Pakistan's Flawed and Feudal Princess

Urstruly/Masadi may find this of interest:

US rejects conspiracy theories amid new revelations

ISLAMABAD: The US embassy in Islamabad has termed the reports connecting Washington to an international conspiracy behind Benazir Bhutto’s assassination “completely outrageous and unfounded” amid fresh revelations that the slain leader had established indirect contacts with Dr AQ Khan and Lt-Gen (retd) Hamid Gul shortly before her death.

US embassy spokesperson Elizabeth Colton, in response to written questions sent by The News on Wednesday, described the assassination as a tragedy for Pakistan and the whole world and said, “The suggestion of US involvement is completely outrageous and unfounded.”

Ms Colton was asked to comment on the growing perception in Pakistan that Ms Bhutto’s killing was part of an international conspiracy to which the US was said to be a leading part with the grand design of destabilising and denuclearising Pakistan.

When asked if Washington had “pressurised” Ms Bhutto to strike a deal with President Musharraf, a fact that has been confirmed by sources in her Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and also a top presidential aide, Colton said, “Our consistent interest is to see Pakistan succeed as a moderate, democratic country, led by the choice of the Pakistani people. We do not endorse particular candidates or parties. We are ready to work with whomever the Pakistani people choose to lead them.”

When her comments were sought on repeated statements of US presidential candidates raising undue apprehensions about the nuclear programme of Pakistan, she said, “Presidential candidates present a variety of opinions during the campaign seasons, but they are only that — opinions of individuals.”

When asked if the US State Department officials had asked Ms Bhutto not to talk about the restoration of the deposed judges as mentioned by some columnists here, who quoted Ms Bhutto of admitting this fact before her death, Colton said, “The status of the judges is an internal matter for Pakistan to decide. We have repeatedly urged the Government of Pakistan to protect the independence of the judiciary and freedom of the media.”

While the US embassy completely distanced itself from the growing perception in Pakistan that Islamabad was facing a serious international conspiracy to denuclearise Pakistan, a source having close relations with the slain chairperson of the PPP told this correspondent that Ms Bhutto had been punished for changing the script of the international conspirators as she wanted to save Pakistan from any damage.

The source, while referring to his meeting with Benazir shortly before her death, revealed that after her return to Pakistan ending her nine-year exile she had changed her policy and started distancing herself from what some leading world capitals wanted her to pursue.

Not only that she had developed indirect contacts with the likes of Baitullah Mehsud in South Waziristan as reported already to pursue a peaceful negotiated settlement of extremism instead of using force or letting any foreign country intervene, and also sent separate messages to both Dr AQ Khan and Hamid Gul.

The source also shared the names of two of the messengers but requested not to make these public. He said Gul, who was one of the four persons nominated by Ms Bhutto in her October 2007 letter sent to the president in case she was killed, was conveyed that Ms Bhutto was under pressure to include the former ISI chief’s name in the list.

Similarly, Dr AQ Khan, the source claimed, was conveyed to forget about her earlier statement that when in power she would give the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) access to the father of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb, who is under house arrest for more than four years.

Although, Dr AQ Khan or any of his immediate relation was not accessible to media persons to confirm such an indirect contact, the source said Benazir got back a message from the scientist, who was quoted to have said, “I consider you more than a daughter.”

Gul confirmed that he received Benazir’s message from two different sources associated with the PPP. He said he was told that Benazir did not want to include his name in the list of four, who were after her life.

The last message that he received, Gul disclosed, was delivered to him on December 24, three days before the assassination of Ms Bhutto. “The messenger told me that Benazir stated that Gen Sahib (Gul) would know what pressures she was referring to,” Gul said.

He said according to his information, Ms Bhutto had changed the script of the influential world capitals and for this very crime, she was assassinated. The former ISI chief, while offering himself for testimony before an independent commission comprising respected retired Supreme Court judges, said he had the conviction that Ms Bhutto was made a scapegoat by the international players conspiring against Pakistan.

Saying that Benazir’s killing was done in an extremely sophisticated and professional manner, he stated that to his reckoning it was a Mossad operation. He said knowing well that a popular leader like Ms Bhutto could not get along with Musharraf in the government, the international powers pressurised both sides to strike a deal. “It was nothing less than a dream theme but still done to assassinate Ms Bhutto to cause destabilisation in Pakistan.”

Referring to the statements of the US presidential candidates and the latest utterance of ElBaradei, the IAEA chief, Gul said all this was being done under the greater design against Pakistan’s nuclear programme.

PPP spokesman Farhatullah Babar, when approached, denied that Ms Bhutto had made any recent contact with Gul, adding that once Gul contacted her but she did not talk to him. He said to his knowledge, there was also no such contact made with Dr AQ Khan but he promised that he would get back to The News after ascertaining this fact from the quarters concerned.

(http://www.thenews.com.pk/print3.asp?id=12222)

Author,

When I interviewed Abdul Rashid Ghazi in the Islamabad Red Mosque shortly before his death in the storming of the complex in early July, he returned over and again to these central issues of social justice: “We want our rulers to be honest people,” he repeated. “But now the rulers are living a life of luxury while thousands of innocent children have empty stomachs and can’t even get basic necessities.”

This is the reason for the rise of the Islamists in Pakistan, and why so many people support them: they are the only force capable of taking on the country’s landowners and their military cousins.

Thank you for mentioning that great man, Abdul Rashid Ghazi. But a major correction is needed here. He wasn't democratic, because he knew democracy does not deliver social justice, and the increase of votes of the politico-Islamists in 2002 had nothing to do with social justice but everything to do with the Afghan invasion and anti-Americanism. This time around, the votes of the politico-Islamists will be much less - not more - because they have been discredited as collaborators.

What Abdul Rashid Ghazi was talking about was revolution, and that is what is inevitable after storming of Lal Masjid just as he had foretold in his last few media appearances under siege.

But it is is true this is the only force capable of taking on the firmly entrenched 'establishment', on the latter's own terms, which is 'violence', not 'votes'.

(.... nowhere hinted above they had anything to do with Benazir's assassination as she herself said many times it was not going to be them who will kill her, plus my previous post below)

excellent article!!

Would appreciate HP's comments on #1 as well since it seems to confirm his thesis at-least to the extent on US involvement in everything which goes on in Pakistan.

Thanks.

Re: # 1

zeemax,

........ since you are on a roll, do you think the americans were behid the assasination of hassan and hussain ? ......... was yazid on the cia payroll ?..... and what about jinnah's death - i heard he was poisoned ? ..... and where the heck are my car keys ? ...... i think you and masadi should get together and compare notes .......

As one commentator puts it,

Quote

All ’sins’, past ‘deeds’, ‘deals’ and ‘weaknesses’ are washed away, and she will be remembered by majority as a symbol for resistance, democracy and a champion of human rights.

Unquote

That is, it seems, the ground reality.

The author, however, must be extended credit for assessing the legancy in a rather 'realistic' manner and has most certainly managed to break off from the general trend of 'blindly praising' Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto (Shaheed)even in areas where we all knew better.

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“She spoke English fluently because it was her first language. She had an English governess, went to a convent run by Irish nuns, and rounded off her education with degrees from Harvard and Oxford”.
I read, write and speak English fluently, was taught by the same Presentation Nuns in school (the school fee even now is a miserly Rs. 1,000/. Then it was Rs.15 and she was the Foreign Minister’s daughter. About 50% students there are subsidised). I also had a stint at Cambridge and belong to a middle class family. Where does that analogy place people like us. Mr. William Dalrymple, this is an insult.

“It was difficult to image any of her neighbouring heads of state- even India’s earnest Sikh economist, Manmohan Singh, talking like this.”
Unlike Singh, she was a young girl still in mid thirtees. Barely in twenties, she survived about eight years in jail, the major part spent in Sukkur, where the temperature in summers touches 50. She often talked like a youngster. I remember when she visited the convent as PM in 1995, she asked for the IMLI from the canteen, Little did she realise that the new generation had moved away from imli to fries and burgers.

“Benazir Bhutto was a courageous, secular, and liberal woman.”
Benazir was a brave women. She was never secular in the western sense. Yes she was very tolerant of other religions, if that is what William Dalrymple means. She was religious, offered prayers five times a day and often meditated in Tahajad. The Benazir of 2007 was a very changed lady.

“But sadness at the demise of this courageous fighter should not mask the fact that as a pro-Western feudal who did little for the poor, she was as much a central part of Pakistan’s problems, as the solution to them.”
Yes from the western perspective, she was indeed part of Pakistan’s problems for the undermentioned reasons.

1. Her father alongwith King Faisal were responsible for the oil embargo of 1973 as a result of which the Gold-Dollar Equation and Americain financial system of post WWII nearly collapsed.

2. Her Father initiated the Nuclar Program.

3. Her father between 1975-77 fostered Ahmad Shah Masood, Hikmatyar, Younis Khalis and Rabbani against the regime of Sardar Daud, who had adopted a very aggressive posture towards Pakistan. These men played the major role in the Afghan War.

4. Benazir accelerated Pakistan’s nuclear program in both her stints as PM.

5. She gave Pakistan the Missile Development Program.

6. The Taliban respected her and still respect her because of her father and Naseer Ullah Babar. Though she did not create them, they listened to her. She never made them the monsters they became. Someone else did.

7. Indeed, if she did establish contact with A Q Khan, she did the right thing.

8. She was killed for verses that sounded bad in the western perspective.

She was a woman with balls of Tungstun Carbide in a man's world

Re: # 7

arjun,

.......... are you sure that you horrible hindoos didn't do it ?

"Immediately on receipt of the news about the Lahore blast, the TV channels began discussing it. But, by and large, all discussions concentrated on two possible suspects: the United States and the “establishment” working for President Musharraf. No one named Al Qaeda and used bland ambiguity when generally referring to “certain quarters” determined to destabilise and destroy Pakistan. Reference was made to the “big power” which had “arrived in the neighbourhood” and wanted excuses to attack Pakistan to destroy its nuclear assets. There was also veiled reference to “the old enemy next door” who was said to remain set on the goal of annihilating Pakistan. No one mentioned Al Qaeda despite the fact that it too had “arrived” in the neighbourhood and had made its intentions clear about what it would do in Pakistan."

........ the problem with us fuukin pakis is that we are quick to come up with all kinds of conspiracy theories instead of admitting that we might be wet because we simply peed in our pants ..... the reason nobody blames al-qaed is because it is an arabic word and has al-lah's first name attached to it ......

#5 Posted by hamidm2,

Just answer the facts revealed in #1.

Why did she send messages to Hamid Gul as well as AQ Khan?

Unless you believe Farhatullah Babar's denial of-course.

... of-course #1 is not my opinion. It was published in The News, as well as Dawn, and the entire Urdu press.

finally the real stuff to read -- the ultimate the inevitable white trash of the South East Asian pimpled 'expertise' by Dalrymple the Dictator's Dimple from Delhi.

It had to be spread on Chowk once again -- because for journalistic authenticity one needs to wallow in the real crap -- not in the undigested vomits of the Indian and Pakistani coolie apologistas of an enlightened dictatorship in Islamabad.

Pakistan's Flawed and Feudal Princess killed on her own volition by Pakistan's Nattering Nazi Prince.

And hamidm2,

While you're pondering over my earlier questions, you might like to to tell me how either the shrapnel or the gunshots hit her (or she ducked down and hit the lever which is now mute after the footage) when both these bomber/shooter were on her left when she got hit on her right temple.

Think, before you respond.

If you carry on in your usual manner, I will need to resort to my usual 'ice cream' stories as well.

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zeemax #1 as i recall, a few short weeks ago, prior to her death, it was the US supporting her. Now that she has been killed, it is the US that did it.

Thus: In the eyes of many in Pakistan, not a bird can sing and not a bird can drop dead without the US being behind it. So, in the minds of these individuals, the US is clearly no other than Allah Himself. Some would call them such thinking stupid. Others too would call it stupid. All except these individuals themselves who think they are potential Nobel laureates.

Re: # 10

zeemax,

.... i believe farhatullah babar, but even if bb tried to contact the two criminals, so what? ...... as for aq khan, he is a common thief and a traitor and the pakistan government should have put him on trial for treason and hung him ........ hamid gul belongs in guantanamo - the man is a walking time bomb ......

....... now stop acting like a mad man ........