Kashmir and Afghanistan”.
In other words, Bush-Cheney wins, no matter which asset winds up on the throne.
--------------------------------------
Sources:
[1]
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7481
[2] http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7402
[3] http://www.nation.ittefaq.com/issues/2007/12/12/news0746.htm
[4] http://www.nation.ittefaq.com/issues/2007/12/12/news0746.htm
[5] http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7687
[6] http://www.msnbc.msn.com/
[7] http://www.jamestown.org/terrorism/news/article.php?articleid=2370054
[8] http://www.newkerala.com/one.php?action=fullnews&id=3807
[9] http://www.crimelibrary.com/news/original/1107/2001_war_room_baitullah_
mehsud_1.html
[10] http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7481
[11] http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7687
Seeding chaos with a pretext
“Delivering democracy to the Muslim world” has been the Orwellian rhetoric used to mask Bush-Cheney’s application of pressure and force, its dramatic attempt at reshaping [1] of the Pakistani government (into a joint Bhutto/Sharif-Musharraf) coalition, and backdoor plans for a military intervention [2]. Various American destabilization plans, known for months by officials and analysts, proposed the toppling of Pakistan's military [3].
The assassination of Bhutto appears to have been anticipated. There were even reports of “chatter” among US officials about the possible assassinations of either Pervez Musharraf or Benazir Bhutto [4], well before the actual attempts took place.
As succinctly summarized in Jeremy Page’s article, "Who Killed Benazir Bhutto? The Main Suspects" [5], the main suspects are 1) “Pakistani and foreign Islamist militants who saw her as a heretic and an American stooge”, and 2) the Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, a virtual branch of the CIA. Bhutto’s husband Asif Ali Zardari directly accused the ISI of being involved in the October attack.
The assassination of Bhutto has predictably been blamed on “Al-Qaeda”, without mention of fact that Al-Qaeda itself is an Anglo-American military-intelligence operation.
Page’s piece was one of the first to name the man who has now been tagged as the main suspect: Baitullah Mehsud [6], a purported Taliban [7] militant fighting the Pakistani army out of Waziristan. Conflicting reports link Mehsud to “Al-Qaeda”, the Afghan Taliban, and Mullah Omar (also see here [8]). Other analysis links him to the terrorist A.Q. Khan [9].
Mehsud’s profile, and the reporting of it, echoes the propaganda treatment of all post-9/11 “terrorists”. This in turn raises familiar questions about Anglo-American intelligence agency propaganda involvement. Is Mehsud connected to the ISI or the CIA? What did the ISI and the CIA know about Mehsud? More importantly, does Mehsud, or the manipulation of the propaganda surrounding him provide Bush-Cheney with a pretext for future aggression in the region?
Classic “war on terrorism” propaganda
While details on the Bhutto assassination continue to unfold, what is clear is that it was a political hit, along the lines of US agent Rafik Harriri in Lebanon. Like the highly suspicious Harriri hit, the Bhutto assassination has been depicted by corporate media as the martyring of a great messenger of western-style “democracy”. Meanwhile, the US government’s ruthless actions behind the scenes have received scant attention.
The December 28, 2007 New York Times coverage of the Bhutto assassination offers the perfect example of mainstream Orwellian media distortion that hides the truth about Bush/Cheney agenda behind blatant propaganda smoke. This piece echoes White House rhetoric proclaiming that Bush’s main objectives are to “bring democracy to the Muslim world” and “force out Islamist militants”.
In fact, the openly criminal Bush-Cheney administration has only supported and promoted the antithesis of democracy: chaos, fascism, and the installation of Anglo-American-friendly puppet regimes.
In fact, the central and consistent geostrategy of Bush-Cheney, and their elite counterparts around the world, is the continued imposition and expansion of the manufactured “war on terrorism”; the continuation of war across the Eurasian subcontinent, with events triggered by false flag operations and manufactured pretexts.
In fact, the main tools used in the “war on terrorism” remain Islamist militants, working on behalf of Anglo-American military intelligence agencies---among them, “Al-Qaeda”, and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence, the ISI. Mehsud fits this the same profile.
Saving Bush-Cheney’s Pakistan
In an amusing quote from the same New York Times piece, Wendy Chamberlain, former US ambassador to Pakistan (and a central figure behind multinational efforts to build a trans-Afghan pipeline, connected to 9/11), proudly states: “We are a player in the Pakistani political system”.
Not only has the US continued to be a “player”, but one of its top managers for decades.
Each successive Pakistani leader since the early 1990s---Bhutto, Sharif and Musharraf---have bowed to Western interests. The ISI is a virtual branch of the CIA.
While Musharraf has been, and remains, a strongman for Bush-Cheney, questions about his “reliability”, and control---both his regime’s control over the populace and growing popular unrest, and elite control over his regime---have driven Bush-Cheney attempts to force a clumsy (pro-US, Iraq-style) power-sharing government. As noted by Robert Scheer, Bush-Cheney has been playing “Russian roulette” with Musharraf, Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif---each of whom have been deeply corrupt, willing fronts for the US [10].
The return of both Bhutto and the other former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has merely been an attempt by the US to hedge its regional power bets.
What exactly were John Negroponte and Condoleeza Rice really setting up the past few months?
Who benefits from Bhutto’s murder?
The “war on terrorism” geostrategy and propaganda milieu, the blueprint that has been used by elite interests since 9/11 to impose a continuing world war, is the clear beneficiary of the Bhutto assassination. Bush/Cheney and their equally complicit pro-war/pro-occupation counterparts in the Democratic Party enthusiastically support the routine use of “terror” pretexts to impose continued war policies.
True to form, fear, “terrorism”, “security” and military force, are once again, the focuses of Washington political rhetoric, and the around-the-clock media barrage.
The 2008 US presidential candidates and their elite campaign advisers, all but a few of whom enthusiastically support the “war on terrorism”, have taken turns pushing their respective versions of “we must stop the terrorists” rhetoric for brain-addled supporters. The candidates whose polls have slipped, led by 9/11 participant and opportunist Rudy Guiliani, and hawkish neoliberal Hillary Clinton, have already benefited from a new round of mass fear.
Musharraf benefits from the removal of a bitter rival, but now must find a way to re-establish order. Musharraf now has an ideal justification to crack down on “terrorists” and impose full martial law, with Bush-Cheney working from the shadows behind Musharraf---and continuing to manipulate or remove his apparatus, if Musharraf proves too unreliable or broken to suit Anglo-American plans.
The likely involvement of the ISI [11] behind the Bhutto hit cannot be overstated. ISI’s role behind every major act of “terrorism” since 9/11 remains the central unspoken truth behind current geopolitical realities. Bhutto, but not Sharif or Musharraf would have threatened the ISI’s agendas.
Bhutto, militant Islam, and the pipelines
Now that she has been martyred, many unflattering historical facts about Benazir Bhutto will be hidden or forgotten.
Bhutto herself was intimately involved in the creation of the very “terror” milieu purportedly responsible for her assassination. Across her political career, she supported militant Islamists, the Taliban, the ISI, and the ambitions of Western governments.
As noted by Michel Chossudovsky in America’s “War on Terrorism”, it was during Bhutto’s second term that Jamiat-ul-Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) and the Taliban rose to prominence, welcomed into Bhutto’s coalition government. It was at that point that ties between the JUI, the Army and the ISI were established.
While Bhutto’s relationship with both the ISI and the Taliban were marked by turmoil, it is clear that Bhutto, when in power, supported both---and enthusiastically supported Anglo-American interventions.
In his two landmark books, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia and Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia, Ahmed Rashid richly details the Bhutto regime’s connections to the ISI, the Taliban, “militant Islam”, multinational oil interests, and Anglo-American officials and intelligence proxies.
In Jihad, Rashid wrote:
“Ironically it was not the ISI but Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, the most liberal, secular leader in Pakistan’s recent history, who delivered the coup de grace to a new relationship with Central Asia. Rather than support a wider peace process in Afghanistan that would have opened up a wider peace process in Afghanistan, Bhutto backed the Taliban, in a rash and presumptuous policy to create a new western-oriented trade and pipeline route from Turkmenistan through southern Afghanistan to Pakistan, from which the Taliban would provide security. The ISI soon supported this policy because its Afghan protégé Gulbuddin Hekmatyar had made no headway in capturing Kabul, and the Taliban appeared to be strong enough to do so.”
In Taliban, Rashid provided even more historical detail:
“When Bhutto was elected as Prime Minister in 1993, she was keen to open a route to Central Asia. A new proposal emerged backed strongly by the frustrated Pakistani transport and smuggling mafia, the JUI and Pashtun military and political officials.”
“The Bhutto government fully backed the Taliban, but the ISI remained skeptical of their abilities, convinced that they would remain a useful but peripheral force in the south.”
“The US congress had authorized a covert $20 million budget for the CIA to destabilize Iran, and Tehran accused Washington of funneling some of these funds to the Taliban---a charge that was always denied by Washington . Bhutto sent several emissaries to Washington to urge the US to intervene more publicly on the side of Pakistan and the Taliban.”
Bhutto’s one mistake: she vehemently supported the pipeline proposed by Argentinian oil company Bridas, and opposed the pipeline by Unocal (favored by the US). This contributed to her ouster in 1996, and the return of Nawaz Sharif to power. As noted by Rashid:
“After the dismissal of the Bhutto government in 1996, the newly elected Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, his oil minister Chaudry Nisar Ali Khan, the army and the ISI fully backed Unocal. Pakistan wanted more direct US support for the Taliban and urged Unocal to start construction quickly in order to legitimize the Taliban. Basically the USA and Unocal accepted the ISI’s analysis and aims---that a Taliban victory in Afghanistan would make Unocal’s job much easier and quicken US recognition.”
Her appealing and glamorous pro-Western image notwithstanding, Bhutto’s true record is one of corruption and accommodation.
The “war on terrorism” resparked
Every major Anglo-American geostrategic crime has been preceded by a convenient pretext, orchestrated and carried out by “terror” proxies directly or indirectly connected to US military-intelligence, or manipulated into performing as intelligence assets. The assassination of Benazir Bhutto is simply one more brutal example.
This was Pakistan’s 9/11; Pakistan’s JFK assassination, and its impact will resonate for years.
Contrary to mainstream corporate news reporting, chaos benefits Bush-Cheney’s “war on terrorism”. Calls for “increased worldwide security” will pave the way for a muscular US reaction, US-led force and other forms of “crack down” from Bush-Cheney across the region. In other words, the assassination helps ensure that the US will not only never leave, but also increase its presence.
The Pakistani election, if it takes place at all, is a simpler two-way choice: pro-US Musharraf or pro-US Sharif.
While the success of Bush-Cheney’s 9/11 agenda has met with mixed results, and it has met with a wide array of resistance (“terroristic” as well as political), there is no doubt that the propaganda foundation of the “war on terrorism” has remained firm, unshaken and routinely reinforced.
As for Nawaz Sharif, who now emerges as the sole competitor for Musharraf, he, like Musharraf and Bhutto, is legendary for his accommodation to Anglo-American interests---pipelines, trade, and the continued US military presence. As Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie noted in the book Forbidden Truth, the October 1999 military coup led by Musharraf that originally toppled Sharif’s regime was sparked by animosity between the two camps, as well as “Sharif’s personal corruption and political megalomania”, and “concerns that Sharif was dancing too eagerly to Washington’s tune on Kashmir and Afghanistan”.
In other words, Bush-Cheney wins, no matter which asset winds up on the throne.
--------------------------------------
Sources:
[1]
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7481 [2]
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7402 [3]
http://www.nation.ittefaq.com/issues/2007/12/12/news0746.htm [4]
http://www.nation.ittefaq.com/issues/2007/12/12/news0746.htm [5]
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7687 [6]
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/ [7]
http://www.jamestown.org/terrorism/news/article.php?articleid=2370054 [8]
http://www.newkerala.com/one.php?action=fullnews&id=3807 [9]
http://www.crimelibrary.com/news/original/1107/2001_war_room_baitullah_ mehsud_1.html
[10]
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7481 [11]
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7687 
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Comments
Hide the following 14 comments
article in PDF format
30.12.2007 08:47
addition
Terrible report
30.12.2007 10:14
A government including Bhutto and her pro US and Western views was wanted by the US as a fall back to the falling popularity for Mishariff.
Indymedia deserves better than this rubbish report and these cut and pastes from blogs and websites like Global Research.
This is a site for original reporting
General Public
There is no such thing as death or murder
30.12.2007 11:09
David Bowie's shit phase
Bhutto's Last Speech Warned of Outside Intervention
30.12.2007 22:33
We MUST be all wrong ...
In her last speech before her assassination, Bhutto signaled that she didn't want foreign troops (read: US forces currently stationed in Afghanistan) inside her country to battle Pakistan's internal problems with violence.
It is very doubtful, then, that she would have had any stomach for the kind of agreement, as had already brokered in Islamabad and Washington, for the US to provide Special Service forces to fight on the Pakistani side of the Afghani-Pakistani border.
At the moment this agreement was brokered, she became irrelevant to US foreign policy.And note the date of this article: one day before she was assassinated.
Also note that she told the BBC that if she was murdered, one of the people to investigate was "the man who murdered Osama bin Laden".
Benazir's last address: Pakistan is in danger
Friday, 12.28.2007, 10:22am (GMT-7)
ISLAMABAD: Minutes before she was assassinated, former premier Benazir Bhutto had said her Pakistan People's Party would "save the country" from extremists and terrorists if it was voted to power. "The country is in danger-- bomb blasts are taking place everywhere, be it Swat, South Waziristan or the Eid prayers in Charsadda.
We have to save the country with the power of the people," Bhutto told thousands of PPP supporters at Liaquat Bagh in Rawalpindi on Thursday. "I appeal all of you to vote for us to save the country," she repeatedly said in her address. The 54-year-old PPP chairperson praised her father Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, saying he had made Pakistan's defense impregnable and put the country on the path of prosperity and democracy. "Nobody could dare to think of breaking the country or doing terror and extremist acts when the People's Party was in power.
But the country had to suffer whenever a dictator took over," she said. Bhutto said that PPP would never let its workers down after coming to power and there would be rule of law in the country. She referred to reports that foreign troops would be sent to help fight resurgent Taliban and al Qaida in the area bordering Afghanistan.
"Why should foreign troops come in? We can take care of this, I can take care of this, you can take care of this," she said. "Political orphans tried hard to delay the polls. They planned the proclamation of emergency rule in the country and wanted President (Pervez) Musharraf to stay in uniform for five more years but all such bids failed miserably," she said.
The 54-year-old leader, who died a few minutes later after she was shot by a suicide attacker, regretted that the year 2007 had witnessed the removal of the Chief Justice of Pakistan "twice", detention of judges of the superior judiciary and the military operation on Islamabad's Lal Masjid that resulted in the loss of over 100 lives.
She said that addressing unemployment, rising inflation and lack of healthcare and education facilities would top the PPP's agenda if it was elected to power.
Qui Bono?
Analysis
31.12.2007 07:54
As for her being irrelevant to US policy that was obviously not true as she had yet to deliver on the agreemet she was pushing for. He assisination was almost guaranteed to be as a result of the campaign speech she made three days before where she called for the exposure of radical Islamic elements within Pakistan, better education opportunities for young women and a securing of the border with Afghanistan.
I realise that some Indymedia contributors see the US and Israel behind every world event (cough Jordan Thonton) but Pakistanis are responsible for the death of Bhutto not Americans.
* cue predictable response from Jordan calling for links followed by an accusation I must be a Plant or Zionist agent
General Public
Bhutto's Last Speech Warned of Outside Intervention?
31.12.2007 12:38
David Bowie's shit phase
general public
31.12.2007 13:18
All this blood on your hands...
styx
STYX
31.12.2007 14:31
try doing some reporting
Investigation Needed
02.01.2008 04:27
This year's message seems to be yet another attempt for Israel to try and bring its campaign to wipe Palestine off the map under the mantle of the non-existent 'war on terror'. The first time they tried this was when five of the many Mossad operatives arrested on 911, 2001 claimed that the perpetrators were Palestinians.
Bin Laden Dead?
Bin Laden Dead?
02.01.2008 20:47
02.01.2008 19:21
"This year's message seems to be yet another attempt for Israel to try and bring its campaign to wipe Palestine off the map under the mantle of the non-existent 'war on terror'."
Why did it "seem" so?
Was he wearing a skull cap and ringlets and punctuated every sentence with "Oy!"?
At least wait till the guy is buried before you start blaming the [Israelis]!
Kit-e-Kat
They've Tried Before Is All
03.01.2008 01:12
The Mossad was already caught trying to set up a phony al Qaeda cell in Palestine. If they hadn't been caught, who knows what depravity this would have led to?
Since Bhutto told the BBC that, not only was Osama bin Laden dead, but that she knew the identity of his killer, we should not only be probing these statements and possibilities, but also asking who made the annual "bin Laden tape", and more importantly, for what purpose.
This year's message seems to be yet another attempt for Israel to try and bring its campaign to wipe Palestine off the map under the mantle of the non-existent 'war on terror'. The first time they tried this was when five of the many Mossad operatives arrested on 911, 2001 claimed that the perpetrators were Palestinians.
Bin Laden Dead
Those [Israelis] just don't stop trying to take over the planet?
03.01.2008 09:31
And then to go on to parrot a story that seems to originate from an antisemitic holocaust denial site (WRH).
What's the evidence to suggest that the "fake cell" wasn't a 'honey trap' or infiltration?
You see what you want to see.
Wow! Terrorists who are trying to interlope or asserting a level of support that doesn't really exist. That's new, not. *Cough IRA* *Cough UFF* Cough *Real IRA* *Cough ETA* etc.
Anyway, what do actually have that indicates:
1.) He really is dead?
2.) It is Israel behind it?
And what do you actually have to prove me wrong when I say that renegade Morris Dancers are behind al Qaeda.
Reading mouldy old dross on crappy conspiracy sites doesn't equal a learned opinion.
Kit-e-Kat
Try Haaretz
03.01.2008 10:11
ffs
Spot the difference and win a baegel!
03.01.2008 10:53
"The Mossad was already caught trying to set up a phony al Qaeda cell in Palestine. If they hadn't been caught, who knows what depravity this would have led to?"
Haaretz
"The two never met, but at a certain point during their telephone contact, Ibrahim became suspicious. He contacted a preventive security officer in Gaza and told him the whole story. The officer looked into the matter and told Ibrahim that Ahmed was an Israeli Shin Bet agent, and Ibrahim should immediately cut off any contacts with him."
Not exactly the same thing.
I'll paraphrase the story: "I put an ad in the personal column of a newspaper some creepy old bloke phones me and asks me to launder money for al Qaeda. I got freaked out and talked to some plod. They reckoned he was an Israeli spook."
Intriguing, but hardy concrete. An anecdote with nothing to back it up. Not exactly exposure of Israel establishing a fake cell. And ultimately it adds nothing to the claim that Israel has been faking bin Laden recordings. In fact, there is nothing to link the two at all beyond unfettered supposition.
It's obviously not impossible. Certain Israelis would love to have the world believe that they are under attack from religious zealots. Politicians have no scruples in what they will twist into PR.
But nothing has been offered to make it any more plausible than an infinite number of possibilities, including the Morris Dancers.
Again, it's interesting to see what people leap on instinctively and start peddling as some sort of fact.
Kit-e-Kat