Something new about Pakistan
Wow. I try to stay informed about Pakistan, and I daresay I do a better job than many Americans, but this bit, I did not know: Benazir Bhutto is somewhat implicated in her brother's death. In 1996, while she was prime Minister, Murtaza Bhutto was gunned down by police outside of his home in Karachi. He was an opponent of hers, that much I knew, and I knew that she blamed the Intelligence agencies, much as she blames them now for the bombing and shooting at her, but I had never heard that she was implicated in calling out the "hit". Now, it may just be malicious gossip, but her accuser is his daughter, Fatima. That's fairly heavy. If Benazir really did, then, that casts a whole new light on her return, now. It would mean the attacks on her would stand a much better chance of being understood. The deal would be something like this:
She forms the ISI (Interservice Intelligence) in order to gain control of the outlying provinces, especially Waziristan. They cannot do this, and so, she commissions them to assist the Taliban in doing it (so far, we're in the 'known" territory) but, then, she moves them into a domestic terror role. I knew she used them for some "black ops", but this would ratchet it up to political assassination. Here's where it gets sticky: at some point she loses control of them, and they become independant operators. Now, if that happened before Murtaza is killed, the reason they're after her now is because she would represent a threat to their authority in the outer provinces. But, if it happened afterwards, like Fatima is alleging, that means they're not exactly out-of-control, but rather, they're trying to protect the country from her. See? Sticky, very very sticky. Any way that you look at it, Benazir is corrupt, and hardly the bastion of democracy she'd have you believe, but the question is how corrupt? All her talk of how suicide bombers are against islam, and how she's going after "terrorists" kinda alters if you really consider her more of a returning warlord than a returning Aristocrat. I always considered her an Aristocrat. But, if she was ordering assassinations? She moves more into the "warlord" camp. If that's true, then Fatima is right that Benazir is "...the most dangerous thing to happen to (Pakistan).
