Posted on 12/28/2007 9:20:14 AM PST by Abathar
FOR the next several days, you're going to read and hear a great deal of pious nonsense in the wake of the assassination of Pakistan's former prime minister, Benazir. Her country's better off without her. She may serve Pakistan better after her death than she did in life.
We need have no sympathy with her Islamist assassin and the extremists behind him to recognize that Bhutto was corrupt, divisive, dishonest and utterly devoid of genuine concern for her country.
She was a splendid con, persuading otherwise cynical Western politicians and "hardheaded" journalists that she was not only a brave woman crusading in the Islamic wilderness, but also a thoroughbred democrat.
In fact, Bhutto was a frivolously wealthy feudal landlord amid bleak poverty. The scion of a thieving political dynasty, she was always more concerned with power than with the wellbeing of the average Pakistani. Her program remained one of old-school patronage, not increased productivity or social decency.
Educated in expensive Western schools, she permitted Pakistan's feeble education system to rot - opening the door to Islamists and their religious schools.
During her years as prime minister, Pakistan went backward, not forward. Her husband looted shamelessly and ended up fleeing the country, pursued by the courts. The Islamist threat - which she artfully played both ways - spread like cancer.
But she always knew how to work Westerners - unlike the hapless Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who sought the best for his tormented country but never knew how to package himself.
Military regimes are never appealing to Western sensibilities. Yet, there are desperate hours when they provide the only, slim hope for a country nearing collapse. Democracy is certainly preferable - but, unfortunately, it's not always immediately possible. Like spoiled children, we have to have it now - and damn the consequences.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
“Here is a take I haven’t seen yet.”
You haven’t seen it because she was a media darling.
Yet, her entire regime was utterly corrupt.
Well hells bells, there was going to be an election, and if she was so much of a crook and feudal tyrant, she didn’t have a chance right?
What a cruel bit of editorializing. She had something going for her that inspired assasination.
I know that, it is just refreshing to see someone actually come out and say the truth this close to her death, the author of this will be vilified by his peers.
Thank you Ralph Peters, who along with John Bolton have brought some reality to the Bhutto story...must read:
As a victim of fanaticism, Bhutto may shine as a rallying symbol with a far purer light than she cast while alive. The bitter joke is that, while she was never serious about freedom, women’s rights and fighting terrorism, the terrorists took her rhetoric seriously - and killed her for her words, not her actions.
Nothing’s going to make Pakistan’s political crisis disappear - this crisis may be permanent, subject only to intermittent amelioration. (Our State Department’s policy toward Islamabad amounts to a pocket full of platitudes, nostalgia for the 20th century and a liberal version of the white man’s burden mindset.)
The one slim hope is that this savage murder will - in the long term - clarify their lot for Pakistan’s citizens. The old ways, the old personalities and old parties have failed them catastrophically. The country needs new leaders - who don’t think an election victory entitles them to grab what little remains of the national patrimony....A creature of insatiable ambition, Bhutto will now become a martyr. In death, she may pay back some of the enormous debt she owes her country.
The Indian papers have reported extensively on the corruption of Nawiz Sharif in the past (whom Moosh overthrew), including that his brother in law is/was one of Pakistan’s largest heroin kingpins.
The Bhutto family ruled Pakistan for little around 10 years in total-other than eating off state funds,they could do precious little,while the army ran the show.
True.
Man, does that sound familiar.
So she was, by your own admission, a corrupt incompetent stodge of the Pakistani Army. And she was going to be any different on her third try at power how?
Why do you look for excuses for the Bhutto’s failures? So they “ruled” except for their lack of control of the military?
“Educated in expensive Western schools”
RADCLIFF.
Bhutto and the Bhutto maneuver was yet ANOTHER sign of the liquefaction of the mentality of the Bush Administration in many subject areas of foreign and domestic policy.
I have to disagree (mildly) with the author and Mark Steyn, and lean toward John Bolton's remarks on Bhutto. I consider myself an American chauvinist and have no problem with assassination as a tool of foreign policy when it serves American interests...I would not shed a single tear if the likes of Chavez, Castro, etc. met an untimely demise. The point is, while Bhutto may not have been a saint, or fit perfectly with what we may have wanted or needed, she was certainly the "lesser," of a multitude of evils. When I look at the current slate of presidential candidates in our own upcoming election, I don't see a perfect fit for what America needs, just some that come a lot closer than others. Frankly, Bhutto may have been corrupt, but I suspect that in their system, those that aren't have no hope of making any impact whatsoever. I think I can say with a fair degree of certainty that the islamofascists were further from the nuclear trigger while she was alive, and in that regard, her death is not a good thing.
Folks,Im not making excuses for anyone here.If you think Benazir could have made a real difference,well then prove it.The Army ran the show as far as propping up the Taliban or running the N-programme.The politicians could at best watch it.If you have that level of ‘power’,the best you can do is tag along & rob the exchequer over other trivial expenditure which the Army left for you.
We've got to learn to stop sabotaging our own WoT for a dream that will not come true!
Here are parts of one of my posts yesterday; I reposted the parts today agreeing with Bolton, w/links to both posts.
>>>>Moslem countries can’t be ruled democratically as in the US or the West. Turkey is a slight exception, the army is preserving the democracy there by the force of arms, if necessary, hardly our type of democracy.<<<<
>>>>Musharraf WAS the President and the head of the army untill we put pressure on him to lose his uniform to accomodate BB to be a democratic Prime Minister. Our people don’t understand my first paragraph. They still want “democracy” in a place that can’t ACCEPT IT!<<<<
>>>>Enters BB, she returned to Pakistan from exile. Musharraf put her under house arrest after the first carbomb hit her motorcade going home from the airport. She sUrvived but hundreds were killed and injured. Musharraf declared martial law and suspended the coming elections. Musharraf was pressured AGAIN by US for, yes again, DEMOCRACY!<<<<<
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1945162/posts?page=41#41
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1944679/posts?page=641#641
She or anyone else who would have won the next elections,would have been equally ineffective if the Army still ran the show.The Charade that Musharraf is now playing by removing his military fatigues has been done several times in Pakistan’s history by folks like Ayub & Zia.
So again I say,people are losing sight of the problem when they focus solely on Bhutto while leaving out the army.
As I was flipping through the channels early this AM, I paused on C-SPAN or some such where the viewers call in on news articles. Anyway, someone was trying to explain how she wasn't all the media's made her out to be but the caller was basically ignored by the host.
Talk show hosts last evening were all speaking in the same vein. But you won’t hear this on the main stream media. It will be interesting to see if the this attack (by whomever prepped it) will affect Musharef and crew. I wonder if the attack was with the intent to create civil unrest which will then open the door for the hard-line Muzzies/Islamo-dudes to wedge there way in?....if so, knowing the nuke potential of Pakistan, what will the West (aka U.S.A.) allow? Gotta go check my pasta....it’s boiling. - PastaMan
>>>Yet, her entire regime was utterly corrupt.
The pervasiveness and influence of the heroin trade in the Middle East and Asia cannot be overstated and should always be considered in the political context (aka, “follow the money”).
A friend who served through the final days of the Shah’s regime said that one member of his direct family (redacted) was a known wholesale heroin dealer in Tehran. Elsewhere in Asia, I personally saw an obvious dealer-type withdraw $140,000 cash USD from the bank, and hop into a BMW **with two uniformed Army officers** waiting outside. An expat journo confirmed that the price of heroin was then $14,000 per kilo (e.g., 10 kilos = $140,000)).
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