Capitol Hill Blue Forums Hot Topics & Breaking News News Benazir Bhutto killed in bomb blast

This is the latest news report:

Bhutto report: Musharraf planned to fix elections

The article starts:

The day she was assassinated last Thursday, Benazir Bhutto had planned to reveal new evidence alleging the involvement of Pakistan's intelligence agencies in rigging the country's upcoming elections, an aide said Monday.

Bhutto had been due to meet U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., and Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., to hand over a report charging that the military Inter-Services Intelligence agency was planning to fix the polls in the favor of President Pervez Musharraf.

Safraz Khan Lashari, a member of the Pakistan People's Party election monitoring unit, said the report was "very sensitive" and that the party wanted to initially share it with trusted American politicians rather than the Bush administration, which is seen here as strongly backing Musharraf.

This murder follows a previous attempt on her life in October, 2007. On November 2, 2007, David Frost interviewed Bhutto about the attempt on her life. During this interview, Bhutto referred to one of the possible assassins as the man who killed Osama Bin Laden.

Frost just continued with the interview. No mention of this in the MSM. What is going on?

Here's the interview: The name of the man who murdered OBL revealed

A new assassination video. Link provided by Justin Raimondo at AntiWar dot com:


One of the main reasons I like Raimondo is that he will admit his own errors, and call it as he sees it, no matter which way the chips fall.

This is tempered a bit by

CNN News' Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees on January 1, 2008

Starting about 2/3 of the way down the page. Search for the string: Tonight Pakistan remains, for the entry. Peter Bergen is one I've found can generally be trusted.

Bergen can usually be trusted? I wouldn't trust what he had to say in that report.

Red flag:
Here he is not relating fact, but mixing together fact and fiction, without telling the viewer which is which.

• FACT: Bhutto's husband opposed the exhuming of the body and performance of an autopsy.
• FICTION: It was up to him to decide.

And, to make it more interesting:

• FURTHER OMISSION: He opposed the exhuming of the body by Musharraf's henchmen (by that I mean the Police). He might not oppose the exhuming of the body by, say Scotland yard, who has offered to take over the investigation. As Senator Clinton suggested someone should.
  
  Bergen continues telling whoppers:
  
  Quote

  COOPER:Even if these allegations [that Musharraf was going to rig the election] are true, there's no evidence, really, that that report had anything to do with her killing, correct?
  
  BERGEN: I don't think so, Anderson. I mean, if we accept the premise, which I think is a fair one, that al Qaeda and the Taliban were the authors of this assassination, they don't believe in elections of any kind, anywhere in the world, let alone in Pakistan.
  
  So they would have no motive to kill her just because she was going to hand a dossier over to Senator Specter and Representative Kennedy, as is the theory that's circulating right now in Pakistan, Anderson.
  Only that vaste hoardes of clueless rubes that populate the middle part of this great continent would fall for a line like that. Everywhere else in the world, people would scratch their heads and say "wait a minute, if you're trying to determine the guilty party by examining motives, you don't start out assuming you know who is guilty and then dismiss the motives that don't apply."
  
  One more hit, and then I'll stop picking on Bergen.
  
  Quote

  BERGEN: Clearly, if the election had been held on January 8, it would have been hugely in favor of Benazir Bhutto, who was already, by the way, the most popular politician in Pakistan, scoring a 63 percent popularity rating weeks ago.
  So far Bergen has identified two motives for Musharraf to kill her, and no motives for al Qaeda or the Taliban to kill her. But we know who's guilty.
  
  We know, don't we Peter. [nudge nudge wink wink]

Try these from The Pakistan Daily Times, a moderate Pakistani paper that is no friend of Musharraf:

• Najam Sethi, "News Analysis: Who killed Benazir Bhutto?", Pakistan daily Times, December 29, 2007
• "Al Qaeda claims responsibility", Pakistan daily Times, December 29, 2007

No matter how it gets sliced and diced, one fact remains: Benazir Bhutto should bear a great deal of the blame for her own death. She stuck her head out of an armoured Lexus SUV's sunroof, presenting herself as a target in heavy traffic. Everyone inside of the vehicle survived the suicide detonation.

• "Here’s what happened", Pakistan Daily Times, December 28, 2007
• "She would have been alive if she had not stood up: Fahim", Pakistan Daily Times, December 28, 2007

Benazir Bhutto was the newest puppet that the United States wanted running Pakistan after their current one dared to defy the Bush Administration.

Benazir Bhutto was no mother Teresa either:

Bhutto helped create Taliban monster

No Mother Theresa indeed, Rick. But what Mother Theresa would ever rise to the position that she did? Important I think to note, from your cited article, who was the motive force and who the compliant in the creation of the "Taliban monster":
No. She was killed by an assassin, not an opportunist. It may have been foolhardy for her to expose herself in that way, and she might be alive today had she not done so, but she was not killed by a stray bullet or by shrapnel, as the videos show. She was killed by a cold-blooded murderer. If not then, it would have happened another time. Indeed, it was intended to have happened in October, when she had just returned. This was the second attempt. There would have been a twentieth, if necessary.

She chose to die on her feet rather than to live on her knees.

Now turning to the two articles from the Pakistan Times, one can see what a danger there is in using the term "al Qaeda" to conflate all of the denizens of the tribal badlands generally known as Waziristan.

The first article, far from a "news analysis", is an opinion piece, full of unsubstantiated claims intended to lead to the same preconceived notion that "whoever was responsible, it wasn't Musharraf". An example of writer Najam Sethi's twisted logic is the convolution that Musharraf couldn't have been involved in this assassination because someone once tried to assassinate Musharraf himself. Prefacing this ludicrous claim is the equally ludicrous conclusion:
The writer is depending on the ignorance of the readers, hoping they do not know that the popular movement had already been provoked, and that at the time of her assassination, her popularity was twice that of the incumbent General President. As I pointed out in my previous post, there are at least two identifiable motives for Musharraf: Bhutto's immense popularity, and her potential ability to expose the Musharraf regime as a principal supporter of al Qaeda in Pakistan.

This essay places the blame for her killing on Baitullah Mehsud, whom they refer to as "an al-Qaeda Taliban Warlord". Mehsud has since denied any involvement whatsoever in the assassination. Years of experience with al Qaeda terrorism should have taught us that they are proud to claim responsibility for any and all terrorist acts they perpetrate. Indeed, as the second article points out, they already have:
The danger of conflation. If you believe, as Najam Sethi seems to, that the ultimate goal of the mujahideen in the Waziristan region of Pakistan is to "destabilize Pakistan and sow the seeds of anarchy", it may be difficult to look at any other evidence in the matter. On the other hand, if you believe that their goal is to expel foreign occupiers from the region and to ensure their autonomy, then the recent history of the region makes a great deal more sense.

Bump.

Police witness: mysterious crowd suddenly stopped Bhutto vehicle

No ambulance was called? This reminds me of when Ronald Regan was shot and the Secret Service driver who worked the city on a regular bases, "got lost."

(A little side story regarding my post if you wish to read it).