Pakistan's Flawed and Feudal Princess

Re: # 313
This is fake....

I found this picture of Benazir when she was in Oxford floating on the internet. I have shown this pic. to my professional photographer friend, he said that the picture is 99.9% genuine and it also seems to be real in my opinion. You people wanna give your feedback.

http://www.despardes.com/articles/sep06/20060908-bb-hameed.htm

"The challenge for the people is not to let Mohtarma’s supreme sacrifice go in vain. She died for the people and for their inalienable right to be the masters of their own destiny. Her mission must be accomplished. Let us focus on reverting to a genuine democratic order.

Democracy will be the best revenge for her tragic death."(Shamshad Ahmad - DAWN)

Indeed!

Ras writes "She was a lot more than your view of her."

Slogans wont do, care to elaborate. She was no institution shatterer like her father, for her power and deal making were of greater importance, when she decided not to play she was very easily eliminated because she didn't understand that you never put your trust in the shaitan and its minions....

RE: 307

She was a lot more than your view of her.

Just like her father she was betrayed.

Re: # 305 Masadi what you have written is correct more than half words population has less than 1 dollar/ day.
I am told usa govt buys food from farmers and destroys and bury in dumps so there is scarity of food world wide and then they can charge more for food. I always wonder what is point in growing so much food and paying farmers and then destroying huge chuck so food goes costly and poor suffer. USA is NOT friend of Pakistan which BB did not appreciate and when there is scarity of wheat and aata etc in Karachi , usa can get real good reputation if they give wheat which they are destroying. Some times usa govt actions are strange to understand , they gave over 1 billion dollrs to army instead if they donatede say 200 million dollars worth of whaet mr. Bush can get good wishes but they will not do but burn wheat to warm water. USA is strange country.

Re: # 306 Can Muslim or muslima can parctice Yoga which is "purely religious Indian stuff". Western up bringing destroy elemental religious taching and basics and leads to sublime liberal thinking and Shaitan controlling mind. GOI is smart has started pushing Gandhi( his movie), yoga, mediation and non veg food with catchy propaganda- what is steak it is dead killed animals and animals are friends and friends do not eat friends, Hare krishna movement.It was shocking to read two times of Prime Minister Pakistan followed induian cult like yoga and copy muscle action of animals like cat. dogs, snake and what not.Things are changing too much for old person like me.

Ras mian enough with the BB worship, she was coming through for the people at the very end that is about all, through the rest of her political career she became part of undoing the great work of her father. In fact she was not smart enough not to put her trust in the Shaitan that got rid of her in the end nor the mini shaitan she married...

To give William's poor article a sendoff on CHOWK...

From The News International (Jang Group) today.


A ruler of hearts

Saturday, January 19, 2008
Dr Javaid Laghari

My friend, my sister, my mentor, my leader, I was fortunate to be associated with her, leading a university named after her father, of which she was the chancellor. Having the privilege of travelling with her around the world, I wish to share her unique leadership qualities.

What is the difference between a politician and a leader? A politician asks for sacrifices, a leader gives one. She gave the ultimate sacrifice for her nation. One does not need power to be a leader. A leader needs followers, and she had plenty of them, even when out of power. How many prime ministers, presidents and generals can claim that? Power does not make leaders. History and followers do.

Determined to succeed and deliver the agenda of moderation and reform, she had the drive to put Pakistan onto the right track. Far bolder than any male leader, she told the Afghan president hours before her tragic assassination on December 27 that "life and death is in the hands of Allah, and that is why I have the courage to stare in the eyes of death without any fear."

Her star power and striking beauty made her more charismatic than Princess Diana and John Kennedy combined. Her sophistication and diplomacy established a large network of friends and admirers around the world. At the World Political Forum in Italy in 2003, when she walked into the conference hall, almost forty world leaders stood up and applauded her. She would stop a conversation or an activity just by walking into a room. She lectured regularly at universities globally where she would dazzle a large audience.

Intelligent, wise, well-educated and well-read, her favourite shopping at airports were bestsellers, autobiographies, history and leadership books. Within minutes she would devour every newspaper on a flight. Her photogenic memory would remember every meeting and everyone by name. She was a genius and a decision maker. While others would fumble for weeks strategizing party policies, she would analyze the situation within seconds and come up with a creative solution and new directives. When reflecting over disagreements, time would tell she was always right. Her other interests in life included feng shui, astrology, health and nutrition. A talking computer and walking encyclopaedia, she had multi-tasking abilities. Very well-organized, disciplined, and punctual, she could bring any management guru to shame. She spent countless hours on the PC and the blackberry. Working with her on the election manifesto, each document was ripped apart with ink. The final manifesto is a full credit to her creative abilities, spelling out the five Es: employment, education, energy, environment and equality.

Empathetic, compassionate, generous and kind, she supported hundreds of desperate individuals and families around the country, people unknown or heard of, except through an email received. Once she received an email from a critical patient with six unmarried daughters, requesting a major hospital expense. With tears in her eyes, she opened her purse and asked to see the money reached its destination. I have witnessed tears in her eyes when talking of the assassination of her father and two brothers, and of the plight of the poor.

Hospitable and caring, she would remember her friends, relatives and admirers wherever she was and send them gifts regularly. I recall once in Germany, our attendant driver was stunned to receive the same gift from her which she had asked him to help choose for someone else.

A strong believer of reconciliation, she would forgive and forget. Many have accused her wrongly of adopting this policy of forgiving her father's killers, and recently of reconciling with the existing setup, but for democracy she believed in healing hearts and forging unity. She was not vengeful. One can now see this reflection in Bilawal when in his first public address to the media after his mother's assassination he stated that "democracy is the best revenge".

When at home, she would exclusively dedicate her time to her children--discussing their interests in life as well as relating her own experiences. She would spend weekends with her family as well and take care of her ailing mother. Spiritual and pious, she offered prayers, did walks, practised yoga, went shopping and had a craving for chocolate and ice cream.

She was a jewel in the crown, a royalty who ruled hearts. This country will never be the same without her, at least for this generation. Bibi is gone but her legacy will continue.



The writer is vice-president of SZABIST and a PPP senator. Email: jlaghari@gmail.com.

chalta writes "Human life spans, wealth, health have all gotten better since wwII"

BS we have argued this before, neither the wealth in the possession of the vast majority nor life expectancy nor health have increased for the very vast majority, more people are dying today unnecessarily than ever before in the history of the world, wealth disparity is at an all time high with a tiny elite possessing more wealth than whole continent full of people. Half the world fully 50% lives on less than $2 a day, with a large percent of them on less than $1 a day. What fools BS world of US propaganda are you living in?

tahmed writes " You on the other hand make up convenient stories and accusations as you come to chowk to spread your misery by abusing, lying, accusing anyone who challenges your absurd attempts at demonizing the US."

Nonsense, whenever I accuse this demon of anything I back it up with facts. Because of this shaitan we have to live in a world full of misery where the few rule. Regarding whose payroll you're on, you sure as hell act as in your groveling as if you were on their payroll, you defend the bastards with your life and honor. Regarding your retirement, it is no secret here. You have thus far not been able to refute anything I have said because what I say are facts open for all to see, for example take your absurd contention that the US is an "open society" when it is the most higly rule rigged and regulated society where the little guy is kept in check and control through a thousand ways while its elite are free to do what they want the world over in their mad rampage...

#300 masadi: "I present facts to back up all my assertions, facts that you cannot handle."

No you dont. Your posts below are a pack of lies as is usual for you. You made the false accusation that I was on the US payroll (with the obvious implication that I the reason I challenge your attempts at demonizing the US is because I get paid to spend my time doing that), and when challenged quickly changed your story to say I used to be on the US payroll before I retired!! How do you know I am retired? How do you know I was "on the US payroll"? OF course you pulled these out of thin air.

I try to base what I write on what I know and no more. You on the other hand make up convenient stories and accusations as you come to chowk to spread your misery by abusing, lying, accusing anyone who challenges your absurd attempts at demonizing the US.

#299 Posted by masadi on January 16, 2008 12:17:47 pm


that was for building and library purposes


and with your own copy of C. Wright Mills and karl marx, you never have to step into the library anyway...

Masadi, you are wrong on every count...the only people decrying the us led global growth are islamists and closet communists. You are the love child of the two....and frankly an exceptionally poor quality product at that.

Human life spans, wealth, health have all gotten better since wwII. The idiotic socialistic policies of the soviets and indians and chinese made their citizens poor.hungry, sick and wanting to be more like America. It is the model that has proven it works. That is why BRICs are booming while you are spooning the carcass of a dead nobody like Cw mills.

tahmed " that says nothing about the US."

It does say a lot about the US, the personification of all that is evil in humanity, and all that is barbarous and murderous on a global level...

tahmed writes "while you can parrot mullah terrorists in calling the US a shaitan - that says nothing about the US."

I present facts to back up all my assertions, facts that you cannot handle. Further I have never received a single dime from the shaitan, you have been before your retirement...I do not work for any institution currently that receives funding from US aid, even when I did I was being paid out of student fees and not US aid period, that was for building and library purposes only and not for paying faculty.

chalta don't be jealous of my much superior intellect to your drivel

Poor Masadi can't come to the terms with his eviction from the US. now just froths at the mouth while watching billions of people leveraging the benefits of open markets, globalization, flow of capital improve their lives. A guy like Masadi could only find a home in pakistan. If he ever set foot in India or china, he would be tarred and feathered and sent home on a donkey..that would be the first time an ass would be riding a donkey! :-)

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i dont quite see how william dalrymple is qualified to write about pakistan, pakistani politics, or even the PPP and benazir bhutto for that matter. how long did william spend in pakistan to be able to write about Pakistan's "flawed" princess? how many Pakistanis did he meet and interview to be able to do it other than meeting members of a certain class with whom he socializes with in London? Did Mr. Dalrymple leave Karachi, Lahore, and Islamabad and go to the real Pakistan to see what kind of emotion and support the Bhutto name invokes? While he is a brilliant historian and writer, Mr. Dalrymple's rant comes across as a writer who is carving out a niche as a "South Asian" specialist which he clearly is not. this is the 21st century, Mr. Dalrymple not Bahadur Shah Zafar's 17th century. You can fool some people sometimes but you cant fool all the people all the time to quote Bob Marley.

masadi #293: "others however, on the payroll of this shaitan, like tahmed"

First, I am not on US payroll. You are!! By your own admission you work for an institution funded partly by US-AID. I brought this to your attention first time, and you demonstrated your usual hypocrisy by saying where your payroll comes from is none of your concern.

Second, while you can parrot mullah terrorists in calling the US a shaitan - that says nothing about the US.

So - keep lying, and keep abusing. That is all you can do.

HP writes "Haathi kay daant khanay kay aur Dikhana kay aur."

Well stated. The world fortunately (as revealed by numerous polls) has come to understand the haathi and is not moved by its "democracy talk". It has begun to see the US elite as the personification of the ugly, dog ugly or butt ugly evil that it personifies. Even its own people have come to recognize its shenanigans. There are others however, on the payroll of this shaitan, like tahmed who know what the truth is but deliberately try to pervert it in order to harm the people, even the people of his own country, and then talks and looks all concerned about them even as he is stabbing them in the back. That is why I totally detest and hate his kind of people. You should give him the hell he deserves because you know where he is coming from rather than the politeness that does not befit his kind...

"LAHORE: Nawaz Sharif and Fazlur Rehman are among the prime targets of terrorists ahead of the February 18 elections, caretaker federal Interior minister Lt Gen (r) Hamid Nawaz Khan told Dawn News television channel on Tuesday.

Khan said Ejazul Haq, Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao and Amir Muqam could also be hit.

He declined to name the suspects saying it might jeopardise efforts for their arrest." (daily times monitor)

I won't decline to name them -- they are the two Chaudry brothers. HOW COME you don't see their names (NEVER EVER) in the the terrorist'S threat lists -- even that wretch SOZ EjazulHuque is there -- but the two illegitimate sons of Musharraf are either so worthless they never make the list of anything -- or they ARE the Terrorists.

#289 tahmed writes "masadi: i gave you a chance to provide a reasoned response to the two questions i raised, rather than your usual abuse and accusations. And you were unable to do that"

More lies from this peon of the West. What HP has written in #282, I had written in different words more or less in my posts responding to your so-called questions. Yet you accept HPs answer and then try your dishonesty at perverting it by blaming the "general" and the not the military without which no general can pull a coup, a military that receives blessings and praise for the coups from the US. Then you compare Bush and Gore knowing full well that the broad features of US foreign policy and its rampant militarism during clinton was more or less the same as that during Bush. Clinton bombed Iraq for no reason long before Bush decided to invade it and were the Gore group to pull of the elections, they would have done the same given elite agenda at the time. US policies have been detrimental to the globe post WW2, ask the people of Vietnam, of Afghanistan, of Pakistan, of the many countries of Latin America and even the Soviet Union that has gone now, ask Iraq and Iran, ask the Palestinians. You look at US occupied Japan and the liar that you are you want to present that as justification for US barbarism around the globe just as you were doing in your cheerleading for the Iraq war in 2003. You, tahmed are a disgrace to humanity. Who the hell gave the US permission to go lording it over the rest of the world at the force of arms? Tell me is it the democratic spirit or rampant militarism a larger scale version of the Pakistan military gone amok on a global level...

In my opinion, Zardari had to do something with Benazir's killing.

Who was the beneficiary of Benazir's life insurance?
Who got to keeo over $1.5Bn looted by this couple?
Who got the chairmenship of PPP by deivering the fabricated WILL?

The people around Benazir's were hand picked by her, herself, some of them were close buddies of Zardari, whom he spent time when he was in jail.

Why Benazir had to come out of the Sunroof, its like sitting on a Duck, and asking shooter to shoot. Its like target finding the bullet itself, this is ridiculous on Benazirs part and she paid the price for that.

Again, Why Zardari does not want Scotland Yard to investigate, something is Fishy !!! Zardari should be the # 1 suspect of assassination, as all the evidence is pointing towards Zardari.

Now the leadership of PPP has been snatched by Zardaris from Bhuttos, as Zardari has successfully removed Murtaza Bhutto first during the tenure of Benazir and now killing Benazir to put the last nail in the coffin.

masadi: i gave you a chance to provide a reasoned response to the two questions i raised, rather than your usual abuse and accusations. And you were unable to do that. Thus proving that you use abuse and lies and false accusations to hide the emptiness behind your intellectual pretensions.

HP #282

On 1, I agree basically with your reading of the history of Pakistan-US relations. Two points for your attention thought. You need to pin responsibility for Pakistan's successive coups where it belongs first and foremost - the general concerned who came to power. That is, it is not the US that commits coups, it is not even the Pakistan army at large - it is the top general who actually committed the coup d'etat's starting with Ayub, who have committed the ultimate crime. Unless we start pinning responsibility where it belongs, and bringing the general to face justice rather than letting him off the hook once he is out of power, this vicious cycle of military coups will continue. Because the next general will know that worst case he will rule Pakistan for 5-10 years, become rich and famous, and then live out his remaining days playing golf (as Musharraf is now presenting as his option). The other option is to retire like generals in normal countries like India or the US and live out their lives like ordinary citizens. Where is the incentive for the next ambitious general to not abuse his powers if we are to talk generalities about "US global interests" and "Pakistan's needs" and so forth??


On 2., the term "US global interests" can mean very different things depending on the context, and is often used in Pakistan in a negative sense. However, an objective look at history will show that on balance US global interests have had a very positive influence on humanity at large - whether it is the end of kingships in the 19th century europe, or the successful struggles against fascism in World War II or against communism during the cold war, or today - against mullahism. If the US has taken a wrong stand - as in case of the environment under Bush, its free and highly educated society has also turned out world leaders like Gore to speak on behalf of the cause that benefits all humanity. It is this self-correcting mechanism that makes the US model of an open society that rests on broad principles the most successful in the world the past two centuries.

Re: # 285

This is exactly what I have been saying ..... the terror tap is controlled by the mullahs, ISI and the military...... the double game is called taquiya..... remember what Mush talked about the Battle of Badr in refernce to his U turn - he was refering to the temporary roll back till the jehadis are empowered....... now his Jehadis are empowered............they are going to use democracy to win the Pakistan........
Pakistan first ...... then the PAki nukes...... then the rest of the world!!!
ISlam would dominate the world with PAki nukes and terror!!

"It was difficult to image any of her neighbouring heads of state- even India’s earnest Sikh economist, Manmohan Singh, talking like this."
What the heck is a Sikh economist? How is one different from other economists?

where is the apologists for benazir, nasah?

like i said..i used to think the only paki who doesn't support islamic terrorism is a dead paki...now i'm not even sure about the dead paki...


January 15, 2008
Militants Escape Control of Pakistan, Officials Say
By CARLOTTA GALL and DAVID ROHDE

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan’s premier military intelligence agency has lost control of some of the networks of Pakistani militants it has nurtured since the 1980s, and is now suffering the violent blowback of that policy, two former senior intelligence officials and other officials close to the agency say.

As the military has moved against them, the militants have turned on their former handlers, the officials said. Joining with other extremist groups, they have battled Pakistani security forces and helped militants carry out a record number of suicide attacks last year, including some aimed directly at army and intelligence units as well as prominent political figures, possibly even Benazir Bhutto.

The growing strength of the militants, many of whom now express support for Al Qaeda’s global jihad, presents a grave threat to Pakistan’s security, as well as NATO efforts to push back the Taliban in Afghanistan. American officials have begun to weigh more robust covert operations to go after Al Qaeda in the lawless border areas because they are so concerned that the Pakistani government is unable to do so.

The unusual disclosures regarding Pakistan’s leading military intelligence agency — Inter-Services Intelligence, or the ISI — emerged in interviews last month with former senior officials who have knowledge of the inner workings of the ISI. The disclosures confirm some of the worst fears, and suspicions, of American and Western military officials and diplomats.

The interviews, a rare glimpse inside a notoriously secretive and opaque agency, offered a string of other troubling insights likely to refocus attention on the ISI’s role as Pakistan moves toward elections on Feb. 18 and a battle for control of the government looms:

¶One former senior Pakistani intelligence official, as well as other people close to the agency, acknowledged that the ISI led the effort to manipulate Pakistan’s last national election in 2002, and offered to drop corruption cases against candidates who would back President Pervez Musharraf.

A person close to the ISI said Mr. Musharraf had now ordered the agency to ensure that the coming elections were free and fair, and denied that the agency was working to rig the vote. But the acknowledgment of past rigging is certain to fuel opposition fears of new meddling.

The two former high-ranking intelligence officials acknowledged that after Sept. 11, 2001, when President Musharraf publicly allied Pakistan with the Bush administration, the ISI could not rein in the militants it had nurtured for decades as a proxy force to exert pressure on India and Afghanistan. After the agency unleashed hard-line Islamist beliefs, the officials said, it struggled to stop the ideology from spreading.

¶Another former senior intelligence official said dozens of ISI officers who trained militants had come to sympathize with their cause and had had to be expelled from the agency. He said three purges had taken place since the late 1980s and included the removal of three ISI directors suspected of being sympathetic to the militants.

None of the former intelligence officials who spoke to The New York Times agreed to be identified when talking about the ISI, an agency that has gained a fearsome reputation for interfering in almost every aspect of Pakistani life. But two former American intelligence officials agreed with much of what they said about the agency’s relationship with the militants.

So did other sources close to the ISI, who admitted that the agency had supported militants in Afghanistan and Kashmir, although they said they had been ordered to do so by political leaders.

The former intelligence officials appeared to feel freer to speak as Mr. Musharraf’s eight years of military rule weakened, and as a power struggle for control over the government looms between Mr. Musharraf and opposition political parties.

The officials were interviewed before the assassination of Ms. Bhutto, the opposition leader, on Dec. 27. Since then, the government has said that Pakistani militants linked to Al Qaeda are the foremost suspects in her killing. Her supporters have accused the government of a hidden hand in the attack.

While the author of Ms. Bhutto’s death remains a mystery, the interviews with the former intelligence officials made clear that the agency remained unable to control the militants it had fostered.

The threat from the militants, the former intelligence officials warned, is one that Pakistan is unable to contain. “We could not control them,” said one former senior intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “We indoctrinated them and told them, ‘You will go to heaven.’ You cannot turn it around so suddenly.”

The Context

After 9/11, the Bush administration pressed Mr. Musharraf to choose a side in fighting Islamist extremism and to abandon Pakistan’s longtime support for the Taliban and other Islamist militants.

In the 1990s, the ISI supported the militants as a proxy force to contest Indian-controlled Kashmir, the border territory that India and Pakistan both claim, and to gain a controlling influence in neighboring Afghanistan. In the 1980s, the United States supported militants, too, funneling billions of dollars to Islamic fighters battling Soviet forces in Afghanistan through the ISI, vastly increasing the agency’s size and power.

Publicly, Mr. Musharraf agreed to reverse course in 2001, and he has received $10 billion in aid for Pakistan since then in return. In an interview in November, he vehemently defended the conduct of the ISI, an agency that, according to American officials, was under his firm control for the last eight years while he served as both president and army chief.

Mr. Musharraf dismissed criticism of the ISI’s relationship with the militants. He cited the deaths of 1,000 Pakistani soldiers and police officers in battles with the militants in recent years — as well as several assassination attempts against himself — as proof of the seriousness of Pakistan’s counterterrorism effort.

“It is quite illogical if you think those people who have suffered 1,000 people dead, and I who have been attacked thrice or four or five times, that I would be supportive towards Taliban, towards Al Qaeda,” Mr. Musharraf said. “These are ridiculous things that discourages and demoralizes.”

But some former American intelligence officials have argued that Mr. Musharraf and the ISI never fully jettisoned their militant protégés, and instead carried on a “double-game.” They say Mr. Musharraf cooperated with American intelligence agencies to track down foreign Qaeda members while holding Taliban commanders and Kashmiri militants in reserve.

In order to undercut major opposition parties, he wooed religious conservatives, according to analysts. And instead of carrying out a crackdown, Mr. Musharraf took half-measures.

“I think he would make a decision when a situation arises,” said Hasan Askari Rizvi, a leading Pakistani military analyst, referring to militants openly confronting the government. “But before that he would not alienate any side.”

There is little dispute that Pakistan’s crackdown on the militants has been at best uneven, but key sources interviewed by The Times disagreed on why.

Most Western officials in Pakistan say they believe, as Pakistani officials, including President Musharraf, insist, that the agency is well disciplined, like the army, and is in no sense a rogue or out-of-control organization acting contrary to the policies of the leadership.

A senior Western military official in Pakistan said that if the ISI was covertly aiding the Taliban, the decision would come from the top of the government, not the agency. “That’s not an ISI decision,” the official said. “That’s a government-of-Pakistan decision.”

But former Pakistani intelligence officials insisted that Mr. Musharraf had ordered a crackdown on all militants. It was never fully carried out, however, because of opposition within his government and within ISI, they said.

One former senior intelligence official said that some officials in the government and the ISI thought the militants should be held in reserve, as insurance against the day when American and NATO forces abandoned the region and Pakistan might again need them as a lever against India.

“We had a school of thought that favored retention of this capability,” the former senior intelligence official said.

Some senior ministers and officials in Mr. Musharraf’s government sympathized with the militants and protected them, former intelligence officials said. Still others advised a go-slow approach, fearing a backlash against the government from the militants.

When arrests were ordered, the police refused to carry them out in some cases until they received written orders, believing the militants were still protected by the ISI, as they had been for years.

Inside the ISI, there was division as well. One part of the ISI hunted down militants, the officials said, while another continued to work with them. The result was confusion.

In interviews in 2002, Kashmiri militants in Pakistan said they had been told by the government to maintain a low profile and wait. But as Pakistani military operations in the tribal areas intensified, along with airstrikes by C.I.A.-operated drones, militant groups there issued highly charged and sometimes exaggerated accounts of women and children being killed.

The first suicide bombing attack on a military target outside the tribal areas came days after an airstrike on a madrasa in the tribal area of Bajaur in October 2006 killed scores of people.

Another turning point came last July when Pakistani forces stormed the Red Mosque in Islamabad, where militants had armed themselves in a compound less than a mile from ISI headquarters and demanded the imposition of Islamic law. Government officials said that more than 100 people died. The militants have insisted that thousands did.

Several weeks later, militants carried out the first direct attacks on ISI employees. Suicide bombers twice attacked buses ferrying agency employees, killing 18 on Sept. 4 and 15 more on Nov. 24. According to Pakistani analysts, the attacks signaled that enraged militants had turned on their longtime patrons.

The Militant

One militant leader, Maulana Masood Azhar, typifies how extremists once trained by the ISI have broken free of the agency’s control, turned against the government and joined with other militants to create powerful new networks.

In 2000, Mr. Azhar received support from the ISI when he founded Jaish-e-Muhammad, or Army of Muhammad, a Pakistani militant group fighting Indian forces in Kashmir, according to Robert Grenier, who served as the Central Intelligence Agency station chief in Islamabad from 1999 to 2002. The ISI intermittently provided training and operational coordination to such groups, he said, but struggled to fully control them.

Mr. Musharraf banned Jaish-e-Muhammad and detained Mr. Azhar after militants carried out an attack on the Indian Parliament building in December 2001. Indian officials accused Jaish-e-Muhammad and another Pakistani militant group of masterminding the attack. After India massed hundreds of thousands of troops on Pakistan’s border, Mr. Musharraf vowed in a nationally televised speech that January to crack down on all militants in Pakistan.

“We will take strict action against any Pakistani who is involved in terrorism inside the country or abroad,” he said. Two weeks later, a British-born member of Mr. Azhar’s group, Ahmed Omar Sheikh, kidnapped Daniel Pearl, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal who was beheaded by his captors. Mr. Sheikh surrendered to the ISI, the agency that had supported Jaish-e-Muhammad, and was sentenced to death for the kidnapping.

After Mr. Pearl’s killing, Pakistani officials arrested more than 2,000 people in a crackdown. But within a year, Mr. Azhar and most of the 2,000 militants who had been arrested were freed. “I never believed that government ties with these groups was being irrevocably cut,” said Mr. Grenier, now a managing director at Kroll, a risk consulting firm.

At the same time, Pakistan seemingly went “through the motions” when it came to hunting Taliban leaders who fled into Pakistan after the 2001 American invasion of Afghanistan, he said.

Encouraged by the United States, the Pakistanis focused their resources on arresting senior Qaeda members, he said, which they successfully did from 2002 to 2005. Since then, arrests have slowed as Al Qaeda and other militant groups have become more entrenched in the tribal areas.

Asked in 2006 why the Pakistani government did not move against the leading Taliban commander Jalaluddin Haqqani, and his son Sirajuddin, who are based in the tribal areas and have long had links with Al Qaeda, one senior ISI official said it was because Pakistan needed to retain some assets of its own.

That policy haunts Mr. Musharraf and the United States, according to American and Pakistani analysts. Today Pakistan’s tribal areas are host to a lethal stew of foreign Qaeda members, Uzbek militants, Taliban, ISI-trained Pakistani extremists, disgruntled tribesmen and new recruits.

The groups carried out a record number of suicide bombings in Pakistan and Afghanistan last year and have been tied to three major terrorist plots in Britain and Germany since 2005.

Mr. Azhar, who once served his ISI mentors in Kashmir, is thought to be hiding in the tribal area of Bajaur, or nearby Dir, and fighting Pakistani security forces, according to one former intelligence official. Militants who took part in the Red Mosque siege in Islamabad in July were closely affiliated with Mr. Azhar’s group. This fall, his group fielded fighters in the Swat Valley, the famous tourist spot, where the militants presented a challenge of new proportions to the government, seizing several districts and mounting battles against Pakistani forces that left scores dead.

One militant from a banned sectarian group who joined Mr. Azhar’s group, Qari Zafar, now trains insurgents in South Waziristan on how to rig roadside bombs and vests for suicide bombings, according to the former intelligence official.

Cooperation against the Taliban fighting in Afghanistan has improved since 2006, and three senior Taliban figures have been caught, according to Western officials and sources close to the ISI. Yet doubts remain about the Pakistani government’s intentions.

Senior provincial ISI officials continue to meet with high-level members of the Taliban in the border provinces, according to one Western diplomat. “It is not illogical to surmise that cooperation is on the agenda, and not just debriefing,” the diplomat said.

“There are groups they know they have lost control of,” the Western diplomat added. But the government moved only against those groups that have attacked the Pakistani state, the diplomat said, adding, “It seems very difficult for them to write them off.”

The Agency Now

Western officials say that before Mr. Musharraf resigned as army chief in December, he appointed a loyalist to run the ISI and appears determined to retain power over the agency even as a civilian president.

“For as long as he can, Musharraf will keep trying to control these organizations,” a Western diplomat said. “I don’t think we should expect this man to become an elder statesman as we know it.”

That puts Mr. Musharraf’s successor as army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, who headed the ISI from 2004 to 2007, in a potentially pivotal position. General Kayani, a pro-American moderate, is loyal to Mr. Musharraf to a point, according to retired officers. But he will abandon him if he thinks Mr. Musharraf’s actions are significantly undermining the standing of the Pakistani army.

Mr. Musharraf will maintain control over the agency as long as his interests coincide with General Kayani’s, they said, while the new civilian prime minister who emerges from February’s elections is likely to have far less authority over the agency. Opposition political parties already accuse the agency of meddling in next month’s election. The Western diplomat called the ISI “the army’s dirty bag of tricks.”

Since Ms. Bhutto’s assassination, members of her party have accused government officials, including former ISI agents, of having a hidden hand in the attack or of knowing about a plot and failing to inform Ms. Bhutto.

American experts played down the chances of a government conspiracy against Ms. Bhutto. They also said it was unlikely that low-level or retired officers working alone or with militants carried out the attack.

But nearly half of Pakistanis said in a recent poll that they suspected that government agencies or pro-government politicians had assassinated Ms. Bhutto. Such suspicion stems from decades of interference in elections and politics by the ISI, according to analysts, as well as a high level of domestic surveillance, intimidation and threats to journalists, academics and human rights activists, which former intelligence officials also acknowledged.

Pakistani and American experts say that distrust speaks to the urgent need to reform a hugely powerful intelligence agency that Pakistan’s military rulers have used for decades to suppress political opponents, manipulate elections and support militant groups.

“Pakistan would certainly be better off if the ISI were never used for domestic political purposes,” said Mr. Grenier, the former C.I.A. Islamabad station chief. “That goes without saying.”

Pakistani analysts and Western diplomats argue that the country will remain unstable as long as the ISI remains so powerful and so unaccountable. The ISI has grown more powerful in each period of military rule, they said.

Civilian leaders, including Mrs. Bhutto, could not resist using it to secure their political aims, but neither could they control it. And the army continues to rely on the ISI for its own foreign policy aims, particularly battling India in Kashmir and seeking influence in Afghanistan.

“The question is, how do you change that?” asked one Western diplomat. “Their tentacles are everywhere.”

The mullahs are back in reckoning .......BB is eliminated......Mush is now a civilian and even he cannot control the Jehadi tap.....the rhetoric against mullahs has been subdued.......

mullahs are back......Jehad is now on full swing in Pakistan....Shariat is only inevitable........every Pakistani men must start throwing off their razors..........women must start looking at the latest designs of Burqas......

Masadi sahib,

(My analysis was spot on, it was not wrong. You and that peon of the West tahmed need to read more carefully...)

You started claiming that BB was bumped off by US only after she was actually bumped off. Had your analysis been spot on you would have PREDICTED that BB wud be bumped off.

Your analytical techniques at best try to explain waht happened, not what is likely to happen. By contrast HP sain did predict even b4 her assassination that something BIG was going to happen.

Regards

#222 Posted by tahmed32

“1. Is the US influence due to some evil intent on the part of the US, or is it necessitated by conditions created in Pakistan by ambitious, lawless dictators? Why is US influence not an issue in neighboring India or Turkey or indeed any other democratic country in the world?”

The US influence in Pakistan is not something new that I need to go into the history to trace that. Still, Pakistan is hooked up with the US since at least 1954 when Pakistan signed Defense pacts with the US. Pakistan and the US relations are never of equal and they cannot be as Pakistan is pretty much dependent on US aid, both military and financial. I don’t know what is evil and what is not but the US certainly has global interests and Pakistan does not. If Pakistan supports the US in its Global interest then only evil would come out of it like the aftermath of the afghan war. I don’t know if you would qualify that as evil but I would!

Every country in the world is different and they create relationships with larger powers based on their national interests. India did not have a close relationship with the US. India was allied with the SU. Now India is changing pattern and the first thing it gets tied into is the nuke agreement which is more satisfying to US goals than of Indian. Turkey along with Israel forms the alliance that the US has in the Middle East. We have yet to see any positive role played by Turkey in the Middle East. Turkey too is tied up with the US in multiple alliances. Obviously, like Pakistan, Turkey too does not have many global ambitions but it sides with the US in its all adventures. Most of the blame, as you said, goes to the Pakistan army which for its own nefarious designs to control the country and it resources, made Pakistan reliant on the US aid alone.

2. What is the nature of this US influence?... The US government - even the Bush government with all its faults - echoed the CJ's call for free and fair elections…. These are issues that are understood in the US even by Bush (who is the sole head of state i know who has echoed the CJ's call for free and fair elections) because these are issues that the US revolutionaries themselves fought for two centuries ago.”

Yes, on paper all this looks good. But when the US ignores the CJ dismissal, ignore the emergency, presses Pakistan politicians to work with the Army, discount the suspension of the Supreme Court, has no input as to why the CJ is still under house arrest, agrees with the election postponement even before the Pak government announced it. Suggested that UN investigations are not required even before the Pakistan government said no then you wanna question the motives. The US at this time only wants to work with the army and how is that supporting the democracy in Pakistan? There are many more instances of the US love for democracy in Pakistan. The US supported Zia UL Haq, The US supported Ayub dictatorship. I guess you would call that love for democracy but I wouldn’t.
Haathi kay daant khanay kay aur Dikhana kay aur.

tahmed writes "i shall be back later to check your work. So, calm down, think hard, and give me a proper answer."

The fool thinks that by repeating his falsehood he can prove something. Read our debates of the past, he always claims this bs, then puts his tail between his legs and runs off. The people here are not fools they understand what the US stands for viz a viz the Third World, they also understand that each country is different in it geostrategic importance to the US and hence the level and pattern of interference is different. For Pakistan that curse filled interference occurs through the military, in Turkey the situation is much the same though not as intense, a pretense of democracy is allowed though the military can still get rid of the civilian government under the guise of protecting the constitution...

tahmed writes "We" in this case is Turkey and the US, and the speaker is the elected Prime Minister Turkey, Abudullah Gul. Now you go tell the 60 million or so Turks why you are smarter than them and why Gul is a peon of the west."

Rhetoric based on master symbols of democracy for mass public consumption is no new trick that is used by those wanting to deceive their public. Abdullah Gul knows very well what "Values" the US elite espose when they talk to his military directly trying to subvert democracy as they were doing prior to the Iraq war and as this very man was complaining. Listen carefully and listen well there is NO value that the US elite and by extension their public espouse more than the value of money making and money grabbing, based on that value all other "values" are up for manipulation and sale...

masadi: quit stalling - go back re-read my post #222 where the two questions are listed. then come back and give me a substantive answer (no gibberish, no abuse). i shall be back later to check your work. So, calm down, think hard, and give me a proper answer.

tahmed writes "SO my questions remain unanswered"

Not a single point of your distractions trying to distract away from US interference in Pakistan by throwing out other countries (which are different to Pakistan in many ways)were ignored by me. Tell us WHICH question remained unanswered, not a single one but liars like you are masters at deception. Know for a fact that were it not for US support for dictatorship in Pakistan and the Pakistan military, dictatorship of that kind would have long passed from Pakistan.

masadi: and while you are busy trying to provide a substantive answer (as opposed to gibberish and as opposed to abuse and accusations) to #276, look what another peon of the west said this week: "We share the same values -- democracy, human rights, the functioning of the free market. We are working together jointly for the same goals in the region."

"We" in this case is Turkey and the US, and the speaker is the elected Prime Minister Turkey, Abudullah Gul. Now you go tell the 60 million or so Turks why you are smarter than them and why Gul is a peon of the west. I am sure they will be so impressed they will overthrow the government and appoint you Ataturk II. Except of course, Ataturk was a peon of the west too by your definition.

#273 masadi: you achieved a miracle - you managed to write a post without abuse. It nevertheless remains true to your usual hypocrisy - you start by boldly declaring that everything I wrote is untrue. And then try to back this by writing a load of gibberish that does not even add up to an argument, even a weak one.

SO my questions remain unanswered. Try again.

Zeemax writes "Unless it was with inside involvement"

Read my point on Zardari

Majumdar writes "Are you implying that it is the USA which got rid of BB? But this is being wiser after the event, isn't it? After all prior to BB's assassination you were always insisting that it wud be Mush who wud be got rid off with " a Hellfire shoved up his **** ". But as it is it was not Mush but BB who cud bumped off.

You have to admit, Masadi sahib, that for once you failed in your analysis"


Less than a day after the event I wrote the piece, which became my ilog in which I accuse the US in collusion with the Pakistan Army of getting rid of the BB. That was not "after the event" in that no evidence of anykind had yet come forth and my analysis was based on my understanding of the US/Pakistan Army shenanigans and events preceding that event.

Regarding the Musharraf claim of the US aiming a hellfire for his a$$, that was clearly in the context of him giving up his uniform. If he had not taken it off in private i.e. voluntarily (as I had stated) then the US will strip him in public (via the hellfire). So since he took it off in private the situation for the latter didn't arise. My analysis was spot on, it was not wrong. You and that peon of the West tahmed need to read more carefully...

tahmed writes "There is nothing I wrote in #222 that is factually untrue or unreasonable"

Everything you wrote in 222 is either factually untrue (it does not take God to dominate the Pakistan Army and is unreasonable (comparing India and Turkey to Pakistan when the US indeed does interfere in both of their affairs but because of different histories, different geographies there is variation in that interference. India has just allowed the US in, after keeping clear of it unlike Pakistan and like I have said before, if it were not for them getting their dirty work done through Pakistan, India would have had several US inspired military coups in its short history post partititon as well. The US routinely interferes with the Turkish military to the extent of using it to go against its democratic setup. No country that has military bases in far away foreign lands and dictates its will at the point of the Gun, as the US does can have any claims to be democratic or meaning others well. It is just a spoiled brat of a country that knows nothing of decency or human rights for that matter. Regarding singing the democracy song while subverting it as fact, as it does routinely in Pakistan, only fools the likes of you will take that "song" and make a whole hamd o naat of the objects of your worship around it.

By the way, I did not refer to Sohail as Jabba the Hut, that reference, if you can learn how to read, was in response to Hamid alleging that no woman would like to come within ten feet of me. It was directed at Hamid

tahmed32,

I firmly believe the only thing which can still save Pakistan is the 1973 constitution, in its original form. That Constitution is Pakistan.

#270r responds to fuzair #268

and amen to that ("agree that PM should go").

except that: instead of "apres moi, le deluge" (as every damned dictator claims), let us hope this time it will be "apres musharraf, Pas plus de dictateurs" (after musharraf, no more dictators). and perhaps even "sic semper tyrannis" (with a proper trial that educates would-be general-presidents never again to abuse their official powers to destroy the constitution. and let the military generals realize what the nation is begging them: "Do us a favor: dont do us any more favors".

#260 Posted by fuzair,

Yes I have asked this question before that what happened to the 5,000 strong 'Jaanisaran-e-Benazir' force which Rehman Malik had raised to form a cordon? Many of whom died in the Karachi bomb? None of them could be seen in Liaquat Bagh.

Yes it was a huge security failure from Benazir's own security detail. I still can't figure out how? Unless it was with inside involvement.

Benazir, poor woman, was just carried away with people's emotions, and left her security in others' hands. I suspect she was betrayed.

Tahmed,

Not that I've been following this whole mess minute by minute but the news report seem to clearly indicate that the body was always with the PPP; up to and including the mobs of PPP jiyalas ransacking the hospital when they learnt she was dead.

Come on, what would the PPP's reaction have been if the govt had tried to take control of the body? How many more would have died? The Lal Masjid case is not exactly comparable but it is true that it should never have been allowed to get anywhere close to the level it did.

In any case, I agree that PM should go; he has long negated whatever good he initially may have done and is intent on dragging Pakistan down with him: l'etat c'est moi will soon become apres moi, le deluge.

Yes, it is a sad reflection of the declining capability of the state that it can't even carry out an autopsy on the most important murder victim in Pakistani history in decades.

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".

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

#245 Posted by hamidm2,

Read the Op-Ed of Kamran Shafi.

http://www.dawn.com/weekly/kamran/kamran.htm

Endpiece: The so-called intercept that the junta is touting as proof that Baitullah Mehsud ordered Benazir’s assassination is pure poppycock and nothing else. Mehsud is innocent enough to say to ‘Maulvi Sahib’: “I am at Makeen, come over, I am at Anwar Shah’s house”?!? And to ask “were they our men”? Er, if he ordered Benazir’s assassination he should know it was his men, what? I believe Baitullah; I do not believe the junta and its quite pathetic, lying minions. Baitullah did not kill Benazir.

The times are too fraught for any stupid Bushisms. Sorry.

Regards

#245 hamidm: Why not pick up those extra two pounds and er...round out...at 200? (sorry, couldnt resist that).

At my annual physical a couple of weeks ago, I told the doctor that I was planning to lose 10 pounds and become perfect - and instead of the expected applause, he laughed and said the concept of weight loss was easy, implementation was not. Now remind me why we pay these doctors... :-(

zeemax : see 246 and http://www.app.com.pk/en/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=26150 &Itemid=2

Conspiracy theory?

Agree with it and start a campaign for it to know once and for all how she died.

#244 Posted by ferozk,

Could be, but the one presented to Scotland Yard is what is commonly called a Chinese TT. I don't think that is a 9mm.

Perhaps Pavocavalry could comment.

Benezair to be exhumed!

Musharuf wants the body out and a proper autopsy carried out so that people find out how she died.

Speaking to Newsweek magazine Pakistan President Pervez Mushraff was quoted as saying that he would want to call for the exhumation of former Pak Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s body and would want to lay to rest all allegations of government's involvement in Bhutto's assassination. However, he has ruled out ordering a post-mortem without the agreement of Bhutto's family.




go here to find the interview on video

http://www.findinternettv.com/Video,item,3574946106.aspx

anil mian,

..... if i lost forty pounds as you suggest, i would look like gandhi ji (god forbid!) ...... i haven't weighed that musch since they made me run and down the hills of kakul more than thirty years ago - the kids still laugh when they look at those pictures .... as a matter of fact they say that i looked like an emaciated indian and that i should have been in the indian army ! ...... astagfirullah ! ..... but i do appreciate your concern and have been eating sushi at least three times a week since the beginnig of this year .... and in keeping with the japanese tradition i have also been consuming two-three pints of beer to wash down the sushi! ..... i don't know how the japanese pull it off ....maybe it is because they don't eat biryani and gajar ka halwa on the weekends ....

..... anyway, this discussion about my weight and looks is a lot more interesting than the silly conspiracy theories about who killed bb ......

.........i like to think that it was the jihadis because it suits my world view; mad masadi thinks it was the rockefellers, because he is a dimwith suffering from sexual anxieties; tahmed thinks it was musharraf, because he is a prophet; zeemax thinks it was the cia-mossad-raw axis with the help of a parsi killer on the payroll of tata motors and funded by the mqm ......... why? because zeemax is a complex man who likes complex things .........

re: Zeemax

I have seen the footage, but it was blurred. Judging from it, though, the pistol looks like a 9mm.

Ciao

Re: # 241

Hasan saheb,

BB had certainly changed in last 5 years. She had re-invented herself post 9/11 as a modern muslim woman ready to take on these mullahs. She had also re-invented her own version of Islam for the modern world. If she had come to power the mullahs would certainly have been decimated.
I have no doubt.
The problem is that every one has to bear the fruits of their past karmas. Some how her past mistakes caught up and the demons she supported once came back to haunt her!!

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article3177691.ece

Ciao

"In all as a hindu idolator I believe BB 's survival would have been better for Indo-Pak communal relations because she would have completely eliminated the sarkari Jehadis as well."

Laddu miaN -- now can you hammer this profound paragraph of yours on the head of that Hindu non-idolater -- that "lever" guy, Arjun miaN -- who is having difficulty from his jag jag ever since....:)