Here's the REAL REPORTING, readers:
'Surge' Of US Special Forces Expected In Pakistan In Early 2008
"In the wake of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, a 'surge' of US Special Forces for Pakistan's remote tribal lands is unlikely to face heavy opposition from President Musharraf, who will be busy trying to stop his own name, and that of his political party, from being linked with Bhutto's assassins.
The shock of Bhutto's death, so close to the January 8 elections which were tipped to see her elected prime minister, is also likely to lessen public opposition to the increase of US troops inside Pakistan.
This report, published today in The Australian newspaper, appeared on the Murdoch media portal news.com.au within half an hour of the confirmation of the announcement of Bhutto's death (excerpts) :
US Special Forces are to increase their presence in Pakistan amid assessments that the country is to become the central battlefield for al-Qaida as it is driven from Iraq."Pakistan should be carefully watched because it could prove to be a significant flashpoint in the coming year," US think tank Strategic Forecasting said in an evaluation of al-Qaida's tactics as the Islamist group comes under mounting pressure in Iraq.
With the "rapid spread of Talibanisation" in Pakistan's insurgent northwest, the country would become "especially important if the trend in Iraq continues to go against the jihadis and they are driven from Iraq", the assessment said.
"As the global headquarters for the al-Qaida leadership, Pakistan has long been a significant stronghold on the ideological battlefield."
The Stratfor assessment coincided with reports from Washington suggesting US Special Forces would expand their presence in Pakistan in the new year.
The boost in US forces was part of an effort to train and support Pakistan's army in its fight to stem the al-Qaida and Taliban-linked insurgency.
The Washington reports reflected Pentagon frustration with the Pakistani counter-insurgency effort, and said the head of the US Special Operations Command, Admiral Eric T. Olson, had made a series of visits to the country for discussions with senior military leaders.
"The first US (Special Forces) personnel could be on the ground in Pakistan early in the new year", the report said.
US Central Command chief Admiral William Fallon said the US forces would provide training and mentoring based on the US experience with the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan.
...the US reports coincided with the disclosure of an ambitious 15-year "anti-terror investment plan" for Pakistan that has been high on the agenda of US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte in recent visits to Islamabad.
Bhutto's murder is set to lead to the opening of a new front in the 'War on Terror' inside Pakistan, which has the potential to be as deadly, and terror-ridden, as the current wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia."
Gee, that sure is ODD TIMING, isn't it, readers?
"It was a crazed lone-nut suicide bomber! Honest!" -- Mike Rivero of What Really Happened
"Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan’s opposition leader and one of the country’s best known politicians, was assassinated today in a stunning suicide attack that also killed at least 20 others at a rally.
A wave of violence had already begun by this evening. In anger and grief, protesters rioted in the southern port city of Karachi, firing shots at police, setting tires and cars on fire and burning a gas station. One person was killed north of Karachi in the violent aftermath of the assassination.
Violence also erupted in other cities in Pakistan. President Pervez Musharraf blamed terrorists for Bhutto’s death and urged the nation to remain calm.
The attacker struck just minutes after Bhutto, 54, addressed thousands of supporters in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, about 18 kilometres south of Islamabad, the capital. She was shot in the neck and chest by the attacker, who then blew himself up, said Rehman Malik, Bhutto’s security adviser.
Sardar Qamar Hayyat, a leader from Bhutto’s party, said he was standing about 10 metres away from Bhutto’s vehicle:
“She was inside the vehicle and was coming out from the gate after addressing the rally when some of the youths started chanting slogans in her favour. Then I saw a thin, young man jumping to her vehicle from the back and opening fire. Moments later, I saw her speeding vehicle going away."
Party supporter Chaudry Mohammed Nazir said that two gunshots rang out when Bhutto’s vehicle pulled into the main street and then there was a big blast next to her car.
A doctor on the team that attended to Bhutto said she had a bullet in the back of the neck that damaged her spinal cord before exiting from the side of her head. Another bullet pierced the back of her shoulder and came out through her chest, he said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
Bhutto was given an open heart massage, but the main cause of death was damage to her spinal cord, he said.
Musharraf, in a nationally televised speech:
“This is the work of those terrorists with whom we are engaged in war. I want to express my resolve and seek the co-operation from the entire nation and we will not rest until we eliminate these terrorists and root them out.”
Musharraf announced three days of mourning and convened a high-level emergency meeting. He was expected to discuss whether to postpone the election, an Interior Ministry official said.
In Canada, Prime Minister Stephen Harper called the assassination a threat to democracy. He said the Jan. 8 election is important to democracy and urged Musharraf to let it go ahead.
Harper also said he’s concerned about increased instability in the region. Canadian troops are deployed in neighbouring Afghanistan as part of a NATO force supporting the Afghan government.
Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier condemned:
“[We condemn], in the strongest terms this attack ... Today’s violence is especially heinous in view of the upcoming elections on Jan. 8, 2008. The anti-democratic intent of the perpetrators could not be more obvious.”
U.S. President George W. Bush, in Crawford, Texas:
“The United States strongly condemns this cowardly act by murderous extremists who are trying to undermine Pakistan’s democracy. Those who committed this crime must be brought to justice.”
No one claimed responsibility for the assassination. Bhutto’s supporters blamed the president for complicity, but suspicion was likely to fall on Islamic militants linked to Al Qaeda and the Taliban, who hated Bhutto for her close ties to the Americans and support for the war on terrorism. A local Taliban leader reportedly threatened to greet Bhutto’s return to the country from exile in October with suicide bombings.
That would be THIS "Al-CIA-Duh," right?
Also see: "Al-CIA-Duhs" Catch-and-Release Program
At least 20 others were killed in today’s blast, according to an Associated Press reporter at the scene. Bhutto was rushed to the hospital and taken into emergency surgery.
Wasif Ali Khan, a member of Bhutto’s party who was at Rawalpindi General Hospital:
“At 6:16 p.m. she expired.”
Hours later, her body was carried out of the hospital in a plain wooden coffin by a crowd of supporters. Her body was expected to be transferred to an air base and brought to her hometown of Larkana. As news of her death spread, supporters at the hospital in Rawalpindi smashed glass doors and stoned cars. Many chanted slogans against Musharraf, accusing him of complicity in her killing.
In Karachi, shop owners quickly closed their businesses as riots broke out. Fayyaz Leghri, a local police official, said gunmen shot and wounded two police officers. One man was killed in a shootout between police and protesters in Tando Allahyar, a town 190 kilometres north of Karachi, said Mayor Kanwar Naveed. In the town of Tando Jam, protesters forced passengers to get out of a train and then set it on fire.
Violence also broke out in Lahore, Multan, Peshawar and many other parts of Pakistan, where Bhutto’s supporters burned banks, state-run grocery stores and private shops. Some set fire to election offices for the ruling party, according to Pakistani media.
Bhutto was killed just a few kilometres from the scene of her father’s violent death 28 years earlier. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, a former prime minister and the founder of the party that his daughter would later lead, was executed by hanging in 1979 in Rawalpindi on charges of conspiracy to murder that supporters said was politically motivated by the then-military regime. His killing led to violent protests across the country.
As Bhutto addressed the rally today, she was flanked by a massive picture of her father. Minutes later, the area was awash in blood. Bhutto’s body was flown to Sindh for burial in her family graveyard alongside her father in the village of Garhi Khuda Baksh. Bhutto’s husband, Asif Ali Zardari, arrived from Dubai with their three children to accompany the body.
Party officials said the funeral would be on Friday."
Benazir Bhutto shot dead in suicide attack
"A warning to those considering assassination as a tool of campaign '08." -- Mike Rivero of What Really Happened
Bhutto had been critical of what she believed was a lack of effort by Musharraf's government to protect her. Two weeks after the October assassination attempt, she wrote a commentary for CNN.com in which she questioned why Pakistan investigators refused international offers of help in finding the attackers.
Like America would stand for outsiders investigating 9/11, right?
How can C(IA)NN put this shit up on the web and call it "reporting?"
Bhutto wrote: "The sham investigation of the October 19 massacre and the attempt by the ruling party to politically capitalize on this catastrophe are discomforting, but do not suggest any direct involvement by General Pervez Musharraf."
Pakistan's Bhutto killed in attack
"Benazir Bhutto's supporters rampaged through cities Friday to protest her assassination, ransacking banks and setting train stations ablaze, officials said. Angry Bhutto supporters ran amok through the streets after her assassination, lighting cars and stores on fire in violence that killed at least 10 people.
Violence intensified in some cities Friday. A mob in Karachi looted three banks and set them on fire, police said. About 7,000 people in the central city of Multan ransacked seven banks and a gas station and threw stones at police, who responded with tear gas. In the capital, Islamabad, about 100 protesters burned tires in a commercial quarter of the city.
Paramilitary rangers were given the authority to use live fire to stop rioters from damaging property in southern Pakistan.
Maj. Asad Ali, the rangers' spokesman: "We have orders to shoot at sight."
Violent mobs burned 10 railway stations and several trains across Bhutto's Sindh province, forcing the suspension of all train service between the city of Karachi and the eastern Punjab province, said Mir Mohammed Khaskheli, a senior railroad official. The rioters uprooted one section of the track leading to the Indian border, he said.
About 4,000 Bhutto party supporters rallied in the northwestern city of Peshawar on Friday and several hundred of them ransacked the office of the main pro-Musharraf party, burning furniture and stationery. The office was empty and no one was hurt.
Protesters, carrying the green, red and black flags of Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party shouted "Musharraf dog" and "Bhutto was alive yesterday, Bhutto is alive today." In Peshawar, protesters also burned the office of a small party allied with Musharraf.
Other areas were nearly deserted Friday morning as businesses closed and public transportation came to a halt at the start of three days of national mourning for the opposition leader.
A mournful editorial in the Dawn newspaper read:
"The repercussions of her murder will continue to unfold for months, even years. What is clear is that Pakistan's political landscape will never be the same, having lost one of its finest daughters."As many Pakistanis mourned, others demanded answers as to who killed her. Musharraf blamed the attack on the resurgent Islamic militants Pakistan is fighting along the border region with Afghanistan, pledging in a nationally televised speech that "we will not rest until we eliminate these terrorists and root them out."
"No, really, it was terrorists who did it. Honest. No kidding. Really." -- Musharraf Spokes-slug" -- Mike Rivero of What Really Happened
But authorities said they had yet to identify the attacker.
Saud Aziz, the chief of police in Rawalpindi, the city near Islamabad where the attack took place:
"It is too early to say who may have been responsible."
Not for the AmeriKan MSM it isn't!!!
They were calling it "Al-CIA-Duh" five minutes after it happened!
A joint task force of police and officials from other law enforcement agencies were investigating, he said. FBI spokesman Richard Kolko in Washington said the agency was trying to determine the validity of a purported claim of responsibility for the attack by al-Qaida.
Pffffffftttt!
Rasul Baksh Rais, a political scientist at Lahore's University of Management Sciences:
"This assassination is the most serious setback for democracy in Pakistan. It shows extremists are powerful enough to disrupt the democratic process."
As the news of her killing spread, supporters gathered at the hospital where Bhutto had been taken, smashed glass doors, stoned cars and chanted, "Killer, Killer, Musharraf."Bhutto had just addressed more than 5,000 supporters in Rawalpindi on Thursday when the attacker struck as she was leaving the rally in a white sports utility vehicle. A smiling Bhutto had stuck her head out of the sunroof to respond to youths chanting her name.
Sardar Qamar Hayyat, an official from Bhutto's party:
"Then I saw a thin, young man jumping toward her vehicle from the back and opening fire. Moments later, I saw her speeding vehicle going away. That was the time when I heard a blast and fell down."
U.S. Troops to Head to Pakistan (December 26, 2007; 6:00 AM ET)
"Like FEMA in New York on 9/10/01, or the BATF's top truck bomb expert from Nevada just coincidentally being 1 block from the Murrah Building when it was bombed with a truck bomb, yesterday's announcement of US troops headed for Pakistan telegraphs that Bush knew what Musharraf was going to do." -- Mike Rivero of What Really Happened
"Bhutto's death heightens democracy concerns
"Latest word is that the Pakistani people are burning the offices and homes of government officials. The US Media is pushing "The Toilet" as the villain, but everyone on the ground in Pakistan knows that Musharraf had the most to gain." -- Mike Rivero of What Really Happened
And check out this video:
YouTube - Frost over the World - Benazir Bhutto - 02 Nov 07
"Very interesting! At 6min 12sec into the interview Bhutto states that Omar Sheik murdered Osama Bin Laden!" -- Mike Rivero of What Really Happened
Behind the Assassination of Benazir Bhutto
She was also the figure President Pervez Musharraf most feared as a rival, as expressed to me by the beleaguered leader's close confidant, Humayun Gauhar:
"If the Americans can have a government led by Bhutto, they will get what Musharraf has refused them. She will allow NATO boots on the ground in our tribal areas and a chance to neuter our nuclear weapons."
This is exactly why the American government was eager to see Bhutto gain or share power with the Musharraf's highly unpopular regime.
Bhutto had survived a large-scale bombing attack only a few weeks before, during the massive parade welcoming her back to Pakistan after more than a decade of self-exile. Musharraf was said to be livid when he heard TV reports that his nemesis was attracting millions. “Do something!” he ordered the army corps commander, according to a journalist who was there.
Nearing midnight on Oct. 18, the streetlights went out. Police didn’t respond to frantic calls from her security people. Minutes later, a bomb went off. Tellingly, the Musharraf government has mounted no investigation.
The Musharraf propaganda machine called it a suicide attack by Islamic extremists. Bhutto herself believed it was the dirty work of Musharraf’s political allies. The ISI, Pakistan’s infamous security service, is infiltrated by ideologically jihadist elements that support al-Qaeda and Taliban terrorists in Pakistan's border provinces.
Yeah, never mind that the ISI and CIA CREATED and DIRECTS "Al-CIA-Duh" and the Taliban!!!!!
In fact, the Taliban was ESTABLISHED UNDER BHUTTO'S RULE!!!!
The Musharraf government is again dismissive of the lapse in security by the Army and security services. They allowed a sophisticated assassin to kill her at close range while the crowd was distracted by a suicide bombing -- the same scenario attempted in the November attack.
The government holds Bhutto to blame for taking the risk of public campaigning. Musharraf previously had confined her under house arrest. When that produced an international outcry, he warned her to stay out of sight.
Humayun Gauhar, Musharraf's confidant, argued in an interview with me:
"We don't want a dead Benazir on our hands. She'd be just another unlikely martyr that we don't need."What will happen as Pakistan is again plunged into turmoil? Mark Siegel will release names that she instructed him to hold responsible in the event of her assassination. Musharraf will likely cancel the Jan. 8 election. Bhutto already was prepared to boycott, believing it to be rigged from top to bottom. Musharraf's election commission had announced it would refuse the European Commission to send observers to polling places except those predetermined by the government. Bhutto's supporters expect her assassination to be used as the pretext for an indefinite suspension of political freedoms and free and fair elections."
And CUI BONO, readers?
NEOCONS AND THE WEST TOO QUICK TO BLAME ‘AL QAEDA’ AND ‘TERRORISTS’ FOR BHUTTO ASSASSINATION.
"Whenever turmoil is created in our world, such as assassination and bombing, and the neocons rush to point the finger of blame at ‘al Qaeda’ or some other associated ‘terror’ organisation, one can be reasonably sure that what the world has witnessed is yet another false flag operation perpetrated by a group or groups that have some ulterior, political, or even pecuniary motive or motives for creating such turmoil. And such is the case with the assassination yesterday of Pakistani politician Benazir Bhutto.
Pakistani politics has always been volatile and every election is guaranteed to bring about the deaths of scores of people from political violence during election campaigns. Political assassinations also have always been a part of political life, not just in Pakistan but across the entire sub-continent, ever since the end of British rule. In the past, such political violence has always been home-grown and committed by domestic political players for purely domestic political reasons. However, the death of Benazir Bhutto has repercussions and consequences that extend far beyond Pakistani domestic politics and it is for this reason that one should be sceptical about who the finger of blame is being pointed at. More importantly, one should also look at the political gain that those who are doing the finger pointing could expect to receive as a result of making such accusations.
When blame is apportioned in the mainstream western media there is a tendency for it to stick. For many, that same mainstream western media is all they have to rely on to provide them with their information about events in the world, so when journalists and commentators write their ‘news’ and vent their opinions in the mainstream media it becomes difficult to refute or argue with and any attempts by those that have other ideas about what may really have happened are usually dismissed as conspiracy theorists. In order to ensure that the right ‘message’ gets across, therefore, it is imperative that when events – like the assassination of Benazir Bhutto – happens that the finger of blame gets pointed as quickly as possible and that such blame is made well-known via as much of the mainstream media as possible before any other options could be placed into the collective world mind.
The question then is; who indeed did murder Benazir Bhutto? In the absence of any direct evidence from any quarter, one can only start by asking who had the most to gain by her murder. According to President Bush the “cowardly” attack was carried out by “…by murderous extremists who are trying to undermine Pakistan’s democracy”. The first thing one feels compelled to ask is; what democracy? Pakistan is governed by a dictatorship headed by President Musharraf who came to power via a coup and has been supported by the US ever since 9/11. Elections that bore some semblance to ‘democracy’ and were likely to see the demise Musharraf as President are scheduled for 8 January 2008. These are now in doubt, so Musharraf, it would seem, would have much to gain from Benazir Bhutto’s murder. But what would ‘al Qaeda’ have to gain from her death? To be sure, to most fighters who are defending fundamentalist Islam from the onslaught of the West, she was just another western-inspired and educated politician intent on power in Pakistan but she was no more a threat to ‘al Qaeda’ than any other politician in Pakistan looking for power. They certainly would have no reason to kill her – at least not just yet – though no doubt they would be quite happy about the fact that she is gone.
For the US and her allies, particularly Israel, it is essential that Musharraf retains power. Both the US and Israel are very sensitive to the fact that Pakistan does have nuclear arms and that it is a predominately Muslim nation and that there is a large element of Islamic fundamentalists within the nations political ranks who it would be reasonable to assume have a very strong chance of gaining or seizing power in Pakistan and who would have the Taliban of Afghanistan and north-west Pakistan as an ally rather than as an enemy as they are now of Musharraf. Power passing to Benazir Bhutto via an election would have been much easier to seize by Islamic fundamentalists than from Musharraf if that is their intention – another reason why it would not be in their interests to assassinate her.
In early November of 2007, shortly after the earlier unsuccessful attempt on Benazir Bhutto’s life, British current affairs presenter David Frost interviewed her. She told Frost that she had suspicions that members of the Pakistan security services were behind the assassination attempt and had even written a letter to President Musharraf explaining her suspicions. In the same interview Benazir Bhutto also told Frost in a very matter of fact way that Osama bin Laden had been murdered by the same forces that wanted her dead; a man she named as none other than Omar Sheikh, the man convicted of the murder of American Daniel Pearl! It may well be that she was killed simply because she knew too much but much more likely because she was a threat to the current western international status quo who saw her gaining power as a massive risk that the US and their allies could not afford to take; though, most likely, she was killed for all of the these reasons.
Musharraf is the devil the US and the Israelis know. Benazir Bhutto has had power before and lost it; she was popular but she was not strong. Pakistani political power, as far as the US and the Israelis are concerned, should remain in the hands of the devil they have already paid for. The death of Benazir Bhutto may well ensure that power stays with Musharraf and pointing the finger of blame for her death at ‘al Qaeda’ merely strengthens the perception in the West for there to be a strong Pakistani leader and further demonises ‘al Qaeda’ generally into the bargain thus perpetuating the myth of its continued existence."
What a GREAT BLOG that was, huh, readers?