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Musharraf Still Stands
Benazir Bhutto and her supporters who died with her during the suicide attack Dec. 27 are the latest victims of decades of dangerous U.S. support for Pakistan's military regime. The country's dictator, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, has held his grip on power despite increasing popular unrest. The Bush administration got nervous, turning to Bhutto to preserve the status quo in Pakistan. There is no doubt the exiled former prime minister was personally brave to return to her country. But Pakistani professor Pervez Hoodbhoy was critical nevertheless: "After returning to Pakistan, she made clear that for a few table scraps, she would have happily teamed up with Musharraf under the hopelessly absurd U.S. plan to give the military government a civilian face."
While President Bush imposed "regime change" on Iraq, based on fictitious weapons of mass destruction, "regime preservation" is the U.S. policy for Pakistan, despite its role in global nuclear proliferation, the sale of true WMDs.
Adrian Levy is a senior staff correspondent for the British newspaper The Guardian and co-author of "Deception: Pakistan, the United States and the Secret Trade in Nuclear Weapons." He describes a "military government repressing human rights, connected tentatively to 9/11, state-sponsored terrorism with radical connections to al-Qaida that was proliferating WMD and of course that was not Iraq, it was Pakistan." He told me: "The problem facing the Bush administration was their policy post-9/11 was very much to embrace Pakistan as an essential ally in the war on terror in order to allow the narrative over Iraq and the WMD in Iraq to rise. The Pakistanis milked their nuclear program for hard cash, selling to Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Libya, the Axis of Evil powers. We also know there is intelligence to show that they began negotiations very much with Saudi Arabia, Syria and, of course, there are tentative contacts with al-Qaida elements as well."
The New York Times revealed last week that at least $5 billion in U.S. aid delivered to Pakistan since 9/11 to fight al-Qaida and the Taliban actually went into weapons systems against another U.S. ally, India.
The more nuclear weapons Pakistan has, the more the U.S. has a vested interest in protecting them. As The Washington Post reported last week, even before the Bhutto assassination U.S. Special Forces were planning a vastly increased presence in Pakistan in 2008, "to train and support indigenous counterinsurgency forces and clandestine counterterrorism units." The Glasgow Herald now reports that U.S. Special Forces "snatch squads" are in Pakistan, prepared to secure the nuclear warheads in the event of the government's collapse. What Pakistani author Tariq Ali told me recently about Afghanistan equally applies to Pakistan: "The people of Afghanistan ... do not like being occupied by foreign powers. They didn't like being occupied by the Russians, and they don't like being occupied by the United States and the NATO armies in their country. And as long as this foreign occupation lasts, there will be forms of resistance against it."
The CIA coined the term blowback. It applies to situations like Afghanistan in the 1970s and '80s when the U.S. armed and trained the mujahedeen, including Osama bin Laden, to counter the Soviet occupation. When the Soviets were finally forced out, the mujahedeen set their sights on a new target: the U.S. That's blowback.
While the Bush administration pushes for quick elections in Pakistan, it is important to raise these issues in our elections here at home. The assassination of Bhutto put foreign policy back on the front burner in the U.S. presidential race-though you would think that 2007 being the deadliest year yet in Iraq for U.S. soldiers (at least 900 dead) would have accomplished that. The candidates could use this as a "teachable moment" to talk about the wrongheaded long-term U.S. support-Republican and Democrat-for Pakistan's corrupt, human-rights-abusing nuclear regime. Did any of the leading Democratic contenders use the moment to demonstrate that they represent a true opposition party? While they each tout themselves as true "change" agents, they have yet to prove it. We are waiting.
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20 Comments so far
Show AllMusharraf still stands 'cause he has now leared 'the game'. Here are some of his tactical moves.
1) First attack against Benazir: 130 killed, bogus investigation still going on, no one caught.
(Immediate cleanup of the site. Refused assistance from UK and US on investigation)
2) Second attack: Benazir killed.
a)Immediate cleaup of the site.
b)She was killed by bullet, no, she was killed by bomb, no she was killed 'cause she banged her head. (give people a diversion, while you do deep cleanup).
3) Today he speaks to the nation and tells us that she was martyed by a terrorist (thank Mr. President, I did not know any of that.)
4) He has also stated that he will now seek assistance from UK. -- Give me 4 days to cleanup my backyard, and I bet Scotland yard money, they will not even find a dime.
Just for the record, Benazir was not an angel by any means. All this bullshit about "self imposed exile" was actually "run away, corruption charges will get my ass in Jail!". She would have never darred to step in the country without an 'okay' from Musharraf. Same goes for the Sharif.
Thanks for the report, Ms. Goodman.
I have wondered why the assasination?
While words carried on the tv fill the airwaves
The public, as demonstrated by the first comment posted here, remain in the dark.
Your trust, that we who want to know and care are here, is an inspiration and a model of how to view the world, while madmen rule.
Happy New Year! I am also sending $$ to Democracy Now!
Gyptian, Benazir stole from the coffers of the Pakistanis and went into self-exile when it was evident when was going to be convicted. She is no angel, and in fact, worse than Musharraf. Not to say I support Musharraf, but blaming him is just too convenient. Benazir became a disposable pawn in a game of power geo-politics. her family is no different that any other corrupt political family.
Dear Amy
Benazir Bhutto was one of the worst pieces of human filth to ever walk on this planet. Please refer to Wikipedia before you start shooting your mouth off about this despicable woman and her despicable family.
"Please refer to Wikipedia"
So wikipedia is your source ?!! Ever wondered who updates wikipedia ?? What a nut case ....
Politics aside, Benazir was kinda good looking, but big, which made one wonder whether to caress her or let her caress you.
That is Pakistan for you.
Corruption, fundamentalism, and Bloodletting for those against those fundamental values.
The people who are standing up to the zealots in Pakistan are risking their lives. Even if they make one statement, or stand up in the smallest of ways.
The very Dead Nixon also supported Pakistan, as do obviously the MSM, including the very Iranian Christiane Amanpour.
Please give them more nukes, and money, so that they can bomb all the US Interest in the region, and spearhead the cause of Islamic World Dominance.
Love
Zero
Horrified ---
Benazir is no saint as i have repeatedly said in many posts about this issue on CD these last few days. However even her most die-hard critics - from Mansoor Ijaz to Tariq Ali and a host of others agree on one thing ... her courage and the fact that this time around she seemed to be really trying. Her suicidal dive, headfirst, into Pakistani politics in the current context defies any rational explanation and cannot be cast off as an attempt to make even more millions !!
More than anything else she offered the desperate and beleaguered Pakistani women 'hope', which we all know is in extreme short supply in Pakistan ( and hell .. here in the U.S. too !!).
This article is a must read to understand Bhutto ...
http://www.counterpunch.org/fawzia12292007.html
Gyptian,
All politicians are crooks...I just limited my scope to Pakistan. The media are trying to make benazir a hero...I just don't buy it. She is a crook and a criminal just like the rest. Just because she is a woman, she is courages? Sorry, she came from a political family that is just as corrupt.
i would call her courages if she was a leader. But she is not that. She is just another oppurtunist hoping to ride the USA 'democratization' band-wagon.
"She is a crook and a criminal just like the rest."
This sweeping generalization puts any argument to rest. There is nothing else to say.
By the way ... her actions in the recent past (and in the past) are what made her courageous ... she being a woman in an fundamentalist Islamic country just adds to her stature and doesnt diminish it. But ofcourse .. sitting here and warming our cozy asses in the good ole USA means you can never understand sub-continental politics even if you tried. She was twice elected to power and was definitely on her way to a third stint, but ofcourse in our simplistic world view that doesnt make her a Leader. Even if millions of Pakistani voted for her, she didnt come up to our exacting first world standards of Democracy. What a friggin joke ...
Hey gang, above and beyond the pie throwing at this slain leader of mixed repute, the REAL issue is this unstable nation holds nuclear technology. It seems to me that is the salient issue to consider. And how about the dark irony of the policy "fixed for war" against Iraq, when the true threat is just over the oil streams out in those mountain ranges between Pakistan and Afghanistan. What rage is brewing there! And who will shed a tear for the U.S. if blowback takes the shape and form of the big blow, and by that gentlement, I mean a nuclear explosion when the world has watched as the U.S. laid to rest a purported million civilians of a sovereign nation that did nothing to harm our own. It merely owned a resource our bloated corporate state had a vampire-like need to acquire.
Did you ever wonder why we were told that the "hijackers" were Saudis in alignment with the ISI?
Could it be so that we progressives would scream when bush attacked Iraq? "No, no, it was Saudi Arabia".
And when bush threatens Iran, we scream, "No, why attack Iran? Pakistan really has the bomb!"
So, when the House of Saud, or Musharraf falls out of favor with the ruling class, and it's decided to take them out, we've been pushing that line for years.
Just a thought.
Purvis Ames - Shame on you for your vile, crass attacks on Benazir Bhutto, who for all her imperfections was still a symbol of hope for democracy for millions of Pakistanis.
May Bhutto rest in peace and may her dreams for Pakistan live !
The Glasgow Herald now reports that U.S. Special Forces "snatch squads" are in Pakistan, prepared to secure the nuclear warheads in the event of the government's collapse.
That's not going to happen. Pakistan stores its modular weapons in separate, highly-classified places. As if the US knows these locations. I also believe that the highly-trained and fierce Pakistani Army units guarding the components will not just hand them over to some white boy in a black jumpsuit.
gyptian: More than anything else she offered the desperate and beleaguered Pakistani women 'hope'
It is very convenient for me that millions of you pin your hopes on one human being. I may pick that one off and thereby crush the hopes of millions. I strongly urge you to cry in despair under your covers, don't come out for weeks, and after many months with your heads drooped, start looking for another "dear leader" so we can do it all over again, and teach you another lesson in hope and despair. DO NOT EVER PIN YOUR HOPES ON YOUR OWN PERSONAL SELVES. YOU MUST PROVIDE ME ONE DIETY WHOM I MAY BUY OFF OR PICK OFF VERY EASILY. -the beast
Good post rtdrury. A good reason for having decentralized Direct Democracy:
http://nationalinitiative.us/
If anything, Obama should be given points for being the only Democrat candidate who actually came out against supporting a military dictatorship as the cost of 'national security' back in August of 2007. He then rightfully and roundly criticized Musharraf and gave voice to the need for a 'democratic ally' in Pakistan, before it was at all clear that Bhutto would return. Unlike Iraq, Pakistan had a functioning democracy until Musharraf overthrew it. Restore Democracy! Restore the Supreme Court!
"The United States is a democratic government, and democratic governments should work for democratic values across the globe. Pakistan is no exception."- Pakistan Supreme Court Justice Rana Bhagwandas
www.nytimes.com/2007/11/06/world/asia/06pakistan.html
"When I am President, we will wage the war that has to be won, with a comprehensive strategy with five elements: getting out of Iraq and on to the right battlefield in Afghanistan and Pakistan; developing the capabilities and partnerships we need to take out the terrorists and the world's most deadly weapons; engaging the world to dry up support for terror and extremism; restoring our values; and securing a more resilient homeland. " - Barack Obama
http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=events.event&event_id=269510
"We must not, however, repeat the mistakes of Iraq. The solution in Afghanistan is not just military – it is political and economic. As President, I would increase our non-military aid by $1 billion. These resources should fund projects at the local level to impact ordinary Afghans, including the development of alternative livelihoods for poppy farmers. And we must seek better performance from the Afghan government, and support that performance through tough anti-corruption safeguards on aid, and increased international support to develop the rule of law across the country.
Above all, I will send a clear message: we will not repeat the mistake of the past, when we turned our back on Afghanistan following Soviet withdrawal. As 9/11 showed us, the security of Afghanistan and America is shared. And today, that security is most threatened by the al Qaeda and Taliban sanctuary in the tribal regions of northwest Pakistan.
Al Qaeda terrorists train, travel, and maintain global communications in this safe-haven. The Taliban pursues a hit and run strategy, striking in Afghanistan, then skulking across the border to safety.
This is the wild frontier of our globalized world. There are wind-swept deserts and cave-dotted mountains. There are tribes that see borders as nothing more than lines on a map, and governments as forces that come and go. There are blood ties deeper than alliances of convenience, and pockets of extremism that follow religion to violence. It's a tough place.
But that is no excuse. There must be no safe-haven for terrorists who threaten America. We cannot fail to act because action is hard.
As President, I would make the hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. military aid to Pakistan conditional, and I would make our conditions clear: Pakistan must make substantial progress in closing down the training camps, evicting foreign fighters, and preventing the Taliban from using Pakistan as a staging area for attacks in Afghanistan.
I understand that President Musharraf has his own challenges. But let me make this clear. There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al Qaeda leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will.
And Pakistan needs more than F-16s to combat extremism. As the Pakistani government increases investment in secular education to counter radical madrasas, my Administration will increase America's commitment. We must help Pakistan invest in the provinces along the Afghan border, so that the extremists' program of hate is met with one of hope. And we must not turn a blind eye to elections that are neither free nor fair – our goal is not simply an ally in Pakistan, it is a democratic ally."
A few points:
1. Regarding the Saudi kidnappers- in a rational world -many people would consider that it would be highly circumspect that 4 planes were hijacked on the same day that the US had its largest anti-terrorist 'exercise' and that there is NO physical evidence of any of the planes. That the wreckage was almost immediately shipped out to China and sold for scrap, the 9-11 commission tok years to publish a report on the greatest attack on a civilian target EVER in US history.
I find it amusing that many people claim that though there are a multitude of instances were it 'appears' that government ineptitude was a tidal wave that destroyed a lot of evidence, came up with very few explanations and has consistently found out to deceive its citizenry that the idea of a 'conspiracy' is supposedly laughable and non-serious.
2. The contempt for the populaton extended to 7/7 in England where the SAME thing happened. Trains bombed simultaneously on the SAME day as an anti-terrorists exercise on the same trains.
Really- the surety of the powers that be -that we are COMPLETE idiots has been proven out and continues to do so. Today Bhutto - tomorrow Pinochet and of course finally Bush/Cheney- after all Reagan has been deified till death and is spoken about in reverence to this day.
Now the prattle is on about a documented corrupt leader who belongs to the new heirarchy of heriditary rulers across the world from the US, India, Pakistan etc etc and how they are all heroes and 'uniquely' qualified to be leaders via the hard work of queing up to be born in the right family, and having the vestiges of education like going to Yale or Oxford (you know those 'in' school- for these generational parasites to be properly acceptable to the populance). Even if weren't very good at school- Rajiv Gandhi/Sonia Ghandi - you are still somehow uniquely gifted to handle the affairs of millions of people and billions upon billions of dollars because of the quirky fate of being born into X family.
As for nuclear weapons- purveyors and users of nuclear weapons -on innocent civilians -actually dropping several bombs on two defenselss cities in Asia - is conveniently over-looked. In addition, hundreds of weapons being used with depleted nuclear weapons poisoning the globe as surely as Napalm, Organophosphorus compounds, etc also wistfully forgotten by the fearing citizens who would squander millions upon millins of lives by exchanging their outrage and consequence for a home and a hearth in a'1st world' country. These are the very citizens who wish their government to be guardians of 'world' security. If this was not so utterly insane and so totally accepted in the western hemisphere- it would rightly be deemed severe psychosis.
The world it seems is a sordid soap opera full of twisting plots, villians who seem to be able to deceive everyone interminably while enriching themselves or at the very least impoverishing others- and of course the veneer of "values" spread thick and hot like gooey artificial trans-fat to further stupeify poison the already poisoned mind.
Obviously the solution of a grave injustice is not a calm, rational approach to incident/s to truly investigate and ascertain the truth is not a priorty. One would almost be inclined to think that the death or potential of death is the single most powerful elixir to induce a further, deeper psychosis . One that sactions the death of millions (at least 5 million in Vietnam alone), the displacement of millions, the mutilation of hundreds of thousands, the impoverishment of nations, to watch mesmerized the raging fire of human tragedy that make the epics of yore seem to be family squables.
Apparently - and eye for an eye is not enough. It must be a barbaric - I will kill your entire family, burn your house down, and as in ancient times poison the earth so that nothing may grow -in exchange for my eye.
But wait - they have nuclear weapons, or oil, or they are socialist or they contnue to be socialist, or they are not devaluing their currency while exporting billions to ours- I mean --what is not a threat.
To extoll the support of a dictatorial regime that necessarily must be unjust to his people in the name of strategic plan, ally etc- adnauseum shows that soon psychosis will be heriditary. After all one needs to sufficiently 'apparently' psychotic to be accepted, promoted and make a living. Resist this fodder of the press - which seeks to embroil us in the polarization of 'hero' or 'villain'. Courageous or Corrupt. It is a ssideshow- as rtdrury is implicitly pointing out. Leaders are not those who live in exile in mansions and have their children go to Oxford/ Yale. If this is the 'new century' definition of leaders - we must accept responsibility in circulating this definiton and worse perpetuating it.
gyptian
Who are you working for? George Bush? Benazir and her husband stole more than TWO BILLION dollars from the Pakistanis treasury during her tenure in office. They are under indictment in England, France, and Switzerland for money laundering, bank fraud, etc. Benazir's father was responsible for the extermination of three million people in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) in 1971. But what's the point of bringing up facts to a fruitcake like you?
purvis ames
Are you seriously trying to take this discussion down that path. You need to see the larger picture and for that to happen you need to pull your head out of your ass. Also re-read my post and all the other posts these last few days. Thats a tall order since you have reading comprehension issues. It doesnt matter if i work for georgie or his fuckbuddies osama and musharraf, my analysis is the same.