Ex-Pakistan Prime Minister Bhutto has died

Chronicle of a death foretold

sad.

Hold on, shot in the neck during a suicide bomber's attack? Multi-fronted orchestration = government work?

gunman 'blew himself up' waht

terrible

Shot in the neck whilst inside her own 'heavily-guarded' SUV, apparently.

I hate to say it, but this isn't completely surprising, given that she was almost killed in a suicide attack on the day she returned to Pakistan.

She probably did it all herself to annoy Musharaf and Bush.

(I'm referencing that military guy who said some guantanamo prisoners attempted suicide just to annoy him.) (pretty weak reference, just ignore)

Bhutto's father's hanging is Julia Roberts' big laugh line in Charlie Wilson's War

(Julia botches it)

she redefined courage

world is shit

Her view of the role of government differed little from the classic notion in Pakistan that the state was the preserve of the ruler who dished out favors to constituents and colleagues, he recalled.

As secretary of interior, responsible for the Pakistani police force, Mr. Rathore, who is now retired, said he tried to get an appointment with Ms. Bhutto to explain the need for accountability in the force. He was always rebuffed, he said.

Finally, when he was seated next to her in a small meeting, he said to her, “I’ve been waiting to see you,” he recounted. “Instantaneously, she said: ‘I am very busy, what do you want. I’ll order it right now.’ ”

She could not understand that a civil servant might want to talk about policies, he said. Instead, he said, ”she understood that when all civil servants have access to the sovereign, they want to ask for something.”

yes, she should not be confused with a democrat.

My friend who grew up in Pakistan said once, "Not all countries are cut out for democracy. For example, my country."

Rest in peace, my ass...

Ms. Bhutto's political posturing is sheer pantomime. Her negotiations with the military and her unseemly willingness until just a few days ago to take part in Musharraf's regime have signaled once and for all to the growing legions of fundamentalists across South Asia that democracy is just a guise for dictatorship.

It is widely believed that Ms. Bhutto lost both her governments on grounds of massive corruption. She and her husband, a man who came to be known in Pakistan as "Mr. 10%," have been accused of stealing more than $1 billion from Pakistan's treasury. She is appealing a money-laundering conviction by the Swiss courts involving about $11 million. Corruption cases in Britain and Spain are ongoing.

-Fatima Bhutto, “Aunt Benazir's False Promises”

http://www.counterpunch.org/bhutto11142007.html

she wasnt perfect,yes, but compared to the current pakistan leaders...

haha, yeah, at least ONE BILLION DOLLARS from "perfection."

plus, being a woman leader in pakistan..

another spectacular rip thread, brought to you by ilx!

rip rip thread

ie, she was a gangster. (not "gangsta")

she wasnt perfect,yes, but compared to the current pakistan leaders...

This is even worse than Hillaryism.

she wasnt perfect,yes, but compared to hillary...

Live by the sword, die by the sword.

At this point, I'm mostly concerned with the reaction on the ground in Pakistan. A violent upheaval in that part of the world, in a country with nuclear weapons, is a frightening prospect.

RIP Big Woman

Pakistan can ill afford to sacrifice the few moderate leaders it has left. Bhutto's death will plunge the upcoming elections into uncertainty and the country further into instability. And that's good news for terrorism.

Bhutto: 'She Has Been Martyred'

Scary.

Daniel bringing some sanity to thread.

whaaaaaaaevr

Yeah. Concentrating about the actual ramifications of this, as opposed to getting into a shouting match about whether she was a great woman or not, whaaaaaaaevr.

another spectacular rip thread, brought to you by ilx!

lauren otm yet again

shakey mo rbius

bad time to have banned our man on the ground

i'm sticking with my first response: "oh fuck."

(shakey mo hears the news as he's driving into work, slams on the gas pedal, veers through traffic, double-parks outside his office, sprints upstairs, locks the door to his office, frantically logs into ILX, finds this thread, quickly scans through, realizes he has been preempted by dr. morbius, weeps but masturbates anyways)

omg a supporter said shes been martyred - so sane!

I think the main thing we need to take from this event is that we hate Hillary Clinton so so much rite guys

and julia roberts

y'all get together and embezzle a billion in her memory, then.

god its only 1b morbs - thats rainy day money for any self respecting dictator

y'all get together and embezzle a billion in her memory, then.

I'm on it

we should be setting an example to the people of pakistan, not fighting ourselves

One of the articles speculated that Al-Qaeda is behind the suicide bomber. If so, and depending on how widespread Bhutto's support was, that move could backfire on Al-Qaeda. Or maybe the instability will play into Al-Qaeda's plans. Anxious times.

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004984.php
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004985.php

omg a supporter said shes been martyred - so sane!

-- jhøshea, Thursday, December 27, 2007 7:38 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

You are deliberately bending my comment to refer to someone other than who I was talking about.

wait there was an article speculating that al-qeada was behind a bombing?

My Pakistani coworker who I mentored earlier this year actually asked me at one point, "So, in the US, the president couldn't be removed by a military takeover?" I didn't really know where to start with that one. Needless to say, his political commentary on Bhutto has been.... interesting.

One Oxbridge graduate down, 100,000 to go.

Grimley OTM

Dom - a twat as per usual

if only dom had been the one assassinated by his own security detail!!!

Try to keep personal slams against other posters to a minimum, and if you start not enjoying it take a break rather than try to stop other people enjoying it too. That's all fairly obvious really.

Are we to believe that Hitchens had never, while penning his pro-war pieces, stopped for a moment to consider that his support might actually contribute to the death of an American soldier?

I can totally believe it because the vast majority of flag-waving preeners going on about the war only seem to care about 'the troops' as a malleable abstract, of no greater worth than Risk tokens. And very little over the past five years leads me to think otherwise.

it gets a lil bit jaggery in the self-serving bullshit but its still more honest & outside of hitchens' comfort zone than maybe anything ive read from him

I guess I'm just having trouble untangling his conclusion. Hitchens didn't begin his support for the war as an idealistic kid (or did he?). Is he really admitting he was wrong or is he just disappointed that the war hasn't gone as well as he thought it would? Maybe he respectfully wants to withhold that conclusion from what works out to be an admittedly fine obituary for a soldier. I guess I can appreciate that part of it, but not without being angry at Hitchens for being so blind thus far.

Hitchens didn't begin his support for the war as an idealistic kid (or did he?).

Most emphatically, and he doesn't think it was wrong either. Like you wrote, it's a fine obituary and in part a reminder to himself that, as banal as it sounds, words have consequences -- something Mr. Hitchens should have understood in 2002.

I can't help but feel that the subtext is that people who take Orwell and Thom Paine with them to Iraq aren't the ones that are supposed to die, even if Hitch himself is missing that.

Sorry, I'm feeling a lot of rage and frustration come up right now after about five years of repression. We should probably go back to talking about Pakistan.

(This just in, on CNN: Pakistan government says it has "intercepted a message from militant leader Mesud, claminng responsibilty": "intercepted"? "Oh yeah, it was sweet, guys! I tell ya, the best part was when--" Gov also says it wasn't bullets, she hit her head on the sunroof!Seriously. Gee,the doctors said it was the bullet through the neck. Oh well.) The thing I get from commentary by Pakistani journalists and long-term Western riesidents too is that the Pakistani intelligence services, military and civilian, have had a lot to do with "the rise of the mullahs," as Sahib Hitchens puts it, and the ongoing rise and fall and rise again of the Taliban, not that they're always in control, but, for instance, I wonder if some government elements might not have facilitated this assasination, in order to get rid of B. and of Musharraf. The militants and their manipulators and/or sympathisizers (prob more of the latter in Pakistan's intelligence services than in the general public, where miltiants' approval ratings are reportedly about 1%) have been ceded their own turf in Pakistan as in several other countries, including our dear allies, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

Sorry, that last part was supposed to be something about own turf in several countries, especially P and S. A.--tlaking about co-existence and where they're not the dominant elements, but a significant influence.

i thought the hitchens piece was really good but i was pretty uncomfortable with this bit here.

Well, here we are to perform the last honors for a warrior and hero, and there are no hysterical ululations, no shrieks for revenge, no insults hurled at the enemy, no firing into the air or bogus hysterics

Couldn't resist a little jab at the guys we're liberatig

liberating

Couldn't resist a little jab at the guys niggers we're liberatig

yeah, basically. The "n" was stuck on my keyboard so I couldn't type the "n" word.

Horrible photo series, but somehow extremely touching and important and stuff:

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/html/world/20071227_BHUTTO_FEATURE/index.html

Al Qaeda denies they did it, by the way.

oh, and er...

http://assets.gva.be/Albums/GvA/Cartoons/slides/071228Q.JPG

O_o

the night of the assassination the BBC used Sajjan Gohel as their talking head. It was one of the clearest, most even-handed analyses I've heard in a long, long time, although I'm admittedly no expert on Pakistani politics. Although he didn't point any fingers, the conclusion was pretty clear -- that of all the possible suspects, "terrorists" had probably the least to gain from Bhutto's death and factions within Pakistan's military/intelligence community the most. And Musharaf's position was reasonably unclear - he probably has less control over the military than he did, and the continuing unrest is actually only making it weaker.

It reminds me a lot of the assassination of Litvinenko in London, when people pointed their fingers at Putin personally, but it seems far more likely that someone lower down actually initiated the operation, working from the premise that the higher-ups would "in their heart of hearts" be pleased that someone had made a show of strength, especially since they/he could deny all knowledge.

Pakistan is a scary place.

Bhutto aides promote conspiracy theory that the government's claims that Al Qaeda did it are propaganda!

Bhutto Aides Reject Terrorists To Blame For Murder
Unrest Following Assassination Threatens To Disrupt National Election Process
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CBS News) ― An Islamic militant group said Saturday it had no link to Benazir Bhutto's killing, dismissing government claims that its leader orchestrated the assassination.

Bhutto's aides also said they doubted militant commander Baitullah Mehsud was behind the attack on the opposition leader and accused the government of a cover-up.

As Bhutto's supporters rampaged across the country, Pakistan's election commission called an emergency meeting for Monday to discuss the violence's impact on Jan. 8 parliamentary elections.

Nine election offices in Bhutto's southern Sindh province were burned to the ground, along with voter rolls and ballot boxes, the commission said in a statement. The violence also hampered the printing of ballot papers, training of poll workers and other pre-election logistics, the statement said.

The U.S. government, which sees nuclear-armed Pakistan as a crucial ally in the war on terror, has pushed President Pervez Musharraf to keep the election on track to promote stability, moderation and democracy in Pakistan, U.S. officials said.

Prime Minister Mohammedmian Soomro said Friday the government had no immediate plans to postpone the election, despite the violence and the decision by Nawaz Sharif, another opposition leader, to boycott the poll.

Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party also called a meeting Sunday to decide whether to participate in the vote.

On Saturday, roads across Bhutto's southern Sindh province were littered with burning vehicles, smoking reminders of the continuing chaos since her assassination Thursday. Factories, stores and restaurants were set ablaze in Pakistan's biggest city, Karachi, where 17 people have been killed and dozens injured, officials said.

Army, police and paramilitary troops patrolled the nearly deserted streets of Bhutto's home city of Larkana, where rioting left shops at a jewelry market smoldering.

Sharif led a 47-member delegation of other opposition leaders to meet with Bhutto's family to express condolences, said Sadiq ul-Farooq, spokesman for Sharif's party.

Musharraf called Bhutto's husband, Asif Ali Zardari, promising to make every effort to bring the attackers to justice, state-run Pakistan Television reported.

The government blamed Bhutto's killing on al Qaeda and Taliban militants operating with increasing impunity in the lawless tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan. It released a transcript Friday of a purported conversation between Mehsud and another militant, apparently discussing the assassination.

"It was a spectacular job. They were very brave boys who killed her," Mehsud said, according to the transcript.

Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema described Mehsud as an al Qaeda leader who was also behind the Karachi bomb blast in October against Bhutto that killed more than 140 people.

But the government's revelations raise more questions than they answer, reports CBS News correspondent Sheila MacVicar. If they could record this conversation, why were they unable to reach the suspects in time to stop the attack?

A spokesman for Mehsud, Maulana Mohammed Umer, denied the militant was involved in the attack and dismissed the allegations as "government propaganda."

"We strongly deny it. Baitullah Mehsud is not involved in the killing of Benazir Bhutto," he said in a telephone call he made to The Associated Press from the tribal region of South Waziristan.

"The fact is that we are only against America, and we don't consider political leaders of Pakistan our enemy," he said, adding that he was speaking on instructions from Mehsud.

Mehsud heads Tehrik-i-Taliban, a newly formed coalition of Islamic militants committed to waging holy war against the government, which is a key U.S. ally in its war on terror.

Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party accused the government of trying to frame Mehsud, saying the militant - through emissaries - had previously told Bhutto he was not involved in the Karachi bombing.

"The story that al Qaeda or Baitullah Mehsud did it appears to us to be a planted story, an incorrect story, because they want to divert the attention," said Farhatullah Babar, a spokesman for Bhutto's party.

After the Karachi attack, Bhutto accused elements in the ruling pro-Musharraf party of plotting to kill her. The government denied the claims. Babar said Bhutto's allegations were never investigated.

Bhutto was killed Thursday evening when a suicide attacker shot at her and then blew himself up as she left a rally in the garrison city of Rawalpindi near Islamabad. The attack killed about 20 others as well. Authorities initially said she died from bullet wounds, and a surgeon who treated her said the impact from shrapnel on her skull killed her.

But Cheema said she was killed when she tried to duck back into the armored vehicle during the attack, and the shock waves from the blast smashed her head into a lever attached to the sunroof, fracturing her skull, he said.

The government said it was forming two inquiries into Bhutto's death, one to be carried out by a high court judge and another by security forces.

On Saturday, about half a dozen police investigators were still sifting through evidence and taking measurements at the scene of the attack. More than a dozen officers diverted traffic and provided security for the investigators.

Mobs continued to wreak havoc across the country for a third day. Business centers, gas stations and schools were closed and many roads were deserted.

Rioters in Karachi set fire to three factories, a restaurant, two shops and several vehicles, said Ehtisham Uddin, a local fire official. Doctors at hospitals in the city said 26 people were wounded overnight by gunshots, many of them fired by protesters.

Karachi police chief Azhar Farooqi said 17 people were killed in the city in the violence and other officials said dozens were injured. Police arrested 250 people, Farooqi said. More than two dozen people have been killed nationwide, officials said.

Attackers opened fire at a motorcade of Bhutto's supporters as they headed back to Karachi after her funeral, killing one man and wounding two others, said Waqar Mehdi, a spokesman for Bhutto's party.

Thousands of Bhutto supporters spilled onto the streets after a prayer ceremony for her in Rawalpindi, throwing stones and smashing windows.

Desperate to quell the violence, the government sent troops into several cities. Soldiers patrolled several Karachi neighborhoods Saturday, and residents complained of shortages of food and gasoline.

Burned out vehicles littered the road from Larkana to Karachi, and hundreds of people tried to hitch rides along the route. Protesters burned tires, and markets were deserted.

Train service in parts of the south were suspended because "of the bad law and order situation," a rail official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Democracy Now show on the subject with Tariq Ali and historian Manan Ahmed

http://www.democracynow.org/2007/12/28/pakistan_in_turmoil

In this video Bhutto casually mentions that Bin Laden was killed by Omar Sheikh:

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/december2007/281207_said.htm

(I don't normally read prisonplanet.com incientally, but found a link and am most concerned with the video itself.)

It's pretty interesting in general, since she talks about who she thinks would most likely be responsible for her assassination if she were assassinated. (This is a David Frost interview, incidentally, not anything outre. At least I think he is considered mainstream, I don't really know him.)

I just saw another website where someone says, well maybe she meant Daniel Pearl and it was a slip of the tongue. Maybe. A bit odd considering that Pearl wasn't mentioned in the interview (you see those sort of mix-ups fairly often, two names being repeated a lot, and then getting crossed) and Pearl isn't in the same "category" as Bin Laden (e.g., Bush's gaffe of saying Sadam Hussein when he meant Osama Bin Laden, or vice versa).

Robert Fisk: They don't blame al-Qa'ida. They blame Musharraf
Published: 29 December 2007
Weird, isn't it, how swiftly the narrative is laid down for us. Benazir Bhutto, the courageous leader of the Pakistan People's Party, is assassinated in Rawalpindi – attached to the very capital of Islamabad wherein ex-General Pervez Musharraf lives – and we are told by George Bush that her murderers were "extremists" and "terrorists". Well, you can't dispute that.

But the implication of the Bush comment was that Islamists were behind the assassination. It was the Taliban madmen again, the al-Qa'ida spider who struck at this lone and brave woman who had dared to call for democracy in her country.

Of course, given the childish coverage of this appalling tragedy – and however corrupt Ms Bhutto may have been, let us be under no illusions that this brave lady is indeed a true martyr – it's not surprising that the "good-versus-evil" donkey can be trotted out to explain the carnage in Rawalpindi.

Who would have imagined, watching the BBC or CNN on Thursday, that her two brothers, Murtaza and Shahnawaz, hijacked a Pakistani airliner in 1981 and flew it to Kabul where Murtaza demanded the release of political prisoners in Pakistan. Here, a military officer on the plane was murdered. There were Americans aboard the flight – which is probably why the prisoners were indeed released.

Only a few days ago – in one of the most remarkable (but typically unrecognised) scoops of the year – Tariq Ali published a brilliant dissection of Pakistan (and Bhutto) corruption in the London Review of Books, focusing on Benazir and headlined: "Daughter of the West". In fact, the article was on my desk to photocopy as its subject was being murdered in Rawalpindi.

Towards the end of this report, Tariq Ali dwelt at length on the subsequent murder of Murtaza Bhutto by police close to his home at a time when Benazir was prime minister – and at a time when Benazir was enraged at Murtaza for demanding a return to PPP values and for condemning Benazir's appointment of her own husband as minister for industry, a highly lucrative post.

In a passage which may yet be applied to the aftermath of Benazir's murder, the report continues: "The fatal bullet had been fired at close range. The trap had been carefully laid, but, as is the way in Pakistan, the crudeness of the operation – false entries in police log-books, lost evidence, witnesses arrested and intimidated – a policeman killed who they feared might talk – made it obvious that the decision to execute the prime minister's brother had been taken at a very high level."

When Murtaza's 14-year-old daughter, Fatima, rang her aunt Benazir to ask why witnesses were being arrested – rather than her father's killers – she says Benazir told her: "Look, you're very young. You don't understand things." Or so Tariq Ali's exposé would have us believe. Over all this, however, looms the shocking power of Pakistan's ISI, the Inter Services Intelligence.

This vast institution – corrupt, venal and brutal – works for Musharraf.

But it also worked – and still works – for the Taliban. It also works for the Americans. In fact, it works for everybody. But it is the key which Musharraf can use to open talks with America's enemies when he feels threatened or wants to put pressure on Afghanistan or wants to appease the " extremists" and "terrorists" who so oppress George Bush. And let us remember, by the way, that Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter beheaded by his Islamist captors in Karachi, actually made his fatal appointment with his future murderers from an ISI commander's office. Ahmed Rashid's book Taliban provides riveting proof of the ISI's web of corruption and violence. Read it, and all of the above makes more sense.

But back to the official narrative. George Bush announced on Thursday he was "looking forward" to talking to his old friend Musharraf. Of course, they would talk about Benazir. They certainly would not talk about the fact that Musharraf continues to protect his old acquaintance – a certain Mr Khan – who supplied all Pakistan's nuclear secrets to Libya and Iran. No, let's not bring that bit of the "axis of evil" into this.

So, of course, we were asked to concentrate once more on all those " extremists" and "terrorists", not on the logic of questioning which many Pakistanis were feeling their way through in the aftermath of Benazir's assassination.

It doesn't, after all, take much to comprehend that the hated elections looming over Musharraf would probably be postponed indefinitely if his principal political opponent happened to be liquidated before polling day.

So let's run through this logic in the way that Inspector Ian Blair might have done in his policeman's notebook before he became the top cop in London.

Question: Who forced Benazir Bhutto to stay in London and tried to prevent her return to Pakistan? Answer: General Musharraf.

Question: Who ordered the arrest of thousands of Benazir's supporters this month? Answer: General Musharraf.

Question: Who placed Benazir under temporary house arrest this month? Answer: General Musharraf.

Question: Who declared martial law this month? Answer General Musharraf.

Question: who killed Benazir Bhutto?

Er. Yes. Well quite.

You see the problem? Yesterday, our television warriors informed us the PPP members shouting that Musharraf was a "murderer" were complaining he had not provided sufficient security for Benazir. Wrong. They were shouting this because they believe he killed her.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article3291600.ece

that of all the possible suspects, "terrorists" had probably the least to gain from Bhutto's death and factions within Pakistan's military/intelligence community the most.

well yeah but it's not like there's a great ol' firewall between the scare-quotes terrorists and the scare-quotes intelligence community.

ouch.

http://existentialistcowboy.blogspot.com/2007/12/benazir-bhutto-us-policy-causes-world.html

(longish article, contains video of the two men who shot at her and then blew themselves up)

One Oxbridge graduate down, 100,000 to go.

-- Dom Passantino, Thursday, December 27, 2007 3:48 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark Link

lololol

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7165052.stm

Kid is fucked.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44327000/jpg/_44327058_bil_afp203.jpg

Future leader of Pakistan, or ALLINDEVILFISH666 from PartyPoker.com?

I'm assuming he'll be more of a figurehead than anything else? Otherwise I might question the wisdom of hurling someone the same age as L0u1s J@gger into one of the most prominent, significant and dangerous positions in the political world.

Christ that's a terrifying bit of perspective.

jagger in

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7165052.stm

He already enjoys shooting :-/

Last week, Mr. Siegel said, he e-mailed Ms. Bhutto to tell her he had heard that their publisher, HarperCollins, was pleased with the book the two had just turned in, “Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy and the West.” He received a happy response from Ms. Bhutto by BlackBerry. “Which we called her ‘crackberry’ because she was so addicted to it,” Mr. Siegel said.

lolololol global village

he always travels with a .45 and a hip flask.

in this Modern LondON we must always strive for a better tomorrow. together we can extend cycle paths and counter the everpresent threat of pollution. the future's bright, the future's JGO

The Future's just got offed?

oh.

the future just got offed go home nothing to see here

OK.

http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/F/firstworldwar/img/biog_afranz.jpg

Bhutto’s Deadly Legacy

By WILLIAM DALRYMPLE
New Delhi

WHEN, in May 1991, former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi of India was killed by a suicide bomber, there was an international outpouring of grief. Recent days have seen the same with the death of Benazir Bhutto: another glamorous, Western-educated scion of a great South Asian political dynasty tragically assassinated at an election rally.

There is, however, an important difference between the two deaths: while Mr. Gandhi was assassinated by Sri Lankan Hindu extremists because of his policy of confronting them, Ms. Bhutto was apparently the victim of Islamist militant groups that she allowed to flourish under her administrations in the 1980s and 1990s.

It was under Ms. Bhutto’s watch that the Pakistani intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, first installed the Taliban in Afghanistan. It was also at that time that hundreds of young Islamic militants were recruited from the madrassas to do the agency’s dirty work in Indian Kashmir. It seems that, like some terrorist equivalent of Frankenstein’s monster, the extremists turned on both the person and the state that had helped bring them into being.

While it is true that the recruitment of jihadists had started before she took office and that Ms. Bhutto was insufficiently strong — or competent — to have had full control over either the intelligence services or the Pakistani Army when she was in office, it is equally naïve to believe she had no influence over her country’s foreign policy toward its two most important neighbors, India and Afghanistan.

Everyone now knows how disastrous the rule of the Taliban turned out to be in Afghanistan, how brutally it subjected women and how it allowed Al Qaeda to train in camps within its territory. But another, and in the long term perhaps equally perilous, legacy of Ms. Bhutto’s tenure is often forgotten: the turning of Kashmir into a jihadist playground.

In 1989, when the insurgency in the Indian portion of the disputed region first began, it was largely an amateur affair of young, secular-minded Kashmiri Muslims rising village by village and wielding homemade weapons — firearms fashioned from the steering shafts of rickshaws and so on. By the early ’90s, however, Pakistan was sending over the border thousands of well-trained, heavily armed and ideologically hardened jihadis. Some were the same sorts of exiled Arab radicals who were at the same time forming Al Qaeda in Peshawar, in northwestern Pakistan.

By 1993, during Ms. Bhutto’s second term, the Arab and Afghan jihadis (and their Inter-Services Intelligence masters) had really begun to take over the uprising from the locals. It was at this stage that the secular leadership of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front began losing ground to hard-line Islamist outfits like Hizbul Mujahedeen.

I asked Benazir Bhutto about her Kashmir policy and the potential dangers of the growing role of religious extremists in the conflict during an interview in 1994. “India tries to gloss over its policy of repression in Kashmir,” she replied. “India does have might, but has been unable to crush the people of Kashmir. We are not prepared to keep silent, and collude with repression.”

Hamid Gul, who was the head of the intelligence agency during her first administration, was more forthcoming still. “The Kashmiri people have risen up,” he told me, “and it is the national purpose of Pakistan to help liberate them.” He continued, “If the jihadis go out and contain India, tying down their army on their own soil, for a legitimate cause, why should we not support them?”

Benazir Bhutto’s death is, of course, a calamity, particularly as she embodied the hopes of so many liberal Pakistanis. But, contrary to the commentary we’ve seen in the last week, she was not comparable to Myanmar’s Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. Ms. Bhutto’s governments were widely criticized by Amnesty International and other groups for their use of death squads and terrible record on deaths in police custody, abductions and torture. As for her democratic bona fides, she had no qualms about banning rallies by opposing political parties while in power.

Within her own party, she declared herself the president for life and controlled all decisions. She rejected her brother Murtaza’s bid to challenge her for its leadership and when he persisted, he was shot dead in highly suspicious circumstances during a police ambush outside the Bhutto family home.

Benazir Bhutto was certainly a brave and secular-minded woman. But the obituaries painting her as dying to save democracy distort history. Instead, she was a natural autocrat who did little for human rights, a calculating politician who was complicit in Pakistan’s becoming the region’s principal jihadi paymaster while she also ramped up an insurgency in Kashmir that has brought two nuclear powers to the brink of war.

William Dalrymple is the author, most recently, of “The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty, Delhi, 1857.”

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

so to all who thought I "ruined" the Great Benazir's thread, apology accepted.

The Parade magazine in Sunday's paper had "Is Benazir Bhutto America's Best Hope Against Al Qaeda?" as it's cover story.

she's certainly a better hope dead than alive

http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20080111/wl_mcclatchy/2812898

thanks smartmobbers

SHOCK

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/2448590/Key-Benazir-Bhutto-assassination-witness-shot-dead.html

"There is a possibility that his killing could be linked to his status as a witness, although investigations are still underway."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20110104/us_ac/7527964_salmaan_taseer_assassinated_over_opposition_to_pakistans_blasphemy_law

More trouble in Pakistan.