Gunpowder, gelatine, dynamite with a laser beam

The Benazir Bhutto assassination story has gotten even stranger:

A police officer who witnessed the assassination said that a mysterious crowd stopped Bhutto's car that day, moving her to emerge through the sunroof. And a document has surfaced in the Pakistani news media that contradicts the government's version of her death and contains details on the pistol and the suicide bomb used in the murder.

The witness was Ishtiaq Hussain Shah of the Rawalpindi police. As Bhutto's car headed onto Rawalpindi's Liaquat Road after an election rally Dec. 27, a crowd appeared from nowhere and stopped the motorcade, shouting slogans of her Pakistan Peoples Party and waving party banners, according to his account.

Bhutto, apparently thinking she was greeting her supporters, emerged through the sunroof of the bulletproof car to wave.

It was Shah's job to clear the way for the motorcade. But 10 feet from where he was standing, a man in the crowd wearing a jacket and sunglasses raised his arm and shot at the former prime minister. "I jumped to overpower him," the deputy police superintendent said later. "A mighty explosion took place soon afterwards."

But Musharraf is a good friend of the USofA, and would never, ever do anything to compromise that friendship:

To many in Pakistan, it all raises questions about whether the government was complicit in the assassination. To others, it points at the very least to a concerted attempt to hide the massive extent of a security failure.

Indeed. As the phrase goes, cui bono: To whose benefit?

Benazir Bhutto speaks from the grave... along with Osama bin Laden?

With David Frost in an interview on November 2, 2007, Benazir Bhutto talks about the attempted assassination in Karachi and her dealings with Musharraf.



But the weirdest moment comes at about 6:13 or so into the interview where she talks about those who might be trying to kill her. She mentions a military man and without naming him says he had dealings with Omar Sheik (sp?) who was the one who murdered Osama bin Laden.

Murdered Osama bin Laden?

And Frost didn't stop and shout,"What did you say?"

Murdered Osama bin Laden?

Is this why Bhutto is dead?

Our boogey man since 9/11/01 is dead?

...

Then who is the poor bastard who is pretending to be Osama and giving us red and orange alert fits for the last six years? Is he Osama Smith of the CIA? The NSA? The Hollywood Extras Corporation?

...

Of course Bush and Cheney know, don't they? They had to keep Osama alive to keep the fear alive; the fear that propelled us into this unholy quagmire of Iraq and $100 barrels of crude.

(Cross-posted at Rants from the Rookery.)

(And thank you all for inviting me to share in this group blog. I'll try to keep the paint splatters and empty cups to a minimum!)

She's Gone Oh I, Oh I'd better learn how to face it

Big Tent Democrat writing at Talk Left has the vapors re: Obama spokesperson David Axelrod's statement on the Bhutto assassination:

Axelrod disgustingly blames Hillary for the Bhutto assassination:

Bhutto’s death will “call into issue the judgment: who’s made the right judgments,” [Obama campaign manager David] Axelrod said. “Obviously, one of the reasons that Pakistan is in the distress that it’s in is because al-Qaeda is resurgent, has become more powerful within that country and that’s a consequence of us taking the eye off the ball and making the wrong judgment in going into Iraq. That’s a serious difference between these candidates and I’m sure that people will take that into consideration.” . . . “She was a strong supporter of the war in Iraq, which we would submit, was one of the reasons why we were diverted from Afghanistan, Pakistan and al-Qaeda, who may have been players in this event today, so that’s a judgment she’ll have to defend,” Axelrod said.

Wow! I can not believe he said that. Beyond the fact that the problems of resources in Pakistan are not related to Iraq (indeed, the Bush Administration has given away resources that the Pakistanis diverted to issues other than fighting Al Qaida), where was Obama on funding of Iraq and Pakistan for his tenure in the Senate? What did He do? According to Axelrod, is Obama to blame for the Bhutto assassination too? Outrageous stuff from the Obama campaign.

Um, not really. In this, as well as several other posts over there, he is quick to criticize Axelrod, & Obama, and even offers this:

The Obama campaign seems to be going down in flames.

While this seems to me perhaps a case of Obama Derangement Syndrome, I think the criticism of Axelrod's comments is parsing pretty finely. Put simply, GWBushCo did indeed take military resources out of the 2 -stans, thus ending the hunt for Bin Laden, to start the Iraq debacle. Whether or not continuing the actions in the -stans would have helped or hurt Musharraf's dictatorship is hard to know, and a foolish debate since American forces left.

And the American push to have Bhutto share power with Musharraf, while pretty misguided like everything out of this White House, didn't directly connect with Iraq policy. But I think a long-term military presence in the 2 -stans might have led to Musharraf reigning in some of the more fanatical elements in his army, who likely had some part in the Bhutto assassination.

Pure speculation on my part. But shooting the messenger ("where was Obama on funding of Iraq and Pakistan for his tenure in the Senate?") is a little silly, IMHO. HRC was a supporter of invading Iraq, which meant we took troops out of the -stans, with consequences unknown. Except for the renewal of the Taliban, and the burgeoning of al Qaeda in other parts of the world.

Did those players have anything to do with Bhutto's death? Heck, even our White House Press folks think so:

I've seen and I'm aware that al Qaeda may have claimed responsibility. I'm aware of news reports of that, but I don't have any specifics for you on that. But certainly whoever perpetrated this attack is an enemy of democracy, and has used a tactic which al Qaeda is very familiar with, and that is suicide bombing and the taking of innocent life to try to disrupt a democratic process.

And the Pakistani government is spinning that story hard:

The government said al-Qaida and the Taliban were responsible for her death, claiming it intercepted an al-Qaida leader's message of congratulation for the assassination.
But many of Bhutto's furious supporters blamed President Pervez Musharraf's government for the shooting and bombing attack on the former prime minister, Musharraf's most powerful opponent. They rampaged through several cities in violence that left at least 23 dead less than two weeks before crucial parliamentary elections.
"We have the evidence that al-Qaida and Taliban were behind the suicide attack on Benazir Bhutto," Interior Minister Hamid Nawaz said.

Update: from partner darkblack in comments (this piece deserves wide-spread analysis and reporting-hint hint):

The roots of the crisis go back to the blind bargain Washington made after 9/11 with the regime that had heretofore been the Taliban's main patron: ignoring Musharraf's despotism in return for his promises to crack down on al-Qaeda and cut the Taliban loose. Today, despite $10 billion in U.S. aid to Pakistan since 2001, that bargain is in tatters; the Taliban is resurgent in Afghanistan, and al-Qaeda's senior leadership has set up another haven inside Pakistan's chaotic border regions.

The problem is exacerbated by a dramatic drop-off in U.S. expertise on Pakistan. Retired American officials say that, for the first time in U.S. history, nobody with serious Pakistan experience is working in the South Asia bureau of the State Department, on State's policy planning staff, on the National Security Council staff or even in Vice President Cheney's office. Anne W. Patterson, the new U.S. ambassador to Islamabad, is an expert on Latin American "drugs and thugs"; Richard A. Boucher, the assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs, is a former department spokesman who served three tours in Hong Kong and China but never was posted in South Asia. "They know nothing of Pakistan," a former senior U.S. diplomat said.

Current and past U.S. officials tell me that Pakistan policy is essentially being run from Cheney's office. The vice president, they say, is close to Musharraf and refuses to brook any U.S. criticism of him. This all fits; in recent months, I'm told, Pakistani opposition politicians visiting Washington have been ushered in to meet Cheney's aides, rather than taken to the State Department.

All I can say is shit-pies!

And when I'm gone, just carry on, don't mourn

The power of patriarchy and extremism:



Bhutto was far from perfect, but compared to the corrupt and power hungry Giuliani Musharraf, she was a breath of fresh air:

He has yet to indicate whether elections will still be held as scheduled on January 8 or whether he will re-impose the state of emergency that he lifted only a fortnight ago.

From GWBush:

The United States strongly condemns this cowardly act by murderous extremists who are trying to undermine Pakistan's democracy. Those who committed this crime must be brought to justice.

Too bad he didn't feel that way about Osama Bin Laden:

I don't know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority.

Here in this country, we're not too far away from the patriarchy:

Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson says there's not a woman who should be president next year.

It was a jab aimed at Democratic candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The former Tennessee senator was in Iowa today, challenging potential caucus-goers to choose the best man to help fend off what he described as a Democratic Party that would lead the country into a welfare state.

Without saying Clinton's name, he said -- quote -- "There is no woman on the horizon that ought to be president next year, let's all agree on that."

Thompson continued to refer to the next president as a man who should represent conservative principles and values.

Bastard.