Scotland Yard To Investigate Bhutto Assassination

In a story I was just reading, there is an indication that we might find out who killed Benazit Bhutto, as Scotland Yard will be on the case.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said Wednesday that he had requested a team of investigators from Britain's Scotland Yard to assist in the investigation into the killing of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto.


"We decided to request a team from Scotland Yard to come. I sent the request to (British) Prime Minister (Gordon) Brown, and he accepted the request," Musharraf said, adding that the British team would assist local investigators.

I think we can all agree that Scotland Yard has a sterling reputation as one of the best investigative agencies in the world. Perhaps there will be a proper conclusion to this most troubling case! We shall keep an eye on this probe and where it leads!

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Bhutto Died Of Skull Fracture

There is a news report that I was just reading which indicates that Mrs. Bhutto did not die of bullet wounds, as was earlier reported.

It says, Benazir Bhutto died from a skull fracture suffered when her head slammed against her car during a suicide attack, not from bullet wounds, the government said Friday.

Pakistan's interior minister blamed al-Qaida and the Taliban for Thursday's assassination and said another key opposition leader, Nawaz Sharif, is also under threat of militant attack.

There was worldwide condemnation of this act yesterday, now we shall see who was serious and who was just paying lip service, as the job of tracking down, and killing these people begins!!


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Bhutto Assassinated

In what will surely be the story of the week, Pakistan opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated Thursday in a suicide attack at a campaign rally that also killed at least 20 others, aides said. Bhutto's supporters erupted in anger and grief after her death, attacking police and burning tires and election campaign posters in several cities. At the hospital where she died, some smashed glass and wailed, chanting slogans against President Pervez Musharraf.

This assassination was just the type of violence that President Musharraf had attempted to stop, through his use of house arrest, and martial law. The lifting of the emergency, and giving Mrs. Bhutto access to the venue which she attended, and at which she was assassinated, was just what Musharraf feared most.

The militants will use this anger to disrupt the country, and will turn this into a civil war, if calmer heads do not prevail. It is necessary for the world to speak with one voice and help keep Pakistan from falling into the abyss of violence. This is a nation with a nuclear stockpile that would be the envy of any terrorist organization, and this stockpile must remain safe under all circumstances!

I feel sad for the death of Mrs. Bhutto, but she knew that returning to Pakistan was a "death sentence" and even though her goal was to have more democracy for her country, she may have the opposite effect, and losing democracy in Pakistan to al-Qaeda and The Taliban, may be a very sad legacy for her sacrifice!


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Envoy Warns Musharraf

In the news this morning it is being reported that a senior U.S. envoy who said Pakistan's democratic process had been "derailed" carried a stern warning Friday to President Gen. Pervez Musharraf from the Bush administration to end emergency rule. In an apparent move to blunt criticism from Musharraf's key foreign backer, authorities freed opposition leaders including Benazir Bhutto as well as a U.N. human rights expert and let two independent news channels back on air.

There continues to be a great deal of worries concerning the emergency rule and what if anything can be done to get their democracy back on track. May the weekend bring a respite to both sides, and allow Musharraf and Bhutto time to think this through and understand that they must work together or their nation may fall apart, and that would only be good for their enemies and ours.


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Bad News From Pakistan

This has truly been a Good News, Bad News, and now more Bad News day!!

There is Bad News From Pakistan just days after it looked like things could be worked out, as the Opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was placed under house arrest for the second time in four days to prevent her staging a march on Tuesday to protest emergency rule, police said. A close aide to the former prime minister said she would try to lead the 185-mile procession anyway. The showdown intensified the political crisis engulfing Pakistan and further clouded the prospect of a pro-U.S. alliance against rising Islamic extremism forming between Bhutto and President Gen. Pervez Musharraf.

The next few days are crucial and Washington better pull out all the stops and do anything it can to assist Pakistan in its' time of crisis. If things go badly there, it shall have reprecussions long into the future. This is their "dark" night of the soul and the existence of their country is at stake! I wish them the very best and hope they can prevail as a somewhat democratic country, intact, and not fall to the forces of al-Qaeda and extremists!!


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Bhutto Freed

In a story I am reading it appears that there is some hope for Pakistan.

This morning Pakistan announced plans to lift its state of emergency within one month and allowed opposition leader Benazir Bhutto to leave her villa following a day under house arrest, as the country sought Saturday to restore its battered image at home and abroad.President Gen. Pervez Musharraf insists he called the week-old emergency to help fight Islamic extremists who control large swathes of territory near the Afghan border, but the main targets of his crackdown have been his most outspoken critics, including the increasingly independent courts and media.

There needs to be a concerted effort to facilitate the unification of Bhutto and Musharraf against the extremists and terrorsist. This should be the focus of all levels of our government and the governments of our allies around the world. The Pakistani government needs to be stabilized and allowed to survive against the enemies they now face or we shall be facing them later.


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U.S. Worries About Pakistan

There has been a progression in the situation, but currently it is difficult to see if this new action will help or hurt President Musharraf, Benazir Bhutto, or the United States as we try to help them form an alliance against the rebels and terrorists, who would love to get their hands on the Pakistani nuclear stockpile.

Pakistan quickly ended house arrest for opposition leader Benazir Bhutto on Friday as President Gen. Pervez Musharraf came under new U.S. pressure to end a crackdown that Washington fears is hurting the fight against Islamic extremism. Earlier in the day, police threw up barbed wire around Bhutto's house to keep her from speaking at a rally to protest Musharraf's imposition of emergency rule, and security forces rounded up thousands of her supporters to block any mass demonstrations.

Perhaps their will be a new push to come to agreement on issues, such as Musharraf taking off his uniform and giving up military command, and we can hope that Bhutto will try and be a force for calm, instead of the flashpoint for violence that she has been so far, since her return to Pakistan.



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Bhutto Vows To Remain

In the news moments ago, Pakistani police took three people in for questioning on Saturday over an attack on former premier Benazir Bhutto's homecoming procession that killed 139 people, an investigator said. The men were linked to a car from which an attacker threw a grenade in Karachi on Thursday night, seconds before a suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowd of hundreds of thousands of people, he said.

It would seem that even though Mrs. Bhutto left Pakistan under a cloud of scandal and corruption,that For the thousands of singing and dancing supporters who flocked to this raucous Karachi street to greet her, the corruption charges against Ms. Bhutto or her willingness to ally herself with an unpopular president don't seem to matter.



Hours later, the celebratory atmosphere in Karachi was shattered when two bomb blasts killed at least 139 bystanders and wounded about 500 more.

In recent weeks, Bhutto has alienated many Pakistanis by her dealings with President Pervez Musharraf, which were seen as driven by Washington's desire to bolster a moderate South Asian government in its fight against Islamic extremism. They have also, at least for the moment, cleared her of charges that she stole millions from Pakistan in the 1990s. But Thursday's triumphant return is a reminder that much of Pakistani politics is personality and pageantry. And charisma alone might be enough for Bhutto. It is a calculus born of experience, banking on her ability to turn decades-old allegiances to her family name and home state into votes. But heading into the campaign season for January parliamentary elections, the strategy carries new risks, experts say: Pakistan is changing, becoming more politically sophisticated as a raft of news channels plays an increasingly important role in shaping public opinion.


Musharraf's precipitous decline in popularity is partly due to his close ties to Washington, which supports Musharraf as a crucial ally in the war against terrorism. The Bush administration has also come out in support of Musharraf's alliance with Bhutto as a hedge against the rising influence of Islamic extremism. Her arrival Thursday was Bhutto's attempt to change the momentum against her, and the event showcased her greatest strengths: her celebrity and the organizational capabilities of her Pakistan People's Party (PPP). Buses lined Karachi streets for miles, and festive street scenes made the decaying port city seem more like Rio than the Arabian Sea coast, with boomboxes blaring music from every region of Pakistan, and one motorcycle broadcasting old Bhutto speeches from its makeshift speakers.

She is brave, because she knew that coming here was going to bring death and destruction,and she chose to return anyway to assist her country and herself. She obviously, is similar to our own Clinton's in being Machievellian to attain their goals.

Most of the support for her is because of her father , who was hanged for political resons 28 years ago.The sentiment is widespread in the crowd, and it points to the feudal nature of politics here. As the daughter of Zulfikar, Benazir has inherited the devotion that he won from many of Pakistan's poor. And as a daughter of the state of Sindh, she can expect to sweep the rural parts of the state in elections. These are the two constituencies that experts expect her to woo in the coming months. There is a logic to the strategy of playing on her father's name and her Sindhi heritage. If she succeeds, the electoral math suggests she may be able to cobble together enough votes to be the leading partner in a coalition government – winning her the prime minister's seat.

There are many other obstacles to Mrs. Bhutto, besides the terrorist assassination threats and attempts. First is the Supreme Court, which still must rule on whether Musharraf was a legal candidate for the presidential elections he won more than a week ago. A decision is expected soon. If he is declared invalid retroactively, Pakistan's political establishment would be thrown into chaos, and any deals Bhutto struck with Musharraf would be useless. The Supreme Court could also have a say in this matter, too. It will look into whether the amnesty deal Bhutto made with Musharraf is illegal. If it rules against Bhutto, the decision would make her vulnerable to cases charging that she and her husband embezzled money from the government and put it in Swiss bank accounts. There is a report that in one case, a Swiss judge had finished his investigation into the money-laundering charges and would present his findings to a prosecutor next week.

There is also fear that even if Bhutto survives these challenges, her political maneuverings have antagonized those who created the conditions for her return: the middle class. The anti-Musharraf movement that has roiled Pakistan in recent months is largely a secular, liberal, middle-class phenomenon, a group which, in the past, often went along with Bhutto as the Western-educated, left-of-center candidate. But it has turned against her since she began to deal with Musharraf. The president is seen by many here as a US-backed puppet, making Bhutto's arrangement with him appear to be a cynical political gambit to secure her own political future.

In a telephone interview that is being played around the world the two leaders vowed to fight terrorism and extremism. President Pervez Musharraf and Pakistan People's Party Chairperson Benazir Bhutto have expressed their resolve to fight extremism and terrorism, both leaders agreed that there is a need for the entire nation to unite to rid the country of these evil violent fanatics.

There is going to be more violence, before it gets better. The hope is that with her return, she can help put a loss of power by President Musharraf, who even with all of his faults, is one of the few leaders standing with us in this fight with radicalism and terrorism. If we lose Pakistan, we lose a country and that missiles and nuclear weapons, and we surely do not want those type of weapons in the hands of al-Qaeda or the Taliban!! We wouldn't have to worry about an improvised "dirty" bomb, as they would have access to the Real thing, and "All Hell Would Break Loose". We have seen how the rhetoric continues to rise against Iran by Bush, could you imagine what we would do if a nuclear country was going to fall into the "enemies" hands!! Can anyone say "Armaggedon"! Perhaps that would not be the case, but the likehood would surely increase exponentially!

Hopefully, the Pakistani's will bring the people behind this attack to a swift and sure justice, and I pray that the government had nothing to do with the attack! If it was al-Qaeda, it will help unite the people against them, and that would be a great outcome.

Let's all keep our fingers crossed and hope for an outcome that keeps Pakistan out of the loss column.




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