Pakistan’s Benazir Bhutto Assassinated

7 Comments

1. 

   Kahli on December 27, 2007 at 9:07 am

   I’m sorry to hear of event as expected as it was.
   She certainly had her flaws, but compared to Musharraf she seemed pretty decent.

   Bush sure has been played by Musharraf.  It is frightening.

2. 

   anarchronarchist on December 27, 2007 at 9:28 am

   …For the U.S. invade to ‘stabilize a nuclear power’?

   There’s a pipeline to build.

3. 

   Kahli on December 27, 2007 at 9:38 am

   Cripes. Joe Scarborough opining how this will help Guiliani since he is the only one who can protect us. He thinks it helps Hillary, too.  

   It is disgusting that within hours of her death this is being seen only through the lens of our political horse race.  It is disgusting that we have to hear all about terrror, terror, terror.

   • 

     ignorant bystander on December 27, 2007 at 10:41 am

     The really, really sad part is, he’s probably right.

4. 

   The Voice In The Wilderness on December 27, 2007 at 10:39 am

   Musharraf’s Christmas Present.

   • 

     idredit on December 27, 2007 at 11:04 am

     US Foreign Policy “Plan B” for Pakistan felled by the gun.

     “In tatters” opines Barnett Rubin via TPM

     After the summer’s turbulence with Islamic radicals and Pervez Musharraf’s subsequent declaration of martial law — designed to crack down not on Islamist militants but the remnants of Pakistan’s democratic opposition — the U.S. prevailed upon Musharraf to ally with Bhutto in the interest of broadening Musharraf’s base of support. But the event that would consummate the alliance, next month’s election, represented a threat to continued military rule. “The military didn’t really want civilian politicians in power,” says New York University’s Barnett Rubin, a South Asia expert. “They wanted to use them to legitimate indirect [military] rule, and they were going to do it by rigging the election.”

     U.S. strategy didn’t exactly find that so offensive. “The idea was to consolidate the alliance of the so-called moderate forces in the Pakistani military through this election that the military was going to rig but we were going to certify anyway,” Rubin observes. That is, as long as Bhutto was in the picture — since the U.S. had reduced the democratic opposition to the figure of Benazir Bhutto, although her corruption as PM was manifest. Without Bhutto, it is unclear what the U.S. will do.

     Bhutto’s assassination presents an opportunity for Musharraf. “It’s..very possible Musharraf will declare [another] state of emergency and postpone the elections,” Rubin continues. “That will confirm in many people’s minds the idea that the military is behind” the assassination. For it’s part, the U.S. will likely “be scrambling..

5. 

   Oui on December 27, 2007 at 6:18 pm

   .

   Pakistan Poll CNN TV

   Take the approval ratings. President Musharraf, 38 percent. Osama bin Laden, 46 percent. That’s right. Nearly half of Pakistanis on the front line of the war on terror favor Osama bin Laden over their own president. And in the northwest frontier province, where bin Laden is likely hiding, he enjoys a 70 percent approval rating.

   2001 – Gallup Pakistan Poll

   Rawalpindi is a city near the Northern Frontier with much support for the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

   "But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."