- Benazir Bhutto led the Pakistan People's Party (PPP)
as "chairperson for life" until her death. She was the privileged
daughter of former Pakistan President and Prime Minister, Zulfikar Ali
Bhutto, who was hanged in 1979 at the likely behest of Washington and replaced
by military dictator General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq. He later outlived his
usefulness and died in a "mysterious" plane crash CIA may have
arranged that allowed Bhutto to become Prime Minister in 1988.
-
- She sought the post to avenge her father's death and
twice held it as the first ever woman PM of an Islamic state - first from
1988 - 1990, then again from 1993 - 1996. In the end, she was too clever
by half and it cost her. She lost out thinking she'd cut a binding deal
with the Bush administration to return her to power a third time as Pervez
Musharraf's number two and fig leaf democratic face in the scheduled January
8 elections, now postponed. On November 6, she may have been right when
she returned from self-imposed exile. Like now, the country was in turmoil,
and Washington arranged a power-sharing deal (so it seemed) to restore
stability in the wake of this series of events:
-
- -- Musharraf suspended Pakistan's Chief Justice Iftikhar
Mohammad Chaudhry in March, falsely accused him of "misconduct and
misuse of authority," and used that excuse to remove a key official
likely to block his plan for another five year term as President while
illegally remaining chief of army staff (COAS) where the real power lies.
-
- -- The response was outrage from opposition parties,
lawyers organizations and human rights groups. They called the action unconstitutional
and publicly rallied against it.
-
- -- On October 6, Musharraf held a bogus election like
all others in a country where democracy is a joke. It was stage-managed
by the military, clearly unconstitutional, and Musharraf won all but five
parliamentary votes and swept the Provincial Assembly balloting.
-
- -- Afterwards, Pakistan's Supreme Court said no winner
could be declared until it ruled if Musharraf could run for office in his
joint COAS capacity. Constitutionally, he can't, protests erupted, the
country has been in turmoil since, and Musharraf lost all credibility;
-
- -- That was Bhutto's chance to return, again serve in
the post she twice before held, and she thought her Washington allies arranged
it. Maybe yes or maybe not. It didn't matter that she was being used -
to be a democratic face and fig leaf adjunct to Musharraf's dictatorship,
but whatever was then clearly changed by December 27 without Bhutto's knowledge.
Now she's gone, and Musharraf nominally transferred his army chief post
to close ally General Ashfaq Kayani last November. He also lifted a six
week long state of emergency in mid-December ahead of the scheduled January
8 elections, now postponed after Bhutto's assassination until February
18 as of this writing.
-
- Today, she's bigger in death than life, spoken of reverentially
as a populist, and her 19 year old son, Bilawal (in school at Oxford),
now heads the PPP as its figurehead leader and third generation family
dynasty standard-bearer with his father, Asif Zardari, co-party chairman
and de facto chief. More on him below.
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- Who Was Benazir Bhutto and Why Is She Important
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- Who was this woman, why the worldwide attention, and
why another article with so many written and more likely coming? Bhutto
was an aristocrat, privileged in every respect, and raised in opulence
as the Harvard and Oxford-educated daughter of a wealthy landowning father
who founded Pakistan's main opposition party (Pakistan Peoples Party -
PPP) that Bhutto headed after his death.
-
- While in office, she was no democrat in a military-run
nation since its artificial creation in 1947. Elections, when held, are
rigged, and the army runs things for Washington as a vassal state in a
nation called a military with a country, not a country with a military.
Its Army strength is 550,000, its Air Force and Navy 70,000, and 510,000
reservists back them with plenty of US-supplied weapons for the "Global
War on Terrorism."
-
- Today, FBI agents freely roam the streets, the Pentagon
operates out of Pakistan military bases, and it has de facto control of
its air space as part of the Bush administration's permanent state of war
"that will not end in our lifetime." Pakistan is a client state,
but what choice does it have. Post-9/11, Deputy Secretary of State Armitage
warned Musharraf to comply or be declared a hostile power and "bombed
back to the stone age." He got the message and a multi-billion dollar
reward as well.
-
- Bhutto knows the game, too, and the New York Times explained
that she "always understood Washington more than Washington understood
her" in a feature December 30 article called "How Bhutto Won
Washington." Her relationship began in the spring of 1984 on her first
"important trip" to the Capitol. At the time, she tried to persuade
the Reagan administration it would be better served with her in power,
but to do it she had to overcome her father's anti-western reputation.
With considerable help she succeeded by assuring congressional members
she was on board and supported Washington's proxy war on the Soviet Union
in Afghanistan.
-
- Faults aside, she had her attributes, and The Times called
her "completely charming," very beautiful, and a woman "who
could flatter the senators," understand their concerns, and better
serve US interests than the man who hanged her father, General Zia-ul-Haq.
At the same time, she began working with the Democratic National Committee's
Executive Director, Mark Siegel, who later lobbied for her government when
she was Prime Minister. Early on, he walked her through the halls of Congress,
helped her develop relationships, and made her understand that to get along
she had to go along.
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- She caught on fast, and it made her Prime Minister in
December, 1988 after she ran for the post, won a plurality but not a majority,
and got Reagan administration officials to arrange with Pakistan's acting
President to have her form a government. According to a Washington insider,
it was the "direct result of her networking, of her being able to
persuade the Washington establishment, the foreign policy community, the
press, the think tanks, that she was a democrat," a moderate, and
that she backed the US Afghanistan agenda against the Soviets. Public rhetoric
aside, she was on board ever since, but she paid with her life by not understanding
how Washington operates: like other rogue states - using leaders and aspiring
ones, then discarding them.
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- In the end, it didn't matter that she twice survived
dismissal from office on corruption charges or that she managed to co-exist
with her country's military and intelligence service (ISI) that deeply
mistrusted her. Until her luck ran out, she maintained ties to Washington
and key members of the press. She politicked well and "understood
the nature of political life, which is to stay in touch with (key) people
whether you're in or out of office" and let them know you back them.
-
- Like others of her stature, she also relied on a PR firm
to arrange meetings with the powerful and had plenty of resources to do
it. She "kept up her networking," but she paid with her life.
She tried to convince Washington that Musharraf's "war on terrorism"
failed, she could do it better as a loyal ally, and she would eliminate
extremist elements (meaning the Taliban and Al-Queda) by a determined effort
to maintain pressure.
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- It sounded good but was risky and dangerous. Pakistan's
army opposes it, especially in the ranks; a stepped-up effort assures a
huge public outcry; disrupting the Taliban benefits India; and trying and
failing might embolden their forces as the US occupation learned in Afghanistan.
In the end, Washington and Pakistan's ISI may have concluded Bhutto was
more a liability than an asset and had to go. Things came to a head on
December 27, she's now a martyr, and larger than life dead than alive.
-
- It wasn't that way as Prime Minister, however, when her
tenure was marked by nepotism, opportunism, scheming, corruption, poor
governance and selling out to the West. Her early popularity faded, especially
when word got out about her businessman husband's dealings. Asif Zardari
was known as "Mr. Ten Percent" (by some as "Mr. Thirty Percent")
because he demanded a cut from deals as the Prime Minister's spouse and
in some cases wanted more.
-
- He was also reportedly into drugs trafficking and was
investigated for it. With his wife in power, he amassed billions including
what he stole in public funds that was even excessive by Pakistan standards
and enough to get the country's President to sack Bhutto after 20 months
in office. Whether personally culpable or not didn't matter. As Prime Minister,
she made her husband a cabinet minister, gave him free rein to dispense
favors in return for kick-backs, had to know about them, there was no evidence
she objected, and she enjoyed the riches in office and thereafter.
-
- In spite of it, Bhutto got a second chance. She returned
as Prime Minister in 1993 for another three years, but was again dispatched
on even greater corruption and incompetence charges than in her first term
- this time by President Farooq Leghari, a member of the PPP and someone
she thought was an ally. He certainly had cause as the amount stolen earlier
was prologue for the fortune she and her husband (as Minister of Investment)
amassed in her second term.
-
- It was enough to get Transparency International, an independent
watchdog group, to name Pakistan the second most corrupt country in the
world in 1996 (Bhutto's last year in office). It also got her convicted
in Switzerland of money laundering and bribe-taking and made her a fugitive
with charges pending in Spain, Britain and her native Pakistan. That was
until Musharaff signed a US-brokered "reconciliation ordinance,"
absolved her of all outstanding offenses, and allowed her to run for Prime
Minister a third time as part of a power-sharing deal with her as number
two.
-
- Bhutto's earlier tenure had another notable feature as
well. It was when Pakistan's military and ISI established the Taliban with
covert CIA help. The link still exists, and at a September, 2006 Senate
Foreign Relations Committee hearing, General James Jones, former NATO Supreme
Commander (who oversaw US-NATO Afghanistan operations), testified that
it was "generally accepted" that Taliban leaders operated out
Quetta, Pakistan, the capital of Baluchistan province bordering Afghanistan
and Iran.
-
- Musharraf and other Pakistani officials deny it, but
there's no hiding the facts or that nothing of consequence happens in Pakistan
without Washington's knowledge and/or consent. It's also no secret that
Pakistan's ISI is a CIA branch, and their regional activities are closely
linked. Bhutto was on board, but what choice did she have.
-
- All along, she was a daughter of privilege, acted like
one, and enjoyed the good life the way billions allow. Today, the major
media lionize her, but omit her dark side: as Prime Minister, she lusted
for power, was arrogant and contemptuous, ignored the poor and Pakistani
women, allowed outrageous laws to be enforced, gave the Army free reign
including over nuclear weapons, and considered Pakistan her personal fiefdom.
Her home was a $50 million mansion on 110 acres, and she ruled like a feudal
overlord. The family still owns a 350 acre UK estate complete with helipad
and polo pony stables, a mansion in Dubai, two Texas properties, six in
Florida, more homes in France and large bank accounts strategically stashed
around the world, including in the US and France.
-
- From the time of her father's death to her own, Bhutto
had close ties to Washington, the CIA, Pakistan's military, its ISI, as
well as to the Taliban (established in her second term), "militant
Islam" and Big Oil interests. She was a servant of power and pocketed
billions for her efforts. In the end, she lost out and paid with her life
on December 27.
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- Who Killed Bhutto and Why
-
- Bhutto's now dead, shot in the back of the head by one
or more assassins at close range, plus the effects of a suicide bombing
that killed two dozen or more and wounded many others tightly packed around
her. It happened in Rawalpindi, "no ordinary city" as Michel
Chossudovsky explains. It's the home of Pakistan's military, its CIA-linked
ISI, and is the country's de facto seat of power. Chossudovsky adds: "Ironically
Bhutto was assassinated in an urban area tightly controlled and guarded
by the military police and the country's elite forces."
-
- Rawalpindi and the country's capital, Islamabad, are
sister cities, nine miles apart. They swarm with intelligence operatives
including from CIA, and Chussodovsky stresses that Bhutto's assassination
"was (no) haphazard event." Blaming Al-Queda misses the point,
but that's how these schemes work. They're also clearer when convincing
video is broadcast as UK's Channel 4 did on December 30. It debunked the
official story and exposed Musharraf as a liar - that Bhutto died from
a fractured skull "when she was thrown by the force of the (explosion's)
shock wave (and) one of the levers of (her car's) sunroof hit her."
-
- The video contradicts this. It shows a clean-shaven man
in sunglasses watching close by with a concealed gun and the suspected
suicide bomber behind him dressed in white. The gunman then approaches
Bhutto's car and at point blank range fires three shots. Immediately after,
the suicide bomber detonates his device, killing and wounding dozens nearby.
-
- The question then is - not who killed her, but who ordered
her killed and who profits from it? Musharraf quickly named the usual suspect
- Al-Queda but ignored what William Engdahl observed in his January 4 Global
Research article called "Bhutto's Assassination: Who Gains?"
He notes how well protected political leaders are so it's no simple task
killing them. "It requires agencies of professional intelligence training
to insure the job is done" right, and no one can reveal who ordered
it or the motive.
-
- Engdahl also states that naming Al-Queda serves Musharraf
and Washington. It increases public fear, revs up the "war on terror,"
and provides justification for it to continue. It also reinforces the Al-Queda
myth as well as "enemy number one" bin Laden, and ignores the
evidence that the CIA created both in the 1980s for the war against the
Soviets in Afghanistan. It's just as silent on the possibility bin Laden
is dead, killed (as Bhutto told David Frost last fall) by Omar Sheikh whom
the London Sunday Times called "no ordinary terrorist but a man who
has connections that reach high into Pakistan's military and intelligence
elite and into the innermost circles" of bin Laden and Al-Queda.
-
- If true, a dead bin Laden disrupts Washington's national
security doctrine that needs enemies to scare the public, eliminates "enemy
number one" as the main one, and exposes strategically released bin
Laden tapes as made-in-Washington frauds. Today, we're told that bin Laden-led
Islamic terrorists endanger the West, but at the same time we use them
for imperial gain as we did against the Soviets, in the Balkans and now
do in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and elsewhere. If Al-Queda operatives killed
Bhutto, it means Pakistan's ISI and CIA were involved, and what's more
likely than that. Forget a lone gunman theory, a lose cannon terrorist
or a sole anti-Bhutto assassin. Consider "Cui bono," examine
the evidence, and it points to Washington and Islamabad.
-
- Today in Pakistan, intrigue abounds, and the country
is destabilized as Michel Chossudovsky observes in his December 30 Global
Research article called "The Destabilization of Pakistan." Assassinating
Bhutto contributes to it, and Chossudovsky sees a US-sponsored "regime
change" ahead. Musharraf is so weak and discredited "continuity
under military rule is no long the main thrust of US foreign policy."
Musharraf's regime "cannot prevail," and Washington's scheme
is "to actively promote the political fragmentation and balkanization
of Pakistan as a nation."
-
- From it, a new political leadership will emerge that
will be "compliant," have "no commitment to (Pakistan's)
national interest," and will be subservient to "US imperial interests,
while concurrently....weakening....the central government (and fracturing)
Pakistan's fragile federal structure."
-
- It makes perfect sense as part of Washington's broader
Middle East-Central Asia agenda. Pakistan is a key frontline state, a "geopolitical
hub," with a central role to play in the "Global War on Terrorism."
It includes "balkanizing" the country Yugoslavia-style the way
it's planned for Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran - a simple divide and conquer
strategy. Chossudovsky adds: "Continuity, characterized by the dominant
role of the Pakistani military and intelligence (that worked up to now)
has been scrapped in favor of political breakup and balkanization."
The scheme is to foment "social, ethnic and factional divisions and
political fragmentation, including the territorial breakup" of the
country.
-
- It's a common US strategy with covert intelligence support,
and consider The New York Times article on January 6 called "US Considers
New Covert Push Within Pakistan" to exploit Bhutto's death. It states
that senior national security advisers (including Dick Cheney, Condoleezza
Rice and Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Michael Mullen) may "expand
the authority of the CIA and the military to conduct far more aggressive
covert operations in the tribal areas of Pakistan" against Al-Queda
and the Taliban to counteract their efforts and "destabilize the Pakistani
government."
-
- The article states that Musharraf and the military are
on board, gives the usual boiler plate reasons, but omits what's really
at stake even as it admits Musharraf is unpopular and a US intervention
could "prompt a powerful popular backlash against" both countries.
-
- Chussodovsky fills in the blanks and explains that US
strategy aims to trigger "ethnic and religious strife," abet
and finance "secessionist movements while also weakening" Musharraf's
government. "The broader objective is to fracture the Nation State....redraw
the borders of Iraq, Iran, Syria, Afghanistan and Pakistan" and replace
Musharraf in the process. He's unpopular, damaged goods and has to go.
-
- Bhutto was an unwitting part of the scheme but not the
way she planned. She thought Washington needed here, and she was right
- not as Prime Minister but as a martyr to destabilize the country and
break it up if the plan works. It may as internal secessionist elements
are strong, especially in energy rich (mostly gas) Balochistan province,
and "indications" are they're supported by "Britain and
the US." The idea is a "Greater Balochistan" by integrating
Baloch areas with those in Iran and southern Afghanistan.
-
- Chossudovsky explains that it was not "accidental
that the 2005 National Intelligence Council-CIA report predicted a 'Yugoslav-like
fate' for Pakistan" through internally and externally manufactured
"economic mismanagment." Remember also that the country split
before in 1971 when East Pakistan became Bangladesh following months of
civil war and against India that took a million or more lives. Pakistanis
may face that prospect again as US plans unfold.
-
- Future Outlook Remains Uncertain
-
- Big questions remain, and key ones are will breakup plans
work, who'll emerge with enough popular support to lead it, and will the
public go along. They've got no incentive to do it once anger over Bhutto's
death subsides, and recent polling data show overwhelming public opposition
to US or other foreign intervention that's very much part of the scheme.
In the end, their views don't count, and it may happen anyway through political
intrigue and Washington-led brute force.
-
- Reports prior to Bhutto's assassination point that way.
They suggest US Special and other forces already operate in Pakistan, and
head of US Special Operations Command, Admiral Eric Olson, arranged with
Musharraf and Pakistan's military last summer and fall to substantially
increase their numbers early this year. Involved as well is what The New
York Times reported in November that the "US Hopes to Use Pakistani
Tribes Against Al Queda" in the country's "frontier areas."
-
- The scheme is similar to the effort in Iraq's al-Anbar
province with bribes and weapons to seal a deal apparently now finalized.
US Central Command Commander Admiral William Fallon alluded to it in a
recent Voice of America interview by saying we're ready to provide "training,
assistance and mentoring based on our experience with insurgencies,"
but he left out the bribing part that's part of these deals.
-
- Where this will lead is speculation, but consider a feature
Wall Street Journal January 8 article. It's headlined "Bhutto Killing
Roils Province, Spurring Calls to Quit Pakistan" and calls Bhutto's
native Sindh province (second largest of Pakistan's four provinces) the
"Latest Fault Line In a Fractured Country; Like Occupied Territory."
-
- Mourners filed past Bhutto's grave chanting "We
don't want Pakistan," and in the wake of her death "Sindh has
been swept by nationalist rage." Many in the province are "calling
for outright independence," and support for separation has grown among
rank and file PPP members. There's even talk of an "armed insurgency"
as anger is directed against neighboring Punjab, the largest province,
and home of the military, ISI and government.
-
- The Journal quotes Qadir Magsi, head of the nationalist
Sindh Taraqi Passand movement saying...."Bhutto was the last hope
(for unity). Now this Pakistan must be broken up." The article continues
saying what's happening in Sindh is already in play in the Northwest Frontier
province where central government authority withered in recent years. In
addition, Pakistan's Army has been embroiled in Baluchistan's insurgency
for the past few years adding to overall instability. The theme of the
Journal article is that calls for unity are falling on deaf ears, and one
PPP veteran sums it up: "What we need is separation."
-
- That suits Bush administration officials fine, they're
likely stoking it, and one thing is clear. US forces are in the region
to stay, and Washington under any administration (Democrat or Republican)
intends to dominate this vital part of the world with its vast energy reserves.
The strategy appears similar to the divide and conquer one in Yugoslavia.
There it worked, but the Middle East and Central Asia aren't so simple.
Stay tuned as events will likely accelerate, the media will highlight them,
and it looks like stepped up conflict (and its fallout) is part of the
plan.
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- Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at
lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.
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