Comments on: Benazir Bhutto

By: Sheila Choudhri

Sheila Choudhri — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 22:18:12 +0000

Suicide by grandstanding.
Benazir Bhutto committed suicide by cop/terrorist or terrorist/I.S.I sniper or some such combination. Why? Because of a call from Condaleeza. Why did Condaleeza make that call? Because Mush looked weak. Why did Mush look weak? Coz he was stupid enough to neglect to get the Lal Masjid nutters to blow up the Supreme Court Justices or at least make it look that way. But then Mush decided 2007 would be the year he’d make the Pakistani Army look like they couldn’t fight their way out of a paper-bag so as to up the American ante while sticking with traditional Pak strategic goals. In other words, Mush is playing rope-a-dope. And maybe he’ll pull it off, the fellow is on a learning curve- the fact is fuzzy command and strategic multi-vocity is what plays best in a Myrdalian ‘soft state’- also he gets to keep his life, always a good thing, and has a couple of back-doors open to broker the really lucrative deal in the offing- viz, the Osama/Saudi deal .
Meanwhile, the deeply distasteful Nawaz Sharif and equally abhorrent Zardari leering at the cameras and shedding crocodile tears is surely more than most stomachs can bear. Sooner or later the Pakistani public is going to connect the dots- the Bhutto family paint themselves into a corner and take refuge in ‘martyrdom’- but the truth to which they are witness (both the words martyr and ’shaheed’ actually mean witness) is that their inner power to discriminate the worse from the better cause is confined to Iranian cavaire as opposed to Russian Beluga, genuine Rolex as opposed to a cheap knock-off.
Fatima Bhutto, who claims to be a poet, is no better than her Aunty dearest. She claims that her father was a martyr. Some martyr! He shaved off half of his brother-in-law’s moustache- that’s why he was killed. While hiding out with the Soviet backed regime in Kabul, he and his younger brother had masterminded the hijacking of a Pakistani plane. They had their father’s former a.d.c- who happened to be on the plane- shot on the tarmac though he had been completely loyal to their father and even played with them as children. The naive young men the Bhutto brothers used to carry out terrorist attacks were then ruthlessly sacrificed and forgotten. No provision was made for their families.
Fatima attacked Benazir for being responsible for the death of 150 people- at the time of the first suicide attack- all so that Aunty could have her moment of grand theatre- but now, according to her, Aunty too is enrolled in the catalogue of martyrs. As for her uncle- surely he either poisoned himself or was bumped off by his wife while living in the French Riviera. How exactly does that make him a martyr? As for Bhutto Senior, he was executed by his Army Chief after trying to turn himself into a dictator with rigged elections and murders & jailings of political opponents. But, Bhutto had himself deliberately appointed Zia because he thought the man would be his poodle. The Bhutto family are martyrs not of democracy but to their own desire to tyranise over the state. Sadly or happily, they simply lack the judgement and self-control necessary to pull it off. It is because no one can trust them-least of all those who had the misfortune to follow them- that in the ultimate analysis the bandwagon can only be kept going by a grinning gargoyle like Mr. 15% Zardari.
However, all this is beside the point. The question that faces us now is whether there is any diffenece between Condy making a phone call and sending poor deluded Benazir out on her suicide mission and Osama bin Shithead.
In both cases the deluded are sent to destroy themselves for no other purpose but to make failed ideologues believe that the strings they are pulling are actually connected to something meaningful- that ‘regime change’ really occurrs because of what- from the point of view of history- amounts to a fart in a crowded lift.
Heigh ho, still maybe it was fun for them while it lasted and no doubt Christina Lamb can write another cringe-worthy book and Tariq Ali, now deep in his anecdotage, can rehash the same self important shite he’s been peddling all these years and become, more than ever, the image of his feudal grand-father.

By: Quo Vadis

Quo Vadis — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 19:30:42 +0000

All the necessary steps (which is, basically, giving bribes, billions of dollars worth of bribes) will be taken by the US and the EU and Russia and China and India and Israel, you name it. No one wants a failed state with nukes.

Conventional wisdom has it that having nukes makes a country less a target of interference by other powers.

We may have to rethink that one.

By: J SYED

J SYED — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 19:23:33 +0000

#13 CAN ADD ASIF ZARDARI TO THE LIST. YOU KNOW, HER CORRUPT HUSBAND.

By: abb1

abb1 — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 10:39:40 +0000

Nah, Pakistan is not going to end up as a failed state, exactly because it has nukes. All the necessary steps (which is, basically, giving bribes, billions of dollars worth of bribes) will be taken by the US and the EU and Russia and China and India and Israel, you name it. No one wants a failed state with nukes.

Having nukes means never having to end up a failed state.

By: HantuLaut

HantuLaut — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 16:58:24 +0000

She paid dearly with her life.

Pakistan paid a heavy price for giving in to the American.After 9/11, Islamic militants have stepped up their campaign of violence, killing fellow Muslims,without any sense of guilt.Pakistan is going to end up as a failed state and a haven for terrorists and a bigger headache than Iraq.The nuclear bombs they have would be a major disaster if they fall into the wrong hands.

By: abb1

abb1 — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 11:24:05 +0000

About that “the social networks of assassins” thing – it seems a bit too wide, to the point of being quite meaningless (or was that actually the point?). And if you have “mainstream politics” there, shouldn’t you also include ‘mainstream business’ with your ‘organized crime’? I know, it’s a minor difference.

But what about unaffiliated religious, nationalist and other fanatics, nutcases – you think it can’t happen nowadays, completely impossible? What about Chapman, was he mind-controlled by the FBI?

By: vivian

vivian — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 02:22:11 +0000

Not to mention: BLA!! BLAH!! Al Qaida! Blah!

bleh.

By: Uncle Kvetch

Uncle Kvetch — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 00:50:04 +0000

Dsquared, we’ve got an addendum to your list over on this side of the pond:

6. Bla bla, country 90% of Americans couldn’t locate on a globe, bla bla, what does this mean for the Iowa caucuses bla?

By: shteve

shteve — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 00:33:33 +0000

About six months ago I made the point to my Kashmiri in-laws that Musharraf was a military dictator and that democracy had to be given a clear chance in Pakistan. Nothing remarkable. Response: Meh – Bhutto is a corrupt bitch!

We’d been having a few beers.

Couple of days ago Bhutto was murdered, and my sister in law’s response? Meh!

Pakistan’s middle classes have cheap labour to make their existence more fragrant, and think the one drawback of escaping the summer heat by coming to Britain is that they have to “lift things for themselves”.

Lovely people. Screwy country.

By: A. Y. Mous

A. Y. Mous — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 17:31:45 +0000

Hmm.... This is making its round around the alternate media. Sir David interviews Benazir on al Jazeera. Osama bin Laden murdered? Between minutes 2 and 3.

By: Aidan Kehoe

Aidan Kehoe — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 14:39:12 +0000

From that Tariq Ali article:

‘In an interview on an independent TV station just before the emergency was imposed, Benazir was asked to explain how it happened that her brother had bled to death outside his home while she was prime minister [a killing organised almost certainly by Benazir Bhutto’s husband]. She walked out of the studio. A sharp op-ed piece by Fatima in the LA Times on 14 November elicited the following response: ‘My niece is angry with me.’ Well, yes.’

Very sobering.

By: dsquared

dsquared — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 12:10:38 +0000

By the way, here’s the cut out and keep collection of Benazir Bhutto editorials and blog posts:

1. Bla bla bla martyr, bla bla loved country, tragedy, father, bla.

2. Bla bla corruption, bla bla western puppet, bla bla popular uprising bla.

3. Bla bla stability, bla bla “strongman”, bla bla Russia bla.

4. Bla bla democracy, Islam, woman, bla bla.

The amount of boilerplate know-nothing crap flying around on the radio yesterday was nothing short of embarrassing. People at think tanks really ought to learn how to say “no, I don’t really know enough to comment” when the opportunity to hear their own voice comes up.

By: dsquared

dsquared — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 12:07:45 +0000

19: oh please my aching sides. Why not make that delectable joke about tin foil hats too? The point is that the social networks of assassins always contain 1) security forces, 2) the main anti-government threat of the day, 3) mainstream politics and 4) organised crime, because (and this is something which it is apparently rude or unserious to mention, despite being a very clearly established fact), there are plenty of formal and informal connections between these milieux. But I’m really not interested in discussing the subject with someone who doesn’t take it seriously.

By: A. Y. Mous

A. Y. Mous — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 07:23:16 +0000

Benazir was the reason for the creation of Musharaff.

She totally screwed up her second term (the first term was all things nice and sweet with another cute scion, Rajiv Gandhi, who for his part screwed up Sri Lanka with his IPKF and paid the price) by not patching up with Nawaz Sharif (he was Zia ul Haq’s find, the same Zia who executed Benazir’s father, Zulfikar).

Add to that, it should not be forgotten that she was the wife of Mr. Ten Percent. She and he have ruffled many a moneyed man.

Now, finding a common ground, that is, to hold on to what is a thinly veiled Zamindari, Benazir and Nawaz tried hard to patch up. But failed miserably. Each one was trying to make a deal separately with Pervez Musharaff and derail the other. Someone else, most likely the Army, is using this to their benefit. Stopping of the elections is the reason for this assasination. Whether this means stopping or a postponement is another question. My bet is on a postponement that runs into months and not just weeks.

Punjab and Sindh. It never ends. What’s funny is that the Indian national anthem starts with “Punjab and Sindh”.

By: krsa

krsa — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 06:17:39 +0000

I know it is impolitic to speak of the dead, but the martyrhood being conferred on Ms. Bhutto is a bit much. When alive, she made sure to have a lot of blood on her hands. She played an important and pivotal role during her tenure as Prime Minister in encouraging and nurturing the growth of the Taliban, and continued and further improved upon the contributions of Gen. Zia in this regard. During her tenure as Prime Minister, the narco-terrorist complex that has become so powerful in Pakistan finally achieved maturity, and she played her role in encouraging its growth. It is a bit ironic therefore that elements of this same complex are primary suspects in her killing.

Like her father, she was very good at cultivating her american patrons, hence her reputation as a beacon of “liberalism” which she was anything but.

Having said these nasty things, I still think it is unfortunate that she died this way. I dont think anyone should face such a fate, and I feel particularly sorry for the 150 others who died with her. It is also ominous and bad news for Pakistan and may be a precursor to outright civil war. I think that however criminal she was, her being alive would have at least delayed this possibility and held back the strife and violence that is to come.