Benazir Bhutto Killed

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Apparently killed by suicide bombers in Rawalpindi at a rally - many others rumoured to be dead and injured. First the news report said she was slightly injured, then that she was seriously injured, and now they are reported she is dead. :what:

Not good news for Pakistan. Butto was recently criticised about her lack of secuirty.

Will the election still go ahead? shrug::
 
On the 0 - 10 predictability scale this one ranks 11.

Not sure where bravery and foolhardiness over lap to be honest Gal.

You hardly need to be a genius to work out whose behind it, though doubtless some more expansive conspiracy theories will develop.

I'm not sure you'd describe her as a modern great either. She was after all a deposed former President. If you seriously think she was a ray of light that was going to turn the country round? then I've got news for you, she wouldn't have made a jot of difference to what are largely engrained and intractable issues.
 
I didn`t mean ray of light in those terms, more that here was a prominant Pakistani who wasn`t a complete cnut.
 
As with Iraq, some countries are simply not ready for democracy and need the iron fist of military leadership.

The comparisons with Afghanistan are easy to make, with ungovernable regions and local warlords, but small factions are governable when you don't have to answer to an electorate. To lose a strong(ish), though unelected, leader right at the moment will simply lead to anarchy. Unfortunately the wheels are already in motion.

I expect many on here to disagree, but the bottom line is that an elected but unstable Pakistan could be far more dangerous than any other nation state in the world within a matter of years.
 
SAD....really that she died like this! But I suppose after the last attack on her, when she arrived back in the country, I suppose it was just a matter of time when this would take place...

Not forgetting through this instability they still have THE BOMB :angy: lets hope some nutter don't turn to this and use it?????????
 
Originally posted by cricketfan@Dec 27 2007, 10:20 PM
As with Iraq, some countries are simply not ready for democracy and need the iron fist of military leadership.
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I congratulate you on your bravery CF. I posted something to the same effect and decided not to submit it.

Bhutto would have been an incredibly high risk and had the capacity to plunge the country (and possibly the region in the medium term) into unimaginable instability, the consequences of which could be far more devastating than what is likely to witness.

This idea that all we need to do is encourage democracy and all the ills will be cured is the simplistic thinking of the feeble minded such as George Bush. Under certain conditions military dictatorship represents stability and continuity. Given that she'd been deposed twice previous, there was no reason to believe she wouldn't be again, and by what? and what geenie might have been let out of the bottle inbetween?

I'd be confident AQ aren't behind this, (although they will be put up thus) they probably stood to gain if she were elected. I'm sure you'll find the answer much nearer to an uneasy coalition of mutual beneficiaries closer to home (Pakistan that is, not the UK)
 
Very predictable and her death will make F**K all difference in a sewer of a country populated by sewer rats who have no value of life or anything else.
Just let them kill each other as long as the bomb is under proper control.
Democracy will never work with savages so keep the military rule as Saddam should have kept Iraq and let them deal with these vermin as he did.
 
The scenario I saw panning out was a Bhutto victory on a popular mandate based around 'poverty relief'. Needless to say, she'd fail to deliver this, whilst continuing to live an opulent personal lifestyle leading to her becoming ever more disenfranchised from her core urban support. The rural regions wouldn't support her anyway, and with elements of the military, the police, and perhaps most importantly of all, the ISI increasingly fracturing and diluting their support for her (not that the latter would have much for her anyway), her grasp on power would start to slip as the country tipped towards civil war, and divided along rural and urban lines, with a religious radical element gaining support from both halves. With the military either less willing or divided she'd lose power. The tipping point would likely come when she acquiessed to American pressure to allow them to undertake cross border activity (not that I'm so niave as to think some doesn't go on already). This would stoke up the rural tribes, and provide oxygen to the urban islamists. With the electorale apparatus in place though, and the power of the military diluted into factions, as well as the ISI, a potential vacuum would exist, where who knows what would come to power. This would have severe reprocussions for Delhi and the whole region would then sit on a knife edge. I expected such scenario to play out in about 2 or 3 years time.

It might very well be the Americans who encouraged her to seek to restore democracy, but they have a history of short term reactions to situations that create medium term Frankenstein monsters. Doubtless they felt that she offered them their best chance of taking on AQ and the Taleban? I personally think it would have rebounded and potentially plunged the country into mayhem. Instead they just might achieve managable mayhem.

There is of course another possibility, which at face value would prove fantastical, but it never pays to underestimate what devious and powerful forces are capable of. I'll save that for later, but it will be interesting to see what happens to the PPP in the next 5 days
 
Originally posted by harry@Dec 27 2007, 11:15 PM

Just let them kill each other as long as the bomb is under proper control.
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The bomb itself isn't proabably the issue. It is (or at least was) very much the Morris Marina of the ICBM world. Last time I knew, the Pakistani's couldn't even effect an attack on all of India such were the restrictions on its range. Indeed, last time they squared up against each other, Delhi was talking in terms of evacuating huge tracts of its population to the South East (out of range) and then "winning a nuclear war" :eek: Of far greater significance is the technologies and raw materials, which means their scientists need keeping on board.

Having said all that, things might have moved on since, I'm not really in the loop regarding these things any longer
 
I'd be confident AQ aren't behind this, (although they will be put up thus)
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On what basis?




As with Iraq, some countries are simply not ready for democracy and need the iron fist of military leadership
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Why not? If India can? why not aim high?


I expect many on here to disagree, but the bottom line is that an elected but unstable Pakistan could be far more dangerous than any other nation state in the world within a matter of years.
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Not true i believe. The religous nutters have stubbonly only achieved poll ratings of 7-8% in Pakistan. AQ's attack yesterday would hardly have helped their cause

There is less appetite for the fundamentlists in pakistan than is commonly believed

It might very well be the Americans who encouraged her to seek to restore democracy, but they have a history of short term reactions to situations that create medium term Frankenstein monsters. Doubtless they felt that she offered them their best chance of taking on AQ and the Taleban?
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What??? You dont think that she has a mandate and mind of her own then? You dont think that there is an appetite for democracy in Pakistan? Its just an american plot or something? Exporting this weird concept (which as it happens has proved to rather more succesfuol than alternative systems over the past 1000 years or so...but we will let that pass) to people who dont know any better

My god the left are patronising arent they?

(And isnt it always the left who see authoritinarism as a solution? Does this explain the far lefts consistent admiration (or at least non condemnation) of islamists?)

And you dont think that (especially after yesterday) quite afew Pakistanis would like to see the back of AQ and also have no appetite for the Taleban ?

I remember well the moving reaction to AQ's (yes it was them...not the jews/americans warbler) on a christian church a couple of years back, by the Pakistani population. I think it was over a million muslims that took to the street In Karachi alone


Needless to say, she'd fail to deliver this, whilst continuing to live an opulent personal lifestyle leading to her becoming ever more disenfranchised from her core urban support. The rural regions wouldn't support her anyway, and with elements of the military, the police, and perhaps most importantly of all, the ISI increasingly fracturing and diluting their support for her (not that the latter would have much for her anyway), her grasp on power would start to slip as the country tipped towards civil war
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Oh come on. Way too many assumptions.
 
Those who have been in Pakistan say that Rawalpindi is such a military area that it would be impossible to gain entry there with weapons etc unless your presence is tolerated. Therefore, there has to be a degree of collusion to this. I see no certainty that this is an AQ attack.
 
You cannot seperate the two. AQ has support within the ISI.

And it was a suicide bomb. There arent too many enthusiasts for that method of attack outside the religous nutters.
 
The ISI would have no difficulty what so ever in recruiting a suicide bomber, irrespective of AQ.

Motive - Means - and Opportunity

The ISI had a lot to lose from a Bhutto Presidency, I'm far from certain AQ did. At some point, she'd have been pressurised into allowing America to cross the border and begin operations on Pakistani soil. This will have inflamed both nationalistic sentiment and religious fervour and led to her inevitable 'removal/ killing'. In the process it would have plunged the country into a state of complete turmoil/ civil war if the military were to split, and this would create the very vacuum that AQ would profit from.

Did AQ have the means? I don't know for sure, but given the nature of the orgainisation I'd say they did, as indeed would the ISI.

Opportunity? They would certainly have been infinately easier chances to get her which AQ will have passed up. The one group that had the opportunity above all others would have been ISI, and they could easily have facilitated the delivery of an assassin.

It's difficult to know just what AQ is these days. They never have operated a traditional Western hierarchical command structure, there's is more of a spiders web based on loose inter connections facilitated, rather than commanded by a central core (I believe the word translates into 'the centre'). It's possible that some freelancer's had a go, but their historical modus operandi has been body count above targeted assasinations (which was the tell tale clue behind the Madrid bombings when Anzar tried blaming ETA, and for a few days the world's press reported it thus - the latter are much more into targetting). Since then of course we've seen unilateral affiliates such as 'AQ in Iraq' (another example of an American Frankenstein monster which they've created themselves) who've been more inclined to targetted activity.

I'd be more inclined to thing it's a patchwork of mutual interests coming together.


I'll get back to your other points later Clive (well thsoe addressed to me anyway) :D
 
It's difficult to know just what AQ is these days. They never have operated a traditional Western hierarchical command structure, there's is more of a spiders web based on loose inter connections facilitated, rather than commanded by a central core
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Always were really. But its true that there might have been overlapping interests.

It appears that AQ have made it clear that it was there work anyway. When it comes down from that bearded fat number 2 (forget his name), it usually is genuine enough.

At some point, she'd have been pressurised into allowing America to cross the border and begin operations on Pakistani soil. This will have inflamed both nationalistic sentiment and religious fervour and led to her inevitable 'removal/ killing'
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Dont buy into this at all. Firstly a new US president will almost certainly not be as gung ho as Bush. But even if it did happen, the US has previously "operated" in the far more anti western and conservative Saudi arabia with rreally only a response from the extremists. Sympathy for fundamentalism (as we saw with the Red Mosque) is not as widespread as supposed in Pakistan. I would guess that there would not be as much oppositionm internally to a geographically remote (from the cities) operation against the Taleban as supposed.

Why dont you think that a US operation against the threat of a taleban state and the associated terrorism wouldnt be welcomed by the vast majority of Pakistanis? As ive stated before the nutters have performed dismally in the polls there time and again
 
I am out of depth with discussions of major geopolitical significance, but I think I should point out that the Forum Homepage relayed the following just now.

Dec 28 2007, 07:22 PM
In: Benazir Bhutto Killed
By: clivex
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Now I know clivex can be dogmatic and absrasive, but I am sure he has an alibi.
 
Not sure whether I'm taking greater heat from Pakistan or MWDS at present, but I'll take Pakistan first.

The involvement of AQ or otherwise I've gone over.

I'm surprised they've claimed it quite so quickly. Afterall it took them weeks to acknowledge their involvement in 9/11 and Madrid, can't remember how long it took in Bali, or was that not the work of an affiliate cell?. It normally takes them about 7 - 10 days just to get video out. It's usually the case that rumours surface a few days before hand that one's been made and is being sent down the line, yet alone what might be in it. They are supposed to be holed in caves afterall, isolated, cut off and no longer using electronic communications etc, To get out some admission within 12 hours strikes me as..... well, unprecedented. Again it leads me into thinking that there's more to it than meets the eye. Was the tape already made, delivered, and ready to air? shrug::

To be honest, if they wanted to sew the seeds of uncertainty and propogate chaos, suspicion and generally add to the uncertainty and destabalisation, the smart thing to do would be to deny it!!! This would inevitably lead to feverish speculation along the lines of 'who dunit then'? Under such a scenario there would be no shortage of people willing to invent stories and point the finger at everyone and anyone. It's a poor strategic decision on their part. They'd get more publicity and noterity if they allowed a guessing game to develop. Again, it doesn't make sense.

As regards the Americans encouraging her to seek re-election? I don't think there's any dispute there surely?. It's well documented that she had a series of meetings etc seeking their support. That's not to say she hasn't got a mind of her own, she was clearly weighing the situation up. It would have been foolhardy in the extreme to return without the backing of the international community. She will have been aware for instance of what happened to Nawaz Sharif when he returned, and it was only Saudi Arabia's intervention that facilitated his safety. Without a natural ally in the region, it stood to reason she'd need to call on the US and to lesser extent the UK. Without their support she'd have stood no chance.

I'm afraid the Americans do have a history of creating Frankenstein Monsters over the medium term Clive when they seek short term solutions. If it weren't for their arming of the Mujahedin for instance (yes I did have to look the spelling up :D ) there wouldn't be a Taleban fighting the West. If it wasn't for their ill advised sortie into Iraq, there wouldn't be a group called "AQ in Iraq" and the country would remain a no go zone for the terrorists rather than a recruiting sargeant and major training centre. If they hadn't backed Saddam, sold him weapons, trained him and encourgaed him in his ambitions to invade Iran (and bankrupt his country in the process) there probably wouldn't have been a 1st Guf War, without which it's most unlikely to think they'd have been a reason to go back 10 years later.

I'm not sure why you think any decision to engage American troops on Pakistani soil would be the preserve of the incoming President (November takes office in January 2009). The Pakistani elections were scheduled for mid January 2008, which by my calculations would give Bush 10 months to start operations over the border. Why, you might even speculate that this was part of the understanding that was brokered by Bhutto in return for his support. It's not as if Musharef has been anti-American afterall, certainly not to the tub thumping Islamist rhetoric anyway. They must have had good reason for agreeing to support her, and I can't help thinking the only thing she could possibly have offered that the current regime hasn't to date, is operations on Pakistani soil. Sure they could dress her up as the democratic alternative, but no one believes America takes these sorts of risks in the name of democracy surely? They tried selling us this line over Iraq of course - freedom and democracy etc yeah right, we all fell for that one didn't we :laughing: And id anyone mention oil and family feuds? There's no end of seriously undemocratic countries who they don't even apply an economic sanction to afterall, yet alone vote for any motion to condem them etc.

Coming back to thsi idea of the incoming/ outgoing President. It has been remarkable just how much the two Bushes Presidencies have mirrored each other ultimately. Don't forget that in the last 3 weeks of George Herberts reign he gave the order to invade Somalia, and in doing so served up a googly for the incoming Clinton to play in Mogadishu. There is a precedent for an outgoing President to take a major foreign policy decision therefore in his last 20 odd days of office, and his name was Bush too.

I have spoke to few folk today who are closer to the sentiments of the Pakistani people than I, and although I couldn't describe them as PPP (I won't tell you what they said about Bhutto) they were adamant that although they had no appetite for the Taleban, they equally had absolutely zero enthusiasm for the idea of America on Pakistani soil. They were absolutely adamant that it would be the tipping point that galvanised widespread resentment and active resistance from quarters who are otherwise impassive. Let's not forget that Bush thought his troops would be welcomed into Iraq as liberators and garlanded etc Do we ever learn? There is not a cat in hells chance that American occupation of Pakistan would be welcome, especially given their penchant of staying once they get a toe hold. They're still in Saudi Arabia afterall, ostensibly defending them from an attack from Saddam!!!

Such a move might start off ok (it did in Belfast, it did in Basra) but it doesn't take long before things start to detriorate and very quickly get out of hand
 
Originally posted by Warbler@Dec 28 2007, 08:51 PM
I'm afraid the Americans do have a history of creating Frankenstein Monsters over the medium term Clive when they seek short term solutions. If it weren't for their arming of the Mujahedin for instance (yes I did have to look the spelling up :D ) there wouldn't be a Taleban fighting the West.
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I am not sure I would sum that up as short-term - tying down Russia to the extent that they lost the Cold War? Is it really such a high price to pay?
 
If you want my honest answer, I'd say unequivocally yes.

I'd rather have the stability of the Old Soviet Union back and a cold war driven by largely political philosophies, in clearly demarcated countries and borders, then this current and ultimately much more unpredictable threat that can strike from anywhere. Politicians are by nature pragmatic and will do deals thus where understandings can be reached, regarding mutual benefits. Philosophies driven by religion are much more dangerous, as they're infinately more dogmatic, and this case they're not confined by territory, or defined by uniform etc

As yet the weaponary remains unequal in what I'll call our favour. Imagine what would happen if .....................

Would you rather live through a cold war or a hot peace. Right now I'm not sure I can see much difference. Although the super powers fought a series of proxy wars and the Wests combat losses were greater than the current situation, this one shows no sign of going away and looks destined to run throughout this century now. I really can't see for the live of me where a peace agreement is going to come from? That being so, it can only be a matter of time before the islamists acquire something more devastating then they already have. I don't know when this will happen 5 years? 10? 50?, how it will happen, or what will be the catalyst, but I can't see any obvious or acceptable way out of this
 
It is difficult to champion the positives of either. But MAD and being seconds away from incidents such as the Cuban Missile Crisis seem a lot worse than what we have right now.

Your point that the current situation is likely to deteriorate is a pertinent one though and not one which I have the answer to.

It is a shame, because you wouldn't have thought it would be so difficult to discredit any religion. They are hardly likely now are they.
 
End of Cold War. Yes, Betsmate. But Putin with control of most of the energy that Europe neds is just as scary as ever the Reds were.
 
Absolutely Tout Seul, but the short-termism to which Warbler referred was a key factor in buying 20 years or relative peace and stability - not bad in the grand scheme of things.

Anyway, I'm not sure it is an anyone's interest for it to be too peaceful and stable for too long. Nobody gets rich in a flat market.
 
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