Benazir Bhutto Killed In Attack

[General Duke]

Tragic indeed, Pakistan should not be torn apart. Its too important a nation.

[Peacenow]

This should really be a lesson to those of us on here that have been saying for a long time, that religion and politics does not mix. That Islamism is a fundamental threat to the development and well being of everyone and a threat that must be defeated.

[N.O.R.F]

^^What about the 'Islamism' in places like the UAE/Qatar where huge development is taking place?

[General Duke]

Islamisam is important, these people are terror groups hiding behind the religion just like those clowns in Somalia.

 

They should be dealt with.

[Peacenow]

Originally posted by Northerner:

^^What about the 'Islamism' in places like the UAE/Qatar where huge development is taking place?

I fail to see how Islamism is important GD.

Certainly UAE/Qatar are by any measure certainly not islamist states, you are confusing state and religion as being one again, as you do. These two countries have made a pact to their people that essentially says, we are the rulers, but in the process we will take care of your every need. It helps that they have lots of oil. Singapore takes the same approach. Give us power and we will ensure we will take care of you in a highly efficent state.

Now that kind of rule, I can stand. There is sembalance of the rule of law in all these situations.

 

Now what i'm referring to is the long bearded, crooked nose so called islamists who wish to take all of us back to the stone ages. Now I hate the TFg more than anyone, but cleasing Somalia of these kinds of 'religious' people with one eye to counting dollars as they preach to you, is to me no matter how cruel, what must be done.

 

one thing i can't stand is hypocrisy, people who preach and then do something else. Modern states say essentially, humans are cruel and humans are imperfect. Now that we know these two facts, how can we get along. Simple really. Everyone follows the ......RULE OF LAW.

[Xudeedi]

The Muslim World needs to be reformed not by sheer Force but by through the choice of the people. We don't have to support or aid financially and militarily DICTATORS who have held their people hostage for so long.

The West Should Stop intefering the Muslim World in support of cruel dictators. The War against Muslim people shall stop.

I have no doubt that the plot of Bhuto's assasination was carefully orchestrated by the Military establishment of Pakistan.

[Fabregas]

Originally posted by peacenow:

This should really be a lesson to those of us on here that have been saying for a long time, that religion and politics does not mix. That Islamism is a fundamental threat to the development and well being of everyone and a threat that must be defeated.

Some people have little understanding, sensitivity or any real historical learning of the backgrounds, religion and culture of their native countries. They read something in a book or magazine like, " Islamism must be defeated" or " religion must be seperated from politics". And then they treat it like a universal revelation which can be imposed on all the peoples of the world. Only when they go back to their home countries they are out of touch with reality and they actually excerbate the situation rather than developing any problem solving skills. This occured in Iraq when secular, liberal and antireligous politicians were sent from exile in London to run affairs in Iraq, but of course as one Western Journalist noted, governing countries doesn't come from simply reading textbook isssues such as the seperate of religion and state, liberal economics and civil society and then regurgitating it like a parrot. These people in Iraq had little idea of the religous and cultural indentity of the ordinary folks of that country. They were just had Iraqi bodies but European minds! Clearly Baghdad was not Brussels!

 

 

Bombing countries to the oblivion and making harsh threats like "Islamism must defeated at any means" only increases support for these groups. It has been historically shown that foreign domination by others always increases Islamic indentity and resistance to the imposition of foreign values. As I said before, clearly sitting in the halls of Western universities and mingling with White European elites makes some develop a sort of aloofness and what can only be termed as an approach of being "more European than the Europeans", when they go back to the "civilize" the natives on behalf of their masters. A bit similar to a Somali man who is said to have returned to Somalia and apparently told the natives " Don't touch me I'm Italian". So the question is: if indeed we are adopting truths such as, "religion must be seperated from politics in the Muslim world; who, where and how exactly will this seperation occur? Surely it can't be millitant anti-Islamic secularism? Which has failed in every Muslim state which has adopted it. Including the dicatorship in Tunisia, who's old leader once famously tried to stop business and local citizens from observing the fast in Ramadan because he felt the country was in an "economic development Jihad, which apparently meant that there was no obligation on them to fast... He tried to get a fatawa from the Ulema declaring this issue to be correct, but they all protested and refused issue such a Fatawa. In the end he relented.What was I talking about again?

[Fabregas]

Originally posted by General Duke:

Islamisam is important, these people are terror groups hiding behind the religion just like those clowns in Somalia.

 

They should be dealt with.

No nation is ever too important. Great empires and civilizations have been destroyed, defeated and ceased to exist. Only difference in this case is the N word is at stake( Nuclear) and Pakistan has the privileg of supposedly hosting that rather illman who apparently plans major operations in London and New York from a cave somewhere in.... Some people are trying to bring about the descent of Pakistan into Chao, in order to entice the Americans to launch a full scale invasion, thereby starting another international and region Jihad or Insurgency.....

[Aaliyyah]

Ilaahay ha u naxariisto.

[General Duke]

Pakistan will survive this, but blaming the US for all our ills is another mistake.

[Xudeedi]

'Almost Certainly Al Qaeda'

A Pakistan analyst discusses who killed Benazir Bhutto and what her death will mean for Pakistan.

 

Do they have an obvious replacement for her?

This party was very much Ms. Bhutto's party.

 

There is no heir apparent on the horizon. They have a significant problem. This might be a boon to the other secular parties, including the one run by Nawaz Sharif. Sharif is clearly not seeking to be elected through this kind of tragedy. He has been an advocate of elections with all political parties running.

 

Does President Musharraf have a political party?

President Musharraf has a party.

 

It is a splinter of the Sharif party, the Pakistani Muslim League [PML-N]. By most accounts and most polls, [Musharraf's] party will come in very poorly in this election. There is a widespread feeling among Pakistanis that the Musharraf dictatorship has gone on too long. A recent poll (PDF) by the International Republican Institute shows somewhere around two-thirds of Pakistanis would like to see Musharraf step down and give up power now. It [also] suggests that in a fair election, the opposition parties are likely to do very well. But because they are divided, it was unlikely and it remains unlikely that any single opposition party will have a majority in the new national assembly—there would have to be coalition building.

 

Would the PPP have won outright?

 

I don't think it would have won a clear majority, but no one knows. Of course another factor is that no election in Pakistani history has ever been entirely free and fair. Every Pakistani election has been tainted by widespread allegations of fraud. It had been expected, even by Ms. Bhutto, that the elections would be tainted by fraud. The question was always going to be whether the level of political machination and rigging of the election would be beyond the pale—that is, so gross and massive that no one would take the election results seriously—or be within the norm of Pakistani politics.

 

When did you first meet Ms. Bhutto?

 

My first encounter with Ms. Bhutto was in 1991 when I was working at the White House for President George H.W. Bush as the director for South Asian affairs at the National Security Council. I have seen her again periodically over the years, including when she called on Mrs. Clinton in the second administration when she was in exile. I don't claim to have a personal relationship with her.

 

Why did she take such risks when she already had been targeted on her first day back in Pakistan?

 

Ms. Bhutto was the kind of person who believed that it was imperative for her to be in touch with her followers: that she couldn't be a leader of a democratic, secular party and hide from view all the time. It was part of her being the symbol of democracy and of women's rights in a Muslim country that she would be out on the campaign trail. She knew the risks. She knew her own family's tragic history; her father [former Pakistani president, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto] being executed by a previous military dictatorship in 1979; her brother [Murtaza Bhutto] dying in politically motivated violence in 1996.

 

She knew the risks, but she felt that being a political figure and standing for democracy meant that you had to be out there among the people and you couldn't be hiding. There now will be calls in Pakistan for a thorough investigation of the security around her appearance today and whether the government provided sufficient security. I won't try to preview how this will come out, but there will be a lot of desire to have accountability for the security situation today.

 

You said earlier that Al Qaeda was responsible, but could it also be military intelligence?

 

I am sure that conspiracy theories about that will abound in Pakistan. She was widely disliked in the intelligence apparatus, but it was more likely the work of Al Qaeda and its cohorts. Now it is certainly possible that they had penetrated and had sympathizers within the Pakistani security apparatus and had advance knowledge of her movements. It is clear from the Al Qaeda attacks in the past, including on President Musharraf, that Al Qaeda has sympathizers at the highest levels of security, and intelligence which provided information on his movements in the past which facilitated the efforts to kill him.

 

If you were still working at the White House what advice would you give the president on how the United States should respond?

 

First, to mourn the loss of the heroic figure. But the more critical point would be to press the Pakistani government to continue to go forward with the elections. The Musharraf government has promised to deliver stability and democracy and today's events are a tragic indication that it has failed to do both. Instead of stability we have acts of terror in the military capital of the country, Rawalpindi. And instead of democracy, we have one of the leading democratic advocates in the Muslim world killed. The only way that Pakistan is going to be able to fight terrorism effectively is to have a legitimate, democratically-elected, secular government that can rally the Pakistani people to engage Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and other extremist movements. The army has failed to do that. The army dictatorship has failed to do so. We should now press for the democratic movement to move forward.

 

Do you think Sharif will become prime minister?

 

I don't know. His party has not been tainted by rumors of backroom deals like Bhutto's was. He is doing pretty well among Pakistanis who want a government that will be free of Musharraf and to move against him. But I won't try to predict the outcome of the elections now that we have the new tragedy.

 

© 2007 Newsweek, Inc.

[Som@li]

Pakistan will move on,they faced a worse sitiutions, life goes on! Whover replaces her, might win the elections,since her party is popular.

[Hunguri]

Originally posted by Makhirian:

You said earlier that Al Qaeda was responsible, but could it also be military intelligence?

 

I am sure that conspiracy theories about that will abound in Pakistan. She was widely disliked in the intelligence apparatus, but it was more likely the work of Al Qaeda and its cohorts. Now it is certainly possible that they had penetrated and had sympathizers within the Pakistani security apparatus and had advance knowledge of her movements. It is clear from the Al Qaeda attacks in the past, including on President Musharraf, that Al Qaeda has sympathizers at the highest levels of security, and intelligence which provided information on his movements in the past which facilitated the efforts to kill him.

Makhirian, halfing spent quarter of my life in Pakistan, in my opinion. The main suspects of her assasination are (1) Foreign Al-qaeda extremist, who saw her as heretic and an American stooge and had repeatedly threatened to kill her. The second big time suspets, are the ( ISA inter-serive intellegence ) People may not know much, but beleive me. The ISA of Pakistan has close relation ship with the Islamist. ( Islamist, I mean Jama-At Islam and Qazi Husein or Fazlu Rahman group), and these 2 parties are the sympathisers of Al-Qaeda and Taleban. Anyhow, in conclusion fingers point at Al-Qaeda, and there is a proof. After her first attack on her arrival in the capital of her birth province (Karachi). She received a letter signed by a person who claimbed to be a member of Al-Qaeda and threatened to slaughter her like a goat. There for, Ms Bhutto stoped short of blaming the goverment directly, and left a quote behind, saying that she had more to fear from unidentified members of a power structure that she described as allies of the force "of the militance".

[Yaabka-Yaabkiis]

Allah unaxariisto

[Som@li]

War heedhe islaanta bakhtiday maxaa idin daba dhigay, people get killed everyday!