Benazir Bhutto Slain

[Quinn]

Is there anyone who doesn't believe Pakistan's ISI facilitated this?

-Quinn

[BrendaQG]

I do not. Here is why.

1.) A few years back terrorist tried to blow up General Pervez Musharif.

2.) Prez Mushariff imposed Martial law for six weeks. He was criticized and compared to Hitler for doing so. In hindsight if there was still Martial law Bhutto would still be alive.

3.) According to a interesting report on Fox news. 48% of the people of Pakistan Sympathize with Al-queda and/or the Taliban. The Taliban do not belive in Women being leaders of countries.

4.) Taliban and Al-Queda sympathizers are in the ISI. If the ISI did this then it means that Gen. Mushariff has no control.

I hope to god this does not escalate to a nuclear civil war of some kind.

[BrendaQG]

To put this in context for many of you. If you know how Argentinians revered Eva Peron. Benazir Bhutto was like that for the Pakistani's.

[Oli]

Is there anyone who doesn't believe Pakistan's ISI facilitated this.

-Quinn

Not in the least.

[Quinn]

I do not. Here is why.

1.) A few years back terrorist tried to blow up General Pervez Musharif.

2.) Prez Mushariff imposed Martial law for six weeks. He was criticized and compared to Hitler for doing so. In hindsight if there was still Martial law Bhutto would still be alive.

3.) According to a interesting report on Fox news. 48% of the people of Pakistan Sympathize with Al-queda and/or the Taliban. The Taliban do not belive in Women being leaders of countries.

4.) Taliban and Al-Queda sympathizers are in the ISI. If the ISI did this then it means that Gen. Mushariff has no control.

I hope to god this does not escalate to a nuclear civil war of some kind.

Good post, Brenda. I think it's important to note a number of specific points:

1) The Taliban are a creation of Pakistan's ISI.

2) Though the Director Generals of the ISI – none of whom have a background as intelligence officers within the ISI – are assigned from the Military, the ISI functions as a competitor to military intelligence and is known for pursuing agendas opposed to the military’s interests. For example, elements within the ISI provided operational assistance to Taliban forces operating from within Pakistan’s tribal lands when they were fighting against that nation’s military (recently).

3) Pakistan’s government, despite having a very large military at its disposal, has never had functional control over large portions of the country, specifically the tribal areas.

4) Bhutto’s assassination took place in an area known to have a strong military presence.

From my perspective, the ISI stands to benefit from this act more than anyone. Think about it:

1) The democratically-oriented candidate widely favored to win Pakistan’s next election – a candidate who had sworn to aggressively pursue Taliban aligned elements within the tribal areas and within the ISI – is dead. (This is significant when we consider how far the ISI went to undermine Musharraf’s efforts to pursue Taliban aligned elements.)

2) The military government of Pervez Musharraf gets the blame, which is what the current protests are about, thereby weakening said government. For the foreseeable future, the aforementioned government will have to worry about maintaining control over areas it has traditionally governed – as opposed to giving into U.S. pressure to assert itself in tribal areas (which have never been controlled by anyone, save ISI aligned tribal chieftains).

The ISI had more to gain from this than anyone. My belief is that we’re looking at a situation in which fundamentalist elements (probably Taliban) were operating with ISI assistance/oversight. And, yes, I could be wrong.

Thoughts?

-Quinn

[hippifried]

This was a stupid move, no matter who was behind it or if there was anyone behind it.

I'm taking a wait & see aproach. Unless Mushariff does something even more stupid, like postponing the elections next month, this might just piss off enough people to sweep Bhutto's party into power with a landslide that nobody can ignore. Without her at the top, the whole "I'll never vote for a woman" obstacle goes away. I know that sounds cynical, but hey, it's a cynical world.

[BrendaQG]

Here's A stupider thing.

I just saw A still picture on CNN which is from just a spit second before she was shot. Ms Bhutto was safely in a armored SUV. A crowd of supporters has gathered around. She got up through the Sun roof to wave at the crowd. That is when she got shot.

Not so unlike Prez Kennedy taking off the bullet proof bubbletop before driving through Dealy Plaza.

She should have known better.

[trish]

fasten your seat belts, it's going to be a bumpy ride.

[beandip]

4.) Taliban and Al-Queda sympathizers are in the ISI. If the ISI did this then it means that Gen. Mushariff has no control.

General Mush has no control. US Special Forces have been in Pak "guarding" their nukes since Mush declared himself "supreme ruler" a few years ago. We (US ) do not trust Mush. Mush controls about 1/2 of the military...and that's it. Mush does not control his own nukes. If he smokes our SF guys... we smoke Pak. End of story.

[beandip]

1) The Taliban are a creation of Pakistan's ISI.

Dig deeper. Pak ISI is the sole creation of US CIA. In 1979 US went to the hot bed of Islamic religious nutters, then PAK and asked them to find your most ignorant militaristic nutters who are hell bent on geting their 72 virgins.... assemble them and we'll train them. The CIA schooled PAK military / intelligence officers who then became the ISI. ISI trained Islamic militant nutters (then called Mujahadeem) to fight soviets in Trash-can-istan.

Read the book "Blow back"...there's a pretty good chronological break down of our creating / expanding the whole Islamo-facism movement.

It's Karma baby...pure and simple.