Pakistan's Flawed and Feudal Princess

fuzair #260 It is a stretch (to put it mildly) to say that the body was in PPP hands and the government was helplessly watching from the sidelines. And even if it were true - then a government that is ineffective in carrying out even simple tasks of the state (i.e. securing a dead body for autopsy) is clearly no longer fit to be in power.

And of course this is more of the bs that Musharraf has been rolling out from day one when he claimed that his only interest was in restoring democracy. Example: Look at lal masjid - for months he had maulvis intimidating Islamabad residents, kidnapping and defaming women, acting as law-givers, judges and jury and executive, right under his nose. It was the same excuse then - he was "afraid" of the maulvis. Just like he is "afraid" of PPP (as you now claim). And when the Chinese finally pulled his ears, Musharraf suddenly lost his "fear".

Too many innocent Pakistanis have been killed, too much destruction caused to the integrity of the nation - making a mockery of the legal system with the PCO, the electoral system with the "referendums" and "deals" with maulvis - in order to stoke the ego of one individual. Have some pity on your own countrymen and stop rushing to defend your "fellow fauji".

Re: # 254

Hamidm Sahib:

"...and would get the seventy virgins ? ..."

Are you, like a bania, keeping two virgins for yourself?

Re: # 256

Zeemax sahib:

"....Except that if there were any 70 virgins to be found anywhere in one place, I would beat Baitullah Mehsud to it. ..."

I like your spirit of competition.

Re: # 1 Laddu:
Good idea! leave running the business of state to Pakistanis themselves. They will do a good job! No more Faujis.
Kamath

hey zeemax...we're still waiting on you to tell us what the model is of the "glock rifle" you say was used...you know..the one with the "locking laser scope"(as opposed to, I presume, one attached with duct tape)

Re: # 259 zee

Please explain - what script?... The single biggest textile export now is China - do you mean china sponsored this new blast in karachi?...

Tahmed,

As far as the autopsy is concerned, its pretty easy to see why one wasn't carried out. The body was under the control of her lieutenants at all times. What do you think the PPP's reaction would have been if the GoP had said, "This is now a murder case. Hand over her body and we will carry out an autopsy and then decide when we will hand her back to you to bury." Given the normal Pakistani's reaction to the "desecration" of a dead body; what would the PPP's reaction have been? How many battalions of SSG and armor would have been needed to take possession of the body from the hospital?

In any case, why didn't Zardari order an autopsy carried out himself? No difficulty in finding a pathologist I'm sure, even one from AFIP! I agree that an autopsy should have been carried out. I thought one had and that prize idiot Cheema was quoting from the autopsy report and not pulling stuff out from his behind.

+++++++++++++++++++

Zeemax,

If this was a professional hit, the quality of professional hit men is abysmally poor in Pakistan. It is clear that it was a crime of opportunity. IF she hadn't stood up, she would have been OK. Even if the Govt was criminally lax in not providing her a strong escort at all times, what was to stop the PPP from getting a group of men with police/army background and using them to form a security cordon around her SUV as it left the meeting venue? Any idiot should have known that was one of the security weak points and taken preventive steps.

The script plays out ...

... now the single biggest textiles exporter.

a reasonable analysis

daily times :

Last week I had the pleasure of having dinner at a friend’s home where one of the guests was the foreign editor of a major US newsweekly. This gentleman has written much and most of it, in my opinion, makes sense. Therefore, I was looking forward to hearing what he had to say. The evening turned out to be quite interesting and perhaps even intellectually stimulating.

That the other guests included some of the leading journalists and ‘opinion makers’ from Lahore added to the quality of the discussion. All the expected topics were on the table and were discussed.

But something was lacking.

I thought that many of the guests would be interested in what US policy and opinion makers were up to and I even expected a few questions about the current US elections. However, what disappointed me was the fact that many of those present were more interested in sending a message to the US government that it should insist on free and fair elections in Pakistan. Or, rather, force President Musharraf to have such elections.

It was surprising to learn that so many members of the Pakistani intelligentsia are convinced that the US not only influences policies of our government but in essence micromanages what goes on in Pakistan.

The relationship between President Bush and President Musharraf is quite cordial and Mr Bush has often come out in support of President Musharraf when the latter seems to be in a bit of hot water. However, the important factor in the co-dependence of these two countries and their leaders is the mutual interest in fighting the ‘war on international terror’.

It is important for Pakistanis to understand and accept the fact that over the last many years, the US has considerably helped the country and made a significant financial contribution to the Pakistan Army. Most of this support is due to the Pakistani commitment to support the US-led campaign against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. In spite of the misgivings US policymakers have about President Musharraf, most of them believe that he is still their best bet.

Undeniably, there is increased US interest in Pakistani politics over the last year. A couple of imperatives are driving US policy towards Pakistan at this time.

First and foremost are the upcoming US general elections. The Bush administration is coming to an end in twelve months. The last thing President Bush wants is to be remembered as perhaps the only US president who started two wars and won neither.

At the same time, different candidates vying for the presidency, especially among the Democrats, will try and make these wars an issue during their electoral campaigns. On the Republican side, most of the candidates will distance themselves from President Bush. Therefore President Bush would like nothing better at this time than some positive outcome, at least in Afghanistan, even perhaps an ‘October surprise’.

The other important concern for the US is Pakistan’s nuclear capability. The greatest nightmare of all for US policymakers is the possibility of a nuclear attack on US soil. Therefore, when US politicians make a big deal out of it, we should take them seriously. In this matter, both political parties of the US have the same point of view. The rising tide of terrorist attacks within Pakistan combined with the assassination of Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto has created great concern within the US establishment. For them, a destabilised Pakistan with the possibility of an Islamist takeover is a distinct possibility.

For Pakistanis who find this idea entirely preposterous, it might be worthwhile to go back to what happened in Iran thirty years ago. Nobody could even imagine then that Iran after the Shah would become a theocracy. And, Iran was a lot less Islamised at that time than Pakistan is today. It is mostly for this reason that the US establishment wants to see some form of representative democracy emerge in Pakistan.

That inevitably brings us to what is going on in Pakistan at this time. Increasingly, most opposition parties are starting to talk about an attempt to indefinitely delay the elections, using terrorist attacks as a pretext. As a corollary, many in Pakistan now believe that the Pakistani establishment is somehow engineering much of the recent mayhem including the assassination of Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto for this very purpose.

I am convinced that President Musharraf is not involved in what is going on. However, his recent actions, including the emergency, the firing of many judges and the delay in elections despite the willingness of the PPP and the PMLN to contest on schedule, suggest that he is not quite ready for a free and fair election in which his supporters might come out the losers.

As such, most people believe that either the elections will be further delayed or rigged in favour of the pro-Musharraf Muslim League. The only questions out there relate to the scale of rigging and how the people of Pakistan will react if there is indeed large-scale rigging. If the elections are delayed or large scale rigging takes place, and people do indeed come out to protest, things could get ugly.

The Internet is flooded with conspiracy theories about why Bhutto was assassinated and who is behind these terrorist attacks. The latest one making the rounds is that somehow all this is an attempt to destabilise and eventually break up Pakistan so that the US could take over the country. The ISI is being held responsible and the ISI as ‘everybody’ knows is a spawn of the CIA.

Personally I do not believe in such nonsense, but if President Musharraf does bring Pakistan to a point where law and order breaks down completely, then the US might just be forced to do something.

What this something might be is the question I really wanted to ask the journalist visiting from the US.

Bomb attack at Gul Ahmed Textiles in Quaidabad, Karachi. Six dead, 25 injured, 4 critical.

#254 Posted by hamidm2,

...Sigh ... you know, you could be right, hamidm.

Except that if there were any 70 virgins to be found anywhere in one place, I would beat Baitullah Mehsud to it.

Re: # 254

now that is a very complex drink. You need a very good palate to be able to discern the various tastes. Do you really think that zeemax has it?

Re: # 250

zeemax,

..... has it occured to you that many people were out to kill bb - jihadis and muslims, isi and mushy, mossad and the thieves of gujarat, raw and zardari, the rockefellers and donald trump, parsis and christians, the cia, - and that baithullah just wanted to make sure that "his men" did the job and would get the seventy virgins ?

#248 Posted by queen_cut_paste,

There is no need of any exhumation. Bhutto family will never agree to it, and musharraf knows that which is why he's just posturing to gain brownie points.

All that needs to be done is to find the original skull x-rays, and not the blanked out versions flashed around by Min of Info.

An x-ray shows bones, and not just a bright spot in a vacuum which is supposed to be her skull. The produced version does not even show the vertebrae or jaw.

hamidm: and btw i didnt say mush did it - i leave such assertions to those who are true prophets (of which there is no shortage on chowk). i did say that mush (and his government) was criminally negligent in not providing adequate security (the fact that BB chose the SP that the government is now saying is a joke) to prevent such an asassinatio, and after the event it was criminally negligent in refusing to do an autopsy (and claiming that zardari said no is a joke again - since in criminal cases the body is not handed over to relatives until a proper autopsy is done).

Whether or not mush actually authorized the killings through a nod of the head, or whether it was done totally independant of him, or whether musharraf in fact even believed that BB was his best bet in clinging to power, is something we will probably never know.

Because I know for sure there is no bullet wound other than on the right side. Whether it was a bullet or a strike, I don’t want to comment, I don’t know,” he told Newsweek from Rawalpindi.
The exhumation, he said, will lay to rest all allegations of government involvement in Ms. Bhutto’s assassination.

The President said that the man in charge of the security of Ms. Bhutto - who was killed in a gun and suicide attack on December 27 in Rawalpindi after addressing an election rally—was “her own handpicked superintendent of police.”

“This area (where she was killed) was known to be dangerous. There was a death threat, intelligence that there would be an attack, and we told her, yet she wanted to go.... She went into a dangerous place, and if you get out of the (bullet-proof) vehicle, you are responsible. All the others sitting inside the vehicle were safe,” he said.


When asked if he had seen the X-rays of Bhutto, he said “Yes,” adding “I am a soldier, I’ve seen a lot of bullet wounds. A bullet wound is a small hole, and if the bullet goes through it makes a big hole on the other side. Now that is what I understand to be a bullet wound. This was not that, although I’m not an expert. But how does it absolve the government if it was a bullet or not?”

“Why would we be hiding (the cause of Bhutto’s death)? It’s ridiculous, and when I read these comments, I laugh at them,” Musharraf said. However, the President said he would not order a post-mortem without the agreement of Ms. Bhutto’s family. A post-mortem would have huge political ramifications.

He asserted that Ms. Bhutto’s party, the PPP, is not agreeing to a post-mortem, as they know that there is no conspiracy behind her death.

Asked why he should not use his executive power to order it, he said: “Everything is not black and white here. It would have very big political ramifications. If I just ordered the body exhumed, that would be careless, unless (Ms. Bhutto’s) people agreed. But they will not.”

He said Ms. Bhutto’s supporters have not agreed to a post-mortem “because they know it’s a fact there is nothing wrong.”

Asked whether Asif Ali Zardari was playing politics in seeking U.N. probe, the President said, “Everybody is trying to gain political advantage; the entire opposition is trying to take political advantage. I know what [Bhutto’s opponents] used to say about her, but all of a sudden ... it makes me laugh, actually...

When the body was at the hospital, Zardari himself said it could not be done; he didn’t want the post-mortem done.

“Now, he says if there were a United Nations investigation he would allow a post-mortem. There cannot be a U.N. investigation. There are not two or three countries involved. Why should there be a U.N. investigation? This is ridiculous.”

President Musharraf was also asked in the interview about reports that the United States is thinking about launching CIA operations in Pakistan with or without Pakistan’s approval.

“We are totally in cooperation on the intelligence side,” he said. “But we are totally against (a military operation). We are a sovereign country. We will ask for assistance from outsiders. They won’t impose their will on us”.

In the interview, Musharraf also expressed his refusal to let the United States launch CIA operations against Al-Qaeda in Pakistan.


http://www.app.com.pk/en/index.php?option=com_content&tas k=view&id=26150 &Itemid=2