Benazir Bhutto (21 June 1952 to 27 December 2007)
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The names and faces change, but the tragedy of humankind repeats itself in an endless cycle.
For her the battle of life is over. Vale!
She ran a weak and corrupt kleptocracy when she was PM and was no democratic saviour.
She has indeed been a dopey bint, hasn’t she? What a waste having to spend all those years pretending she’s a Muslim. She should have learnt from Jemima Goldsmith/Khan.
It was a bit of a shock. Channel 9 News on the Today Show behaved slightly like her assassination was an interruption to regurgitated entertasinment clips, the Sydney Hobart Yacht Race, bagging David Hicks and the Australia-India Cricket Match.They were especially concerned how it would affect the forthcoming Australia Pakistan Match. Maybe I’m being a bit unfair because some-one in the control room was so fazed they broadcast Richard Reid’s New Year predictions several days early.They are descending more and more into irrelevance, if that’s possible.
Whatever one thinks of Bhutto personally, her death could plunge the region into chaos, yes? I look forward to reading some comments from LP-ers who might have a wider grasp of the geopolitical ramifications. I think these could be a very big worry.
It’s hard to be completely at ease about a country with the unlovely combination of nukes and an electoral system based on army coups and political assassinations.
You’re dead right, Janny. I’m also concerned about the ramifications for the conflict in Afghanistan and the surreptitious support of some elements of the Pakistani Army for the Taliban, and I suppose, Al-Qaeda. I don’t confuse the two. I’m well aware they’re very separate entities, even if Bush can’t work that out. At the moment I don’t think there’ll be much impact on India, because the sort of peace process that is going on is likely to continue. But to some extent I’m speaking from ignorance as I don’t have a detailed knowledge of the sub-continent.Only what I pick up on TV news and read in the papers.
She was a crap administrator and leader the first time around, and she had no chance of winning this election. Putting her life on the line for the democratic process in that circumstance is very admirable even if it was, in part, an attempt to relive former glories. This was the fourth attempt on her life since returning – she could easily have bailed and lived in comfortable retirement.
I hope very bad things happen to the scumbags behind the attempts.
One interesting feature of this assassination will be to track its impact on the strength of Islamism in various parts of the population of Pakistan.
Before Bush started stirring up hornets’ nests throughout the region, various interests had achieved something of a modus vivendi. Now it is important to remark that this modus vivendi involved supporting the Taliban, who were oppressive, theocrats who gave safe haven to Al Qaeda. Thus, sometimes it is necessary to upset hornets’ nests.
However, it may be argued that Bush has bitten off more than he can chew. And by putting heat on Musharraf Bush has created and perhaps begun to topple a much bigger and more troublesome hornets’ nest that Afghanistan ever was.
Thus it may be argued that Bush found a small, manageable problem and by application of his usual magic has turned it into a huge, unmanageable problem.
Given Pakistan’s violent and confused birth as a nation (Mountbatten, Nehru and Gandhi between ‘em really fucked that one up) and the terrority and tribes that fall within its current geopolitical remit, I’m amazed the place is as stable as it is. The ISI, the North West Frontier mob, the Armed Forces and the Karachi/Arabian Sea trade nexus have worked out a fairly stable balance of power and trade. But every now and then, they to need to kill a leader – as a bargaining point as much as anything else.
Pakistan is basically one big garrison town surrounded over there by fluid and feral frontiers where the Americans, the Brits, the Taliban, the Russkies and bandit jihadists are all getting up to Allah knows what next.
While just over there next door Pakistan’s got an burgeoning superpower run by a bunch of tough, arrogant and smart ultranationalist who have 1 billion people, the bomb and worship gods like Kali – transformation of death – and Shiva – the destructor.
Not surprisingly, paranoia is Pakistan’s national flower.
And the whole subcontinent is where the Brits learnt how to fight properly with guns and cannon (including several of my ancestors) and now both the Pak and Indi armed forces are modeled along Brit military doctrines based on divide and conquer, bribery and sudden overwhelming firepower. And a well run officers’ mess.
Pakistan is also the sixth most populated country in the world and it’s current national slogan is “Visit Pakistan 2007″ – which I will do once the Paks and Indis stop lobbing artillery shells at eachother across the Kashmir Valley hailed in song by Led Zeppelin.
Century after century, ‘intelligent’ humans re-enact the same ridiculous, pointless, violent, 10th rate tragedy.
When will they ever learn?
Never! They’re too dumb.
“Given Pakistan’s violent and confused birth as a nation (Mountbatten, Nehru and Gandhi between ‘em really fucked that one up”
To be fair to those worthies, Nabs, they were prescient in predicting doom and disaster were India to be partitioned. And you left out Mohammed Ali Jinnah – a man for whom the quote, “apres moi, le deluge” might have been invented.
Presumably they left out “before it’s too late”.
the scary part to me is “whodunnit??”
Latest news reports indicate “whodunnit” was an Al-Qaeda related group, though not Al-Qaeda.
Interestingly, if Bhutto had won the election she was, it appears, again from ABC News, that she was going to invite the American Imbecile to send in US troops to pursue Al Qaeda/Taliban across the Pakistani border into Afghanistan. I seem to recall that a vasted number of Pakistanis strenuously and violently objected to this idea earlier in the year.
A Hornets’ Nest indded! I dread the potential consequences of the destabilisation after Bhutto’s death. Rudd, at least, might have the common sense to stay out of it.
One thing for sure is that the word http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/martyr is going to get a good work out, over the next week or so, from various quarters.
Fortunately, even if Bhutto had lived, that was a promise that she’d never be in a position to have to keep.
And now it seems that no democratically elected leader will be in charge in Pakistan during the presidency of GWB.
Nawaz Sharif, the other possibly electable anti-Musharraf figure in Pakistan, has vowed to boycott the forthcoming elections.
That leaves Musharraf in charge of the shop.
Assassination — cui bono?
“And you left out Mohammed Ali Jinnah:
Fuck yeah, that was embarrassing for someone shining on his sub continent watching creditionals
“they were prescient in predicting doom and disaster were India to be partitioned.”
And yet they were the ones who went ahead and partioned it anyway.
OK, Nehru might have been distracted by getting all tantric sex on Lady Mountbatten, Gandhi might have been distracted by the cameras, Louie Battenberg might have districted by the full length mirrors held up by sleek, supple page boys and Jinnah might have had a lathi up his arse but Partition really was yer classic case of a camel designed by committee. No wonder everyone from religious fundies to the IRA killed everyone involved.
“Yeah, so he’s a member of the Royal Family, so what?”
“It’ll send a red savage stab at the heart of the establishment Sean.”
“Blowing up some old queen on his yacht?”
“Did I not tell you he also fucked up partion between India and Pakistan?”"
“You most certainly did not Mike. So how much of this here semtex can I fit into me ears and nostrils while dog paddling out to his bloody English boat wid the fuze fizzing in me teeth?”
“Mrs Bhutto, in a recent letter to an acquaintance read on CNN this week, said she would hold Mr Musharraf responsible if she were killed, for a failure to authorise adequate security.”
What was she on about there?
It was reasonably foreseeable that crashing airliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon was going to stir up a hornet’s nest in the United States so it was a modus vivendi that wasn’t going to last. Still it is an interesting take that those attacks were a small manageable problem. Now if only FDR had taken the same view of Japan’s Pearl Harbor attack the Pacific War would have taken an interesting turn.
If Pakistan becomes a much larger and more troublesome hornet’s nest then just watch the Indians. They won’t stand for nuclear weapons in the hands of the theocrats.
We’ll never know how manageable the problem could have been had Bush made an effort to do a thorough job in Afghanistan rather than chasing off after a New Middle Eastern Order in Iraq.
Clearly, FDR did manage the Japan problem.
Equally clearly, GWB has failed to manage anything.
Katz,
I think the thinking is that if GWB had concentrated on chasing Al-Qaeda instead of chasing off after Saddam who tried to kill his daddy, Al-Qaeda would be no more. Now its a fragmented uncontrollable octopus and perhaps growing, because of Bush’s stupidity. (And Howard’s. But he would never have been willing to say, hey, George, Look at what you’re doing here, because it might have lost him an election.)
And, to bring it back to the thread, Bhutto is dead in Pakistan and all hell might break lose.
“…all hell might break lose.”
In my lifetime, Mr Paul, all hell breaks loose about every two years. It feeds the massive armaments industries that keep America going. Hadn’t you noticed?
“Still it is an interesting take that those attacks were a small manageable problem.”
Well that’s how they turned out to be. No one in America seems to have any enthusiasm anymore for catching Osama and life goes on. The US continues to bustle, hustle and party. I suspect if you ask most Americans what the biggest issue in their life is now, it would be the cost of living, not ravening Caliphate hordes.
911 seems now to be basically treated as an act of god that gets hauled out and wrapped in the flag from time to time by glory hunting pollies.
Here’s an interesting experiment. Stop most Americans in the street and ask ‘em “what day will live in infamy?” I reckon you’ll get a 30% strike rate max.
Perhaps GregM is implying that GWB should let a few more terrorists through his domestic security net pour encourager les autres.
I seem to recall somewhere that Benazir Bhutto, was the model for the character Arjumand “the Virgin Ironpants” Harappa in Salman Rushdie’s Shame. In here Rushdie portrayed her as resenting her being a woman – “it brings a person nothing but babies, pinches, and shame”. (107)
I think that most astute observers, whilst not doubting her undoubted courage – sub-continental politics have a knack of turning many of its practitioners into martyrs – would have to cast a somewhat juandiced eye over her record and achievements whilst in office, and conclude that she squandered whatever opportunities to she may have had to improve the lot of her people, all the while lying through her teeth about Pakistan’s efforts to acquire nuclear weapons.
Finally, if we subject her assisination to the “cui bono” test of Cicero, along with the knowledge that there were highly organised attempts on her life from the very day that she returned to Pakistan, then many opbservers would have to conclude that the grubby fingerprints of Pervez Musharraf are all over her death.
Cheers
The shooting/suicide bombing is in the style of al Qaeda, one of those open source groups influenced by AQ, not a state sanctioned hit. In fact this makes Mushy look weak.
All the major players in Pakistan politics are pro American to a large degree, and there was a working out of the various political stances/arrangements prior to this.
My take is that this was an attempt to fracture the political establishment (Mushy, Benazir, Sharif) consensus, all of them essentially secular and aligned against the Islamists.
The major players in Pakistani politics are largely pro-American coz the Indians next door, (who whupped ‘em twice – and happy to do it again), tended to be pro-Soviet.
I gotta agree with Phil’s take, it is a fracturing attempt.
All we know is that it was a successful attempt to rid the world of Bhutto.
The suicide shooter/bomber himself may not have known who gave him his orders.
Various factions in the ISI and the Pakistani Army are in close association with Islamists. Musharraf is in close association with many of these elements.
It’d be an act of blind faith to assert with confidence any motive behind this killing.
Only real dumb ones would have to reach that conclusion.
There are plenty of anti-democratic forces in Pakistan, other than Musharraf, who would have wanted her dead and would have been organised enough and persistent enough to see it done.
But it’s nice that you haven’t put it down to GWB, though there will be others here who will do so in due course.
“There are plenty of anti-democratic forces in Pakistan”
Pakistan is one heavily-armed paranoid garrison state. Everyone there is anti-democratic. Not because they’re against the concept of democracy per se. They just don’t want anyone else in power.
Here is an interesting article at salon.com, detailing the power sharing arrangements between Musharaff and Bhutto, sanctioned by the U.S., which would have taken place had she lived and been elected Prime Minister. It also explores the recurrent question on this thread – what is next for Pakistan, what does Bush have in mind (nothing), and does this signal a turn to Muslim fundamentalism as a protest against Musharaff?
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/12/27/bhutto/
“Visit Pakistan 2007″
There was a cartoon during the cold war when Solidarity was getting a little too frisky for Moscow’s tastes. It had a sign in the window of the downtown Warsaw “Intourist Bureau”
I guess what Musharref fears most of all that when it comes to the wild North West Frontier people visiting the USA, the latter believes in reciprocal visiting rights.
(But I think the Marines will find it difficult to avoid going through Lahore, so to speak, if they haven’t had R & R in Bangalore.)
I hope to god they (and the Indians) have PAL controls over those nukes. The least the Russkies and Yanks could do is let them know how to set up the hardware for it.
Agree that it was a fracturing move to try and stir up trouble. Musharraf would not have a great deal to gain from this – Bhutto wasn’t great as leader the first time around and it will cause more internal angst than it’s worth. Can’t really see how it benefits anyone other than AQ and associated split-offs/inspired groups.
Kinda freakin’ me out ’cause I just watched “Death of a President”….bit scary and realistic.
anyway here is the link
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/12/27/bhutto/
She was a brave woman who risked death to argue her case. A remarkable woman in every sense.
The weak tributes and the attacks here say more about the moribund left than Benazir.
LP at its pathetic optimum.
Let’s get a sense of proportion here. This isn’t the first political killing in Pakistan. And this is not just what they do in Third World countries either. Not in any particular order: John F Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Olaf Palme, Sergei Kirov, Aldo Moro, Grigori Rasputin, Louis Carerro Blanco, Yurgen Ponto, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Alexander Litvinenko, Pierre Laporte, Leon Trotsky, Huey Long, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, Yitzhak Rabin, Iccho Ito, Koki Ishi, John Newman, Englebert Dolfuss, Nikolai Bobrikov, Pierre Goldman, Hans-Martin Schleyer, Istvan Tisza, Robert Braford, Kevin O’Higgins, Louis Mountbatten, Salvatore Lima, Pim Fortuyn, Gabriel Narutowicz, Humberto Delgado, Ernest Martin, Fernando Blanco, Anna Lindh, Ian Gow, Edgar Grahame, Ahmed Kadirov, Sir James Stronge, Gregoris Lambrakis, Pavlos Bakoyannis, Jan Masaryk, James E Davis…
Virtually very country does it, even if it is sometimes exiles doing it to each other, especially in Europe. But there are a few champions in the modern era. And the winner is… hands-down winnah, the Philippines! Its 52, most clocked up since 1980.
Colombia and Sri Lanka are also recent performers with a bullet, neck and neck at 42. US is next with 41. Then Russia on 38, but note, 27 since 1994.
For comparison, Pakistan has only around 10 assassinations of public figures, easily beaten by El Salvador (22) Turkey (20), and Mexico (18). Hot spots Lebanon (19), Iraq (19) and Egypt (10) are lesser players compared to first-worlders such as Italy (24, most of them judges), France (30), Germany (20, most pre-war though).
Honourable mention to Japan with 24 of whom 6 have been prime ministers. Bravo!
Harry, you really are a good believer of anything that fits into your little box of bully boy. Nice that people have the capacity to think beyond that.
I dont know,but I guess a form of intelligence that I use on matters like this is comparison.And are all the gathered statistics of say the U.S.A. and Pakistan make Pakistan look like its viewing everything out of the gurgler!?With indecent haste it is easy to pin the tail on the Musharraf Donkey, but, maybe, he isnt that animal.I find it almost boring now, the references to 9/11 because the evidence is in 99.999999999% that it was an inside job,and do just keep blaming Al Quaeda is very dangerous to the whole notion of justice.Enough sound qualified and intelligent people now recognise the event for what it was..the machinery of justice itself has been under attack from the Bush Administration,and there are ample liars below those levels.Musharraf recently was victim to the strange accounting of the U.S.A. where trillion dollar oversights can go on, in Defense expenditure,then like somebody on the Australian dole is considered a cheat.It is unlikely any thinking person would accept the enforcement of relativistic morality ,if they were subject to this themselves.Whoever Benazir was and wether there is any reason to believe anything coming from Pakistan is up to the individual.I think it is all non-government propoganda,I would rather people dwell on the when and ifs of possibilty re human rights.Visiting DavidIcke.com and two items one on Aaron James a man that has been tasered and the human rights violations of Israel,is stark terrorism and the assassination of hope in the living.The media generally are having a bludgefest while the real shame..I say.. the real shame cannot be found in the brevity of sites like this.
Harry has a legitimate point – not about LP, because he is using this as a cheap shot – and that is that Benazir was a threat to the Islamists and their sponsors, the mullah-military intelligence nexus in Pakistan. What Harry will not admit however is that in their lust to do the Soviets in the eye, the Yanks created the mujahadeen monster which was ran via the Pakistani IIS. Now the chooks have come home to roost in that the relationship is strongly cemented by mutual need and even survival. In a sense, Benazir is a victim of US foreign policy.
However you cut it up, this is bad news for an already very troubled, volatile, and dangerous part of the world.
‘What Harry will not admit however is that in their lust to do the Soviets in the eye, the Yanks created the mujahadeen monster which was ran via the Pakistani IIS.’
The Pakistani ISI may have used islamist fighters to their advantage domestically via deployment in Kashmir and by supporting islamist parties but perhaps it is better to say they had watched the circumstances of soviet ruled afghanistan and thought this style of manipulation was too jolly a wheeze for them to not have a go at it ?
To baldly state the US created the monster is to undercut the organisational work done by Bin Laden and his supporters. The US also aided the Uzbeks , General Dostum particularly and Abdul Shah Masood – this doesn’t negate the support given to people who became Al qaeda but they were offering help to a broad group of anti soviet fighters.
The monster you refer to really came into it’s own once the US dropped it’s support and Bin Laden took over funding and organisation.
Bhutto engaged herself in the dangerous game of Pakistani politics with her eyes open. She knew the rules of the game and had played them herself, not least when as PM she covered up the circumstances of the assassination of her own brother.
Bhutto was no more or less virtuous than she had to be to follow the career path of her own choosing.
Now there are accusations flying that the Pakistani government has covered up the circumstances of Bhutto’s death. The government asserts she wasn’t shot at all, but hit her head on a door handle.
The magic non-bullet!
Paleo-conservatives,
http://kalimna.blogspot.com/2007/12/bhutto-dead.html
unsurprisingly, are fingering Al-Kaeda “vermin” for the whack/bombing, while a former Sheffied Shield all-rounder is producing some reverse swing. Imran reckons Mushareef is top of the cui bono hit parade with a bullet(or five actually, plus ka-boom).
http://www.ibnlive.com/news/imran-blames-mush-says-hope-still-alive-for-pak/55198-2.html
Seems to me, to have all the hallmarks of a joint ISI/CIA job, in which case we’ll never know for sure.
What we do know is that “The General, you know, The General, General”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/19991104/aponline181051_000.htm
is Team Imbecile’s boy through and through and is likely to remain so.
“The government asserts she wasn’t shot at all, but hit her head on a door handle.”
I think the news stated she hit her head on the opening of the sun roof ?
How quickly this has descended into farce and bizarre obfuscation.
Yeah, Murph. The handle was on the sun roof.
Pictures here.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23429927-details/Benazir+Bhutto+‘died+after+hitting+head+on+sunroof+-+not+from+bullet+or+shrapnel+wounds’/article.do
Testing…wun…two…two…test..
Whyfore censor/spaminator no like me?
Is it an “attitude” problem, or was it something I said?
Could we sort it before Mr. Hicks collects his son from Her Majesty’s Yatala prison, because people at my sleeper cell are starting to get very paranoid and I’d like to nip a potential domestic amongst “home-grown terrorists” in the bud. There’s been so much of it going about lately.
Always been a great believer in domestic harmony, but strictly on a “need-to-know” basis, if you know what I mean.
CON BENAZIR BUTHOO NO MURIÒ UNA MUJER NORMAL, COMÙN Y CORRIENTE. MURIÒ ALGO M�S: MURIO UN PEDAZO DE LA ESPERANZA DE UN PUEBLO. VENTUROSAMENTE LAS IDEAS NO MUEREN, PORQUE CUANDO SE LES QUIERE MATAR, SOLO SE LOGRA INMORTALIZARLAS. ESE ES EL CASO DE ESA EXTRAORDINARIA MUJER QUE AMÓ TANTO A SU PUEBLO, QUE LE REGALÒ SUS MEJORES AÑOS Y AL FINAL LE DIO LO MÀS PRECIADO: SU VIDA.
OTRA VEZ CAIN MATÒ A ABEL: ES LA HISTORIA DE UN MUNDO QUE GIRA SIEMPRE SOBRE EL MISMO EJE. LOS MALOS SE HACEN VIEJOS HACIENDO DAÑO. LOS BUENOS MUEREN JÒVENES.
EL FANATISMO Y EL FUNDAMENTALISMO CAMINAN DE LA MANO PARA SEMBRAR EL TERROR PERO CIERTAMENTE DEBEMOS MEDITAR SOBRE ¿QUE ES LO QUE LO PRODUCE? ¿CUAL ES EL ORIGEN?
SEGURAMENTE ENCONTRAREMOS QUE EN MUCHO LO ES LA INJUSTA REDISTRIBUCIÃ’N DE LA RIQUEZA Y LA INJUSTICIA SOCIAL. MIENTRAS NO ATAQUEMOS ESOS MALES, MIENTRAS EL MUNDO CAPITALISTA NO PIENSE CON SERIEDAD EN COMO AYUDAR A ESOS HERMANOS NUESTROS, TODO ESTO SEGUIRÃ?.
MIS CONDOLENCIAS AL PUEBLO PAQUISTANÌ, A LA FAMILIA BHUTTO.
PAZ A SUS RESTOS.
AMAURI CASTILLO RINCON. http://WWW.UNAVIDAFELIZ.COM
Yes, condolences to her country and her family.
She wasn’t perfect but she was courageous and engaged in a democratic election process: not scheming to blow up persons in marketplaces, nor ruling a nation by military rule.
I can’t find any pictures of the alleged ’smoking door handle’, but the mere suggestion is cause for concern. Apart from the fact that I’m not sure a bloodied interior is negative proof of a bullet wound, the suggestion (until proven true I hasten to add) paints Musharraf as clumsily involved: “She killed herself!!”? It’s fishy at the least…
On the lack of an autopsy: Medics usually don’t think they are necessary when there are gaping wounds.
I thought the attack was reminiscent of the sicarii – The tools have changed but little else has in the last 2000 odd years.
What puzzles me is why theyt bothered to put out this story of her mortally wounding herself on the open car roof top, door handle or whatever in the first place. Perhaps they felt the need to shift suspicion from Mushareef. It seems to have a ot to do with what’s going on internally in Pakistan at the moment. But apart from that, it doesn’t make any sense, since Al-qaeda has claimed responsibility in no uncertain terms. And my impression of Al-Qaeda is they never claim responsibility for something they haven’t done.
In western countries any violent death usually involves an autopsy. Even Lee Harvey Oswald was autopsied despite the fact that he has shot on TV.
Muslims put great store in as rapid a burial as possible. Perhaps Pakistani law reflects that preference.
There are eye witnesses who attest to seeing bullet holes in Bhutto. The authorities would have to have known about the testimony of these eye witnesses. If there were no bullet holes in Bhutto a properly conducted autopsy would have scotched that rumour. Yet the authorities contradicted the rumour without refuting it. Strange.
On the broader issue, Pakistani demonstrators are taking out their rage on Musharraf, not Al Qaeda. This is also strange. Why earen’t madrassas going up in smoke?
Also, new footage has been aired on Pakistani TV showing the shooter and then Bhutto collapsing before the bomb blast.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/footage-shows-gunman/2007/12/30/1198949658080.html
Given the govt incredulously suggested Bhutto died hitting her head as a result of the bomb blast (refuted by many witnesses), this now seriously puts that in doubt and suggests they have something to hide in the matter.
Interesting picture Casey.
The shooter handles that pistol like a pro.
I wonder if the shooter is wearing a suicide belt, or if another person wore that belt.
And if another person wore the belt, did the shooter know?
Katz, Dawn TV News also showed another picture. Times of India has reported there were two men and one is the suspected shooter, the other the suicide bomber. found that one here
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1945723/posts
“On the broader issue, Pakistani demonstrators are taking out their rage on Musharraf, not Al Qaeda. This is also strange. Why earen’t madrassas going up in smoke?”
They’re pretty much taking out their rage on banks and shops, according to the Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Top_Headlines/Pak_says_38_dead_millions_of_dollars_in_damage_after_unrest/articleshow/2661126.cms hearlt -one – and that unpleasantness is apparently largely confined to the Bhutto power base of Sindh province. All politics is local and in the sub-continent it’s more local than most. “Democracy” is largely delivered through clan and tribal patronage links and the PPP is very much the localised personal fiefdom of the Bhutto clan. Apart from that, I suspect that the madrassas are safe because no political players in Pakistan would dream of attacking the Islamist power-base, head on. Benazir certainly didn’t when she was PM.
I thought it was the doctors at the hospital who initially questioned the official line about gunshot wounds? Basically, they didn’t find any and ascribed her death to the trauma induced by bomb-blast shockwave effect – which would certainly be catastrophic if one’s head was smashed into levers on a car roof hatch. Whatever, we’ll probably never know and Benazir’s death will be variously attributed to the most politically expedient cause that interested parties chose to devise.
Whether or not Al Qaeda is responsible – and in this context “Al Qaeda” could be a thousand shadings of militant Islamist and/or political interests and or military and intelligence interests in a kaleidoscope of permutations – who knows?
This lack of clarity provides limitless opportunity for apportioning blame, as preferred political strategy dictates, and I anticipate the mining of a rich motherlode of conspiracy theories for months to come.
Interesting.
If the shooter knew what was about to happen, he was a cool customer.
If the shooter didn’t know what was about to happen, then the argument for a military/ISI and Islamist conspiracy strengthens.
I wonder why there is no information at all about the identity of these two characters.
It takes Israel only hours to discover the identity of suicide bombers. And many of them lived beyond Israeli control.
Here is some new footage of the gunman firing. Quite astounding.
http://broadband.indiatimes.com/videoshow/2660784.cms
Benazir herself wanted it known that she would lay the blame at their feet if anything happened. Why would she do that? Clearly there are witnesses, footage and photos which all point away from the govt’s explanation. Looks like a coverup. Very surprising because recent reports suggest she wasnt getting the support she required to win govt and become PM anyway. I say there is more to this story to come.
“I thought it was the doctors at the hospital who initially questioned the official line about gunshot wounds? Basically, they didn’t find any and ascribed her death to the trauma induced by bomb-blast shockwave effect – which would certainly be catastrophic if one’s head was smashed into levers on a car roof hatch”
Ive been reading all there is to read on this the past few days and never saw this once. So can you provide a link to where you found it? The story that she hit her head only emerged from the Interior Ministry after she was buried, when it was impossible to acertain its veracity. So I would be pleased if you could point me to where you read this?
Pak Lawyer Blog has excellent links:
http://paklawblog.typepad.com/paklawyer/2007/12/chaos-3.html
These links contain details about how normal security and police procedures were flagrantly breeched. How about hosing down a crime scene with high-power hoses?
Also, John Bolton the neocon fanatic calls George W Bush and imbecile.
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Bolton_US_helped_precipitate_conditions_for_1228.html
Just a thought.
If the shooter was blown up by the bomber, the pistol would have remained in situ.
Usually police authorities like to brandish such trophies for the media.
Where is the pistol?
If the pistol has gone, then the possibility arises that the shooter survived the blast, and perhaps that the blast was laid on to aid his escape.
The Pak Lawyer Blog cited above reports that the land cruiser containing the body of Bhutto survived the blast sufficiently well to drive Bhutto to hospital. That is nothing like the blast that killed so many at the earlier attempt.
In situ? In his hand? Or one hundred metres away- blown that far by the blast?
Ever the armchair general/conspiracy theorist.
The whole area was a crime scene.
The blast wasn’t very big. The blast killed relatively few people. No one else in Bhutto’s vehicle was injured. The vehicle remained drivable.
A pistol is a dense and heavy object unlikely to be blown very far.
Perhaps a passer-by picked the pistol up as a souvenir.
It appears that police don’t have it.
Published photos would make it easy to identify the remains of the shooter from the clothing he wore. There have been some quite accurate counts of casualties.
Has the body of the shooter been identified among the dead?
For comparison, police authorities found and publicised a picture of the alleged suicide bomber’s head. (warning, grisly).
http://www.javno.com/en/world/clanak.php?id=110154
Would the shooter’s head be more difficult to find?
Would a pistol be more difficult to find?
The reason the Pakistani demonstrators have taken their rage out on Musharref is because they believe he (or sections of the military at least) are responsible rather than Al Qaeda. And they may be right. It’s significant in any case that Al Qaeda have denied involvement; they normally rush to claim responsibility.
In any case, the problem all along for Musharref has been the fact that the Taliban was a creation of the Pakistani security service and that the Taliban tail is now wagging the dog. So even if Al Qaeda did it, Musharref and/or sections of the Pakistani military were probably involved.
And they be wrong.
What at all does your post add to our knowledge or understanding, except pointless speculation?
Re Al Qaeda. The Pakistan branch of Al Qaeda has now come out and denied involvement. earlier they had claimed responsibility and the head of AlQaeds in Pakistan whose name escapes me had named the assassins. This was in a report in either Times on line or the Age yesterday in Google news I think.
Re the pistol. TV news has been showing pictures of the pistol at the crime scene, on and off since the assassination occurred.
Hope this is of some help.
I thought it was obvious, who it was that killed Benazir right from the start.
It was the Butler.
Are you saying that it was photographed lying on the ground after the bomb blast?
I’ve looked for references to anything like this, but can’t find any.
The bigger mystery is the missing shooter’s body. If th eauthorities have it, why didn’t they publicise it like the head of the alleged bomber/
“Are you saying that it was photographed lying on the ground after the bomb blast?”
It was clearly visible on the CNN and BBC broadcasts on the evening.
I am indeed saying that about the pistol, Katz. It was on ch. 10 and ch.9 News. Unfortunately with the kind of legerdemain TV stations can do with digital footage these days there’s no way of being absolutely sure that was accurate footage. But it was certainly the context. OTOH, they had a chappies holding up a spent bullet, claiming the police had not prperly secured the crime scene. But one or other of those channels was contradicting themselves about Al-Qaeda involvement too. Times on line had a whole series of photographs -10 I think, which I didn’t bother to look through.You should check them out.
Th pistol lying on the ground was filmed and a vid of it was shown on the US ABC network news site. It also appeared on our TV news feeds. That footage of the pistol has now disappeared from the net. But there are plenty of vids and stills showing the shooter, the bloke in the sunnies.
The woman who washed Benazir’s body, her press spokeswoman Sherry Rehman, saw an entry and exit wound. The gunman fired three shots. He missed with two, and got Benazir in the back of the head with one. Read Rehman’s account here:
http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/I-bathed-Bhuttos-body-saw-bullet-wound/255606/
A quick look at the pistol on TV seemed made me think at the time it was the Polish WIST 94, because it is quite idiosyncratic looking, but some bloggers reckon it was a Smith & Wesson Sigma. Anyway, both the weapons are 9mm parabellum (i.e. 9X19mm military sidearm calibre).
It It is clear that there is now a cover up.
We shouldn’t also exclude a fukup. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand was also a fukup that went wrong at first but then the shooter Gavrilo Princip got lucky when Ferdie’s driver got lost and stalled the royal car in a cul de sac just as Princip was taking a shortcut through there. The assassination of Reinhard Heidrich was also a monumental stuff but which worked in the end.
I reckon the bomb man was supposed to blow Benazir up but the switch didn’t work and the back up man (Plan B) shot her. Then the bomber got the switch working. In the meantime the car was away. Benazir was a bit unlucky in a way. This was poorly planned hit that worked in the end.
BTW The shooter dropped the pistol not because he was the bomber as well but at that stage he (a) didn’t know the bomber would detonate the bomb; and (b) he didn’t want to be caught with the weapon in his claw by any of Benazir’s supporters. He didn’t expect the dufus bomber to finally get the switch working.
Geoff @ 56
Interesting take here (over the river so to speak) on why AQ won’t wear this etc…
Pakistani plot with an American twist: three dictators, three lost political generations by
Shekhar Gupta
http://www.indianexpress.com/printerFriendly/255723.html
Okay, I found the photo of the pistol found at the scene:
http://www.daylife.com/photo/0cMG9c94FEaWy/Benazir_Bhutto
This is not as clear a picture as what I saw on the telly.
What made me think it was a Wist 94 is the shape overall, the lighter colour of the slide to the frame which is polymer plastic while the slide is steel; also note the prominent blade rear sight, and the oddly cranked pistol grip. The pistol in close up is here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WIST-94
U guyz are saying bullshit…………..Benazir waz true,honest leader
i gues u all asupported of AQ n one of u mite b involved in her killing
Well I didnt understand a word of that, never mind, now it seems the son of Benizir is to become her successor. The Bhutto’s are possessed of some crazy dynast impulse arent they? He’s only 19. Now I read an interesting line the other day. Benizir had the biggest Electra complex of any female public figure in recent times. She worshipped her father and this drove her sense of destiny which she entwined with the fate of Pakistan. And this idea of born to rule, instilled by the double figuure of pater familias and the democratic father of the country, goes some of the way to explain the risks she took. And now it seems, her son has taken up the ill conceived idea…I could think of better things to do at 19 than follow the the same dangerous road as my just murdered mother. And its not brave. Its a shame. He is far too young, as was his ill fated mother, when she also became politicised as a result of her father’s hanging. Now there are some family burdens…
Casey, though you may not have noticed, Americans, in the main, have the ‘born to rule’ instinct (Israelis have it too).
P.S. As well, the Bhuttos are not that unusual. Look at the Bushes and the Clintons.
No, horsey, they are not unusual at all. The Kennedy’s would be another family that have very similar ideas and patterns and very bad outcomes.
casey.
There are two daughters who, it seems are expected to be caught upn the Bhutto dynasty, but they’re younger.
Yes I know, it will certainly unfold over the next 10 years …but I suspect the son is being uniquely positioned at the moment. He is probably too young to contest but is already threatening revenge for his mother’s death by winning at the ballot box.
Buttos, Gandhis in India, Kim in North Korea, Saddam Hussein’s sons in Iraq, Kennedy clan in USA, … Kim Beazeley and his Dad in Australia, Simon Crean and his Dad, various “left” dynasties in Australia; why even a son of Gough Whitlam had a term as MP in Australian Federal Parliament!! Many other examples in other nations.
Political “dynasties” are not rare, but it’s a treat to see those supposedly strong,republican, anti-royalist Americans taking up the pattern of male dynastic succession, in their sturdily non-monarchical system
Benazir:: I’m amazed at the lengths to which all this post-assassination armchair detective “work” has gone. Is it the Silly Season here on LP?
cheerio
silly season?
I suppose we should just leave it up to that highly independent mob, the Pakistani judiciary.
Everyone:
Informative posts [well, mostly].
She seemed like a nice enough lady. Very brave and idealistic. Hitchens posted a fair-minded obiturary here.
However that and $2.50 will only get you a cup of coffee throughout most of South West Asia.
Most of the “nation states” in that region are “tribes with flags”. That is to say they are both historically back-ward and socially divided.
Not a good look as a cultural foundation for the institutions of representative government. As “we” found to our cost in the case of Iraq. [What do you mean "we", Kimosabe?]
Pakistan remains barren ground for liberal institutions. You need cultural modernity and social consensuality to make a proper democracy work. Bhutto’s assasination proves that democracy is not going to be a good bet in that place for the time being.
Musharraf is probably the least of the multitude of evils on offer. And his temporary suspension of civil liberties appears to have been the correct policy for the time.
So it looks like the old Kissingerian policy of siding with the dictatorial stabilisers is the right one after all. At least when dealing with powder keg polities of vital strategic interest.
Post-modern liberalism’s obsession with civil liberties at all costs seems to have gone well past the point of diminishing returns. Its unlikely that an increase in civil liberties will bring much political progress to Pakistan.
Perhaps its time for modern liberals to lend a more sympathetic ear to “benevolent” despots, properly constrained by international coalition of forces. That was the ticket “we” should have punched with Iraq.
Dictatorship seems to have worked well to bring the Sino-Asian countries up from the pre-modern through to the modern phase of history. With an unfortunate temporary diversion into megalomaniacal totalitarianism under Mao.
That’s possible Sir Hank, but less likely than this:
You have to concede that these two men were part of the same plot. That is, they weren’t two lone nuts acting independently. (This isn’t impossible, but it leads nowhere.)
Scenario 1.
The shooter didn’t know of the existence of the bomber. (It is possible for the shooter not to know of the existence of the bomber and still be part of the same plot. In that case the shooter was a patsy.)
If it is the case that the shooter didn’t know of the existence of the bomber and the shooter’s body isn’t among the pile of the dead, then the shooter just got lucky and he now licking his wounds in parts unknown.
If the shooter is among the dead, then the failure of the authorities to identify him is proof positive of a cover-up.
Scenario 2.
The shooter did know of the existence of the bomber.
It is possible that the shooter knew he was going to be fragmented by the bomber soon after shooting and willingly accepted his fate. However, as far as we know, his body wasn’t among the dead or badly injured. He may have got lucky.
It is possible that the bomber was on hand to provide a diversion for the shooter to escape. This raises the question about what sort of shooter would want to escape. And one answer would appear to be a person who is not driven by fanaticism, but rather a trained and perhaps professional killer of the kind found employed by intelligence organisations. In other words, the shooter is an asset that the people who plotted this assassination wanted to preserve.
Someone had already tried to kill Bhutto with a much larger bomb and had failed. That would indicate that whoever plotted the successful attempt should have known that the small bomb by itself would have been unlikely to do the job. This relegates the function of the bomb to a subsidiary role in the plot.
And it magnifies the role of the shooter in the plot. And as we have seen, he got the first crack at Bhutto. There is no need to hypothesise equipment failure. On the contrary, everything went perfectly according to plan.
We all await news of the fate of the shooter. But with each passing day without news it seems he did get away unscathed.
He was likely to be an asset considered worth preserving.
And who puts this value on such characters? Security organisations that have to go to the next candidate and say “look, we saved the killer of Bhutto, now it’s your turn.”
This highly successful operation bears many of the hallmarks of a jihadist/Pakistan govt agency collaboration.
No it’s not Jack. There is no such thing as a benevolent despot. Even the best of despots is maintained by a faction which ultimately holds sway by keeping the rest of the population down while reaping the corrupt benefits from their relationship with the despot. It is a recipe for instability, not its remedy.
And your “international coalition of forces”? Where will that come from? Will we bleed the reluctant democracies dry to maintain these “benevolent despots” in power (for that would be the outcome) or would we outsource the role to other “responsible” members of the international community such as China?
Tsk, tsk Strocchers.
We all saw how well that worked with Diem, Thieu, Marcos, Suharto, Saddam, the Shah of Iran, Battista, Samosa, the Apartheid regime in South Africa, and now Musharraf.
Like the Bourbons, you never forget and you never learn.
GregM Jan 1st, 2008 at 10:37 am
Rubbish, thats just liberal scare-mongering. Of course there are benevolent dictators. Lee Kwan Yu for one.
Sometimes democracy is good. Sometimes its not so good. It depends on the quality of the people, which can vary over time and space. GIGO.
GregM says:
It used to be called the “international concert of powers” or some such in more civilised times. Alright then. The PRC did not support regime-change in Iraq. Although they did not oppose it either, being cynical machiavellians.
Okay then, its off to Iran we go, with a regime-changing plan to beat all others clutched in our hot little hands.
And another? And then even of Lee, he has pretty much turned Singapore into Lee Family Incorporated with a hereditary Prime-ministership and his family well and truly in control of Temasek.
Lee Kwan Yu isn’t/wasn’t a figure foisted upon Singapore by a neo-colonialist power. Whatever else Lee was, he was an expression of domestic national and social aspirations who ruled by consensus.
And he was the one successful exception among the roll-call of failures I listed above, most of whom sought their ultimate authority not from the majority of the inhabitants of their countries.
Lee was unique. You can’t build a general case on him.
“With an unfortunate temporary diversion into megalomaniacal totalitarianism under Mao.”
This is a rather glib way to try and account for probably the greatest waste of human lives engineered by warlord politicians.You can’t just brush such matters aside and they have contributed to a corrosion in the way politics has developed in the sino – asian area.In China an entire generation has grown up without education and any concept of civil engagement.
Katz Jan 1st, 2008 at 11:06 am
I am not so sure that the shopping list of dictators you supply is as bad as you seem to imply. Sure you woldnt mind having a rethink before you learn something from my correction of your forgettable list?
After all, the Cold War as it was waged in the Southern Hemisphere was largely a success. With the glaring exception of Vietnam, a war which no-body won.
Thieu actually submitted to elections. And I dont think his replacements coming out of the NV Communist party count as all that democratic.
Saddam did a good job of running a bad country, at least initially. He should not have been deposed by force. His replacements seem to be worse, going by their tendency to ethnic cleanse by the million.
Ditto Shah of Iran. Anyone for Ayatollah-style democracy?
Battista. I dare say that some Cubans pine for the good old days when Latin American dictators measured their tenure in years rather than decades.
No doubt the fall of the Apartheid regime should be applauded by all right-thinking citizens of the world. Unfortunately it cannot be applauded by the 21,995 people murdered in that country last year. A typical rate of carnage since full suffrage was awarded in that nation.
Musharaff seems to be the best of a bad bunch. He appears opposed to the Taliban-Al Quaeda. He has kept a lid on Pakistans nuclear weapons stock. He has maintained a semblance of order in the cities. All of this whilst under constant threat of assassination or coup.
You cant ask for much more than that from a leader in the Badlands of SW Asia.
I used to be an automatic supporter of extending and promoting liberal democracy always and everywhere. But Iraq was a nasty reality check. And the post-colonial history of Arabia and sub-Saharan Africa does not exactly fill one with confidence, does it?
People seem to forget liberal democracies can take two hundred or more years to evolve to the point where they’re halfway workable. And you still have wars, economic disasters, starvation, homelessness,near civil wars, incompetent to very incompetent leaders, race riots, people machine gunned in the street or beat up by coppers with baseball bats and I haven’t even got out of White Australia yet.
As for other countries …
Way to change the terms of the debate Jack!
I thought your threadlet was about establishing sustainable governments.
You seem to have morphed it into a discussion about how nice these characters were/are.
For the record:
1. No I don’t think they were nice guys.
2. None of them were successful either in their own terms or for what they could do for the US.
Let me make my point quite clear. One of the purposes of foreing sponsored dictators is to stop unwelcome alternatives.
How many of my list, which is fairly representative of US-sponsored dictators since 1945, prevented less welcome characters from replacing them?
Diem. Turned the majority Buddhists against the Americans.
Thieu. Was the victim of America’s worst fiasco until Iraq.
Marcos. His ousters closed some big US naval bases.
Suharto. Indonesia still a work in progress. No thanks to the US.
Saddam. Provoked the rise of Shiite fundamentalism, at present being assisted by the Surge. A monumental, self-inflicted American disaster.
The Shah of Iran. Provoked the rise of Shiite fundamentalism. Perhaps the most threatening internationalist movement since Leninism.
Battista. Castro.
Samosa. A bad smell in a sensitive region.
The Apartheid regime in South Africa. Great embarrassment. And now an anti-Bush Mandela speaks with huge moral authority.
Musharraf. Bush’s tar baby.
Vietnam is in the Northern Hemisphere.
What planet are you living on? As soon as Saddam obtained power he massacred any competition he had in the Ba’ath Party then launched a reckless war of aggression against Iran. But you think that is a good start. TRULY AMAZING.
The contest is not between the Shah of Iran and Ayatollah-style democracy. It is between despots, whatever their form, and democracy.
Paul Burns has observed, wrongly I think, that:
That misreads history. At its outer edge democracy as a form of government is only two hundred years old. But everywhere where it has been introduced once introduced the people cleave to it. And it is an extraordinary nonsense to say that it takes then takes two hundred or more years to evolve to the point where they are halfway workable. From Day One people in democracies start to work out what is workable to them. Sure, there is no perfection in this but democracy is a work in progress and not a Marxist utopia. Look to Spain since the death of Franco and the resstoration of democracy as the proof of this.
Right on GregM.
Democracy, as we understand it, consists of two complementary features, regardless of constitutional system.
1. A respect for opponents. A recognition of the existence of legitimate opposition. A belief that your opponent can disagree with you and yet not be a traitor. Robespierre is the archetypal example of a person who did not recognise this quality.
2. A system that gives representatives of the people the right to check the power of the executive, usually through the power of the purse.
A moment’s reflection would indicate that these two features are closely related to each other. For example, the people’s representatives cannot say “no” to the executive unless they believe that their opposition is legitimate.
It is fascinating to contemplate how many different paths have been taken by different nations to this balance of political power.
Katz I agree with and affirm everything that you have written.
But there is one thing more, a third feature, which I submit is the very essence of democracy, which is that the enfranchised people care about their vote; they think it makes a difference.
I have always been a citizen of Australia and therefore, by rights, I should not have to worry much about the power of my ballot. And I don’t. In a mature democracy such as Australia is (and arguably it is the world’s oldest democracy with the passing of the universal male suffrage legislation in 1855 in Victoria, rapidly followed by the other colonies). When I vote I do not care, in one way, the outcome of my vote. Thirteen million other people will have voted. I trust them. Maybe they have got it wrong, but in three years time they can set it right. The very fact that they can do that is a constraint on any government.
Having lived in other countries where the democratic principle is less secure I see the same aspiration among their people, though not always their government.
In other countries I have lived in, where the power of the ballot, and therefore the people, is less established it is a treasured thing. It has always humbled me that for those people, to whom compared to our well established democratic ways must be so alien (as Jack would tell us) understand the principles and values of democracy, just as we do, and they don’t take two hundred years to do so or to act on their democratic instincts..
Fear I do not have near as much faith as you, greg and Katz, about the ability of politicians to seriously observe the rules. Go so far as to concede ‘halfway’ was going too far.Or to put it another way, what would we do if a political party in office decided things were so bad’ here, it was a “state of emergency” so they wouldn’t hold an election for the foreseeable future? Nothing much, I reckon.To keep it on thread, this is what has happened in Pakistan in the past. I won’t bother asking to what extent we’re talking about elected oligarchies.
I’m probably just too cynical about politics.Sometimes.
A good point Paul, and also worth emphasising is that political democracy worldwide was in full retreat in the relatively recent past, i.e., from the 1920s to the end of WW2. In 1944 there were only around 12 states with constitutional or elected governments out of a global total of 64 and in contrast to 35 such states in 1920.
And this collapse of liberal democratic institutions and governments, this authoritarian, anti-democratic political shift came about exclusively because of the actions of the political right.
And it takes a while to get rid of these characters. 12 years for Hitler, about 20 for Mussolini, about 15 or so for Bjelke-Petersen. Sorry fellas, I don’t want to wait that long. I’d get into too much trouble. I couldn’t keep my mouth shut.Will it be five months or five more years with Mushariff? And what will happen if Al Qaeda or some-one successfully bumps him off.
PB,
It is impossible to predict what may happen in the future, but it should be noted that Australia has had three general elections during time of world war (1917, 1940 and 1943) and one in the depths of a depression (1931).
Never at the commonwealth nor the state level has there ever been any serious contemplation of delaying or postponing an election beyond its appointed time.
Such a procedure would require the co-operation of the viceroy. So long as s/he remains loyal to the terms of her/his commission–that is his/her first loyalty is to the Crown, no viceroy would ever accede to a demand by a prime minister or premier to subvert the constitution s/he swore to uphold.
Laws are only as good as the persons who administer them, of course, and a character like John Kerr might have been persuaded to break his oath. That is why John Howard’s manipulation of the office of Governor General was as worrying as anything I know about in Commonwealth constitutional history. But I doubt that Howard ever came clase to postponing elections. I may have disliked the man intensely, but I won’t call him a traitor.
GregM, I believe that a number of factors prevent democracy in countries like Pakistan. Among them:
1. The world is full of Robespierreists who sincerely believe that they represent the legitimate will of their nation, to the exclusion of all others.
2. There is insufficient trust to allow people to act on their claim that they will respect the rights of their opponents. Often, this lack of trust is very well founded.
And the menace of the gangster Joseph Stalin played had no part in it?
Well you would say that, wouldn’t you?
Of course, as usual, you have the supreme forgetfulness in mentioning that in 1944 there were only 12 democracies left, not noting that the Molotov-Ribentropp Pact of 1939, of which, as a hearty supporter of Stalinism, you fully endorse, laid waste to the democracies of Europe. No surprise that you didn’t get your way.
It is a marvel and triumph of democracy that even with only 12 of our democratic countries left we fought on and that we prevailed. Bitterly disappointing for you though, because your side, the fascists, lost.
Then in 1989 this fascist institution that you so lovingly support came crumbling down, under the remorseless spirit of democratic nations which had survived the onslaught of the Nazis and the treachery of your hero and solemnly resolved that, no matter how long it took, the enslaved people of Eastern Europe would be liberated from the yoke of your hero.
Rejoice. Somewhere in the world fascism is rearing its ugly head. Get in early. You can be one of its heroes.
Yeah, Wolfe’s little screed is a masterpiece of selective timing.
1944? Just before the collapse of world fascism and before the onslaught of Stalinism. Gimme a break!
However, it does need to be noticed that the end of the Weimar democracy was the major political event between the end of WWI and and outbreak of WWII.
And this was an event in which the internal forces of German culture crystallised to destroy democracy. It happened with the consent of Germans.
Germans were fatally attracted to the Robespierre of their day.
And the Weimar Constitution embodied the lack of faith that Germans had in democracy, even when establishing a democracy. Article 48 allowed rule by decree. Such a rule is fatal to democracy.
And it should be noted that GWB has presided over an era in the US when he is asserting the right of the president to rule by decree.
This is just the latest example:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/12/28/171914/13/822/427337
And this arrogation of power should be grounds for impeachment, were Cheney not to be impeachment’s immediate beneficiary.
Viewing the most recent video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fj9xAyHOT2o
it is hard to imagine how Bhutto’s shooter could have survived the blast, which happened almost as soon as he stopped firing.
The blast was very, very close to the shooter.
Almost certainly, the shooter is among the dead.
GregM
Good on you: it is as well to recall that totalitarian “leaders” and their followers are vicious little creeps who get away with murder because they remove all the constraints that are typical of democracies – scrutiny by a free press, independent judiciary, habeus corpus, regular elections, independent police forces, freedom of association, etc.
I’m sure that events in 1920’s Germany and into thge 1930’s were somewhat influenced by Josef Stalin, through his loyal KP Deutschland, whose street thugs were apparently as vicious as Adolf’s street thugs.
But how does a society reach a point where organised gangs of (political) thugs are roaming and threatening?
There’s a line of influence from Josef Stalin, through Mao, to Pol Pot; with outgrowths in Guevara’s adopted island Cuba, “Shining Path” in Peru, Maoists in Nepal, etc.
One of the ways these thugs give the game away, making it easier for folk to spot them early, is their mangled, derivative (and euphemistic) rhetoric. Murderous reality lurking under high flown cant. [Hypocrisy being the tribute evil pays to the good.]
I hope the current trials of Khmer Rouge in Pnomh Penh remind us of a terrible terror.
I’m surprised no one else has picked up on this little gem from Paul Burns: “it takes a while to get rid of these characters. 12 years for Hitler, about 20 for Mussolini, about 15 or so for Bjelke-Petersen.”
I am avidly following the ongoing debate between historians on the true death toll of the Bjelke-Petersen regime that terrorised Queensland for so long.
Until a few years ago, the historical orthodoxy was in the region of 4 million deaths; it was difficult to be precise due to the concentration camp records being burned just before Field Marshal Goss’ troops liberated the camps.
But recently Windschuttle and the other right-wing revisionists and denialists have been claiming the total was no more than 1.5 million!
Anyway, the Bjelke-Petersen genocide debate is OT here and clearly deserves its own thread.
I was not in any way inferring Bjelke-Peteresen had committed any form of genocide. I was suggesting he had corrupted the democratic process in Queensland, established an authoritarian police state, and gerrymandered the electoral system so he could not be voted out.I also u8nderstand he had no idea of the separation of powers. Remember the findings of the Fitzgerald Enquiry.
I know what it was like in Queensland. I was strip searched, locked up for a night and threatened with further imprisonment in Warwick because I had long hair and came from down south. I have many friends who protested against the Petersen regime and were bashed for their trouble, and I’m sure that happened to quite a few LP-ers.Don’t tell me democracy CAN’T be threatened in Australia. I’ve seen it temporarily destroyed and people tugged their forelocks and just LET IT HAPPEN!
Newflash Ambigulous.
Virtually all members of the KPD (German Communist Party) were … German!
The German Centre Party at the same time was comprised almost entirely of Catholics. Does that mean that they were taking orders from the Pope? Does thaat mean that supporters of the Centre Party weren’t German?
Katz you are really missing the point here. From Lenin onwards the key to the communist movement was intense loyalty to whatever the central committee decided. This was called democratic centralism. The time period was well before the Chinese were taken over by communists and thus there was no dissension based on any split between nations. This was also many years before Kruschev’s criticisms of Stalin came out and dissilusioned a lot of marxists of that era.
Communists were totally loyal to the Soviet Union in those days. The Soviet Union itself was entirely under the control of the party. The party was wholly controlled by the central committee. And the Chairman was effectively therefore in control of the communist parties worldwide. This didn’t even begin to change until after more countries became communist.
During World War II Stalin had to be made President in order to do deals with the Brits and Americans. Heretofore he had only been Chairman of the party. Under the Leninist system Chairman of the party is where all the power is. A President who was not Chairman of the party also would be a mere functionary.
So these German communists may as well have been Russian. Since under the communist system they might argue everything locally into the night and the early morning. And in fact matters were debated in this way in many places at least. Until everyone was exahusted no doubt. But the amount of debate in practice was immaterial. Because once the central scrutinizer decides on the matter thats the end of the debate.
Indeed, Paul, all systems of government evolve, always have, always will.
The recent worldwide decline in democracy and the growing irrelevance of each particular governmental form in a densely interconnected world of profit and privilege partly informed the conclusions of the five-year Norwegian ‘millenium’ Study of Power and Democracy (initiated by the Norwegian Parliament) which went so far as to speculate whether Norway’s democracy was likely to survive the 21st century in anything like its present shape and might eventually yield to something else, such as a meritocratic oligarchy or multinational bureaucracy.
The study concluded that Norway’s constitutional democracy was in crisis and had developed a serious disconnect between the people and those representing them. (Sound familiar?)
That disconnect, it concluded, was due to a number of factors, included “the evisceration of local government, excessive agenda-setting by the media, the business community’s veto power over economic policy, supranational law that ties the hands of the national legislature and unrivalled judicial review.”
“These dysfunctional disconnects in the democratic chain of command are leading to democracy’s erosion.”
“But I doubt that Howard ever came clase to postponing elections.” sic
If the opportunity had of arisen he would have grabbed it. He never showed the slightest bit of interest in true democracy, locally.
His major love affair, with it, was the thought of imposing his warped vision of it, OT.
George Bush style.
“So these German communists may as well have been Russian”
Ah, the Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy lives on!
This is exactly what the Nazis and a fascistic capitalism said about the Jews.
Fascism explicitly identified Jews with political subversion and Communism in particular and used this as justification for attempted genocide involving tens of millions across Europe including all those other non-Jews killed in the Soviet Union as a result of Germany’s attempt an old style imperialist land grab.
They were Germans who made a free choice, just like adherents to the Catholic Centre Party, with the difference that most of them were born and raised Catholic.
So I do get the point Chodorov. You are an hysteric. End of conversation.
Well as a fascist you’d have to be right on the money about that. You know perfectly well about your friends and what their thinking is.
We poor silly buggers who just trailed along with democracy aren’t good enough for your level of thought, however. We just gritted our teeth and got on with bringing decency back to the world. All twelve nations of us as you’ll recall from your observations about the result of your fascist hero’s pact with Hitler.
Tell us something more about the joys of fascism, with which you are so enarmoured.
I’m afraid you have missed the point Katz and that the people who you are criticising have a far better handle on the situation than you are likely ever to. This is the historical fact of how the communist party worked and its one reason why they were so effective.
GregM, dear boy, the worst sin in life, politics and the bedroom is to be dull.
I’d wager you are a dullard in all three.
Will a Wolfe stare down a Dullard? Will Benazir’s killers be caught? Will the Hornet’s be cancelled? Will internet censorship be introduced?
The stress of L.P. is mindboggling!
Mrs Bhutto’s body guards were not paying attention were they, letting her put her head out of the sunroof. Her son may go the same way as she and her husband too. One has to ask, is it worth it.
Margo,
I doubt they could have stepped her. It was her political style. She was apparently warned repeatedly that Rawalapingi (sp.?) was dangerous for her and her party but she took no notice.
If the latest claims that she was planning to reveal that Mushareef was planning to rig the election process are true, I’m starting to come round to the view of those who suspect he was responsible, especially if its true Al-Qaeda was not involved. If this contradicts my earlier posts its only because some of the info coming out of Pakistan is very confused.
Thanks F. Chodorov @ 110.
Fealty to the Soviet Union and hence to Stalin was ‘de rigeur’ in those days, amongst Communist Party members and organisations; in Germany, in Britain, in Australia….
I think you are correct. By the way, I don’t think you are an hysteric, and am not clear why you were accused of being one. Stalin was a tyrant, cloaking his tyranny in communist gobbledegook, later switching to nationalist cliches under the Nazi onslaught.
George Orwell sized him and his system up quite fairly in “1984″ and “Animal Farm”, I think. Oh dear – sorry everyone! I forgot: George Orwell was a notorious hysteric.
They say he came close to being murdered in Barcelona by Spanish Stalinists; but he was exposing their antics well before that close call.
Good thing they didn’t mete out “peoples’ justice” to Eric Blair, otherwise we wouldn’t have those particular books to enjoy.
cheerio!
Paul Burns
It did seem that Mrs Bhutto was a bit full of self though, to me.
All the conflicting information re her wounds, etc. Surely her family would know for sure what killed her. and why have they not said something specific. The latest news is they? want to exhume and find out!
Margo
According to today’s newspapers, the silly Pakistani Govt has withdrawn that nonsense about a fatal injury due to the sunroof, which Katz and others (see above) had demolished, and which only served to raise further, serious doubts about said Govt.
But fealty to the Communist Party was not “de rigeur”. Millions joined and millions quit. They did both while sound of mind and in control of their actions.
This formulation implies that Communists lost control of their reason. That being the case how do you explain why so many left the Party at important turning points in the history of the world in the history of the Communist Party itself?
I don’t deny that Moscow attempted to impose an iron discipline on the members of the KPD.
I dispute that Moscow was successful in that attempt except insofar as members of the KPD wanted to follow Moscow’s orders. Their alternative was to quit, which they did in large numbers.
To put it into perspective, it was much easier to be an ex-communist than an ex-scientologist.
Thank you, Katz.
I was referring to their behaviour while members. I think they gave up some of their personal independence while members. Yes, many quit because they couldn’t stomach the discipline, after some time as loyal members.
The argument turns on what Stalin expected of CURRENT members, does it not? Ex-members may well not have been hunted down or “sent to Coventry” or blacklisted.
A carbon atom acts as the C part of CO2 while it is in that molecule. Later it may be part of a methane molecule; earlier it might have been in a little carbonate bundle of joy. I care not. While it is in a CO2 combination, it behaves like the C in a CO2 should.
Now, how did this sub-thread begin? Because someone suggested Josef Stalin was wreaking trouble in Western Europe through his devotees, during the 1930’s. Now, Katz, you say “I dispute that Moscow was successful… except insofar as members of the KPD wanted to follow Moscow’s orders.”
Yep, and I reckon a huge number of KPD members did so want, whilesoever they were members, and it follows that Josef, at any given time, had thousands of loyal well-wishers in Germany – yes, all Germans – happy to do his bidding.
I didn’t say they were MAD, I said they were loyal.
I think you agree with the general picture a couple of us painted, earlier. Have I misunderstood your viewpoint? I tend towards hysteria, because the memory of murdered millions turns my stomach. And blind loyalty to mass-murdering “leaders” leaves me a little less than enthusiastic. In fact I find it creepy, even after all these decades. Loyalty to Adolf, loyalty to Josef.
Democracy is a rotten system, but by crikey it comes up smelling like roses by comparison with those rancid cess pits [Germany under Adolf, USSR under Josef].
happy new year!
“This formulation implies that Communists lost control of their reason.”
Of course they lost control of their reason. Is it your claim that it was in fact reasonable to join a mass-murdering cult, in thrall to a foreign nation, that hadn’t a shred of validity to it?
But it didn’t matter one way or another. Democratic centralism and all the communists internal procedures meant that matters were controlled totally from the centre. Thats how Lenin designed it and thats how it worked.
Now mouthpieces of the Pakistan People’s Party are claiming that Bhutto was killed by a high powered laser beam!
http://news.google.com.au/news?hl=en&num=10&as_ft=i&as_dt=i&um=1&tab=wn&scoring=n&q=bhutto+laser&btnG=Search+News
Deeply weird!
97 Katz Jan 1st, 2008 at 1:01 pm
Katz’s shopping list of democratic virtues is all very well for Politics 101. But how will it play in “the real world of democracy”?
The problem is that “democracy” means different things to different peoples. Remember the “peoples democracies” in the Eastern Bloc Second World? And various”Popular Fronts for the Liberation of [Fill in the Blank]” in the Southern Third WOrld?
In the Northern hemisphere “democracy” means “Majority rule for public progress, minority rights for private process.” THat works well for countries with a British style civic culture of constitutionalism, contractualism and consensualism.
How deep do you think these ideological assumptions are imbedded into the institutional operations of the South? In these God-fearing, sweat-soaked climes it seems democracy means “Our gang now outnumbers your gang. So watch out!”.
Throughout the Southern hemisphere there is constant tribal and confessional conflict, together with occasional pogroms against market-dominant minorities. This “illiberal democracy” seems to flare up whenever democracy is imposed or exposed on unstable post-colonial states. Multiculturalists beware!
I am not interested in ideology for its own sake. I am primarily interested in the progress of typical individuals within a given jurisdiction. Democracy may or may not be the best way of bringing this about. That depends on the level of cultural development and division for any given jurisdiction.
Backward and conflicted jurisdictions, particularly in countries with low-IQ demos, are not suitable for immediate democratic revolutions or even reformation. Such jurisdictions are very common in the Southern hemisphere. It was what made them so easy to colonize in the first place.
So we have to be wary, Edmund Burke style, before embracing every democratic revolution that puts out its shingle onto the world stage. A short review of recent political history underlies this prudential point.
Clearly Husseins Baathist dictatorship, properly contained and supervised, was preferable to the Shiite democracy. Unless some democracy-promoter wants to stand up in full public view and say that Bush’s democracy-promotion in Mesopotamia was worth it after all.
More generally, democracy has unleashed some very unpleasant populist forces throughout SW Asia. Look at the state of Algeria, Lebanon and Palestine. All very democratic and all very blood thirsty.
It seems that the PRC dodged a bullet when the CCP defeated the democratic revolution in Tianamen Square. Had he CCP caved the PRC would have been treated to a replay of the disaster that befell the former Soviet Union, plus another bout of cultural revolution plus a totalitarian reaction to restore order. Instead they have had law-and-order = peace-and-prosperity.
Also, Musharaff decision to declare a state of emergency with the return of dissident political figures looks vindicated now. Sure enough, the inevitable assassination has plunged the whole country into political turmoil.
So lets have no more blind political cheerleading. Lets go by the evidence, not slogans here.
“How deep do you think these ideological assumptions are imbedded into the institutional operations of the South? In these God-fearing, sweat-soaked climes it seems democracy means “Our gang now outnumbers your gang. So watch out!â€?.”
Jack Strocchi, your Sandhurst or is it Langley training and rhetoric are showing.
Pakistan’s first military ruler, General Ayub Khan, a Sandhurst-trained colonial officer said much the same thing when he seized power in 1958 with the backing of the US and Britain. The latter were fearful that the projected first election in Pakistan might produce a coalition that would take Pakistan out of Seato and towards a non-aligned foreing policy.
Ayub banned all political parties, took over oppostion newspapers, and declared his government’s primary allegiance was to the USA.
In a radio broadcast to the nation he informed his bewildered “fellow countrymen” that “we must understand that democracy cannot work in a hot climate. To have a democracy we must have a cold climate like Britain.”
Katz:
Strocchi’s worldly-wise refutation of Katz’s Politics 101:
Gee, I wish I’d said that Strocchers.
I’m interested in the ability of SOME gangs of cynical, lying, power-hungry (and eventually mass-murdering) cliques to attract wide support, e.g. Nazi grouplet in Weimar Germany, Bolshevik gang in war-ravaged Russia, Khmer Rouge in Cambodia….
Various institutional arrangements can put a brake on their chances of success. I want to see open societies that have some self-protection against the dangers of the potential rise of bloodthirsty cliques.
It seems that Katz, this week, has limited patience with such discussions; though it was unkind to label Katz’s list “Politics 101″. I thought the list was a reasonable starting point.
Earlier, Katz rightly raised the independence of the Governor-General, as “last umpire” in political deadlocks. I agree there has to be a last umpire, and would add:
i) G-G should not be elected, as an elected G-G is likely to have secured partisan support for her election; is then beholden, is she not?
ii) G-G should have fixed term
iii) G-G should have some type of legal training, be able to read technical documents (e.g. Acts of Parl’t)
iv) Dismissal of G-G in hands of High Court, not PM
And fundamental recognition by political players that in the end, G-G may have to make a decision in a tight, controversial context, which ALL will have to live with and respect. Just as it’s a low act for a leading politician (nay an Attorney-General) to publicly condemn a High Court decision, or a judge’s decision; so too decisions of G-G should remain off-limits. I assume such decisions would be rare, because deadlocks that can’t be broken by a double dissolution are rare.
I’ve been re-thinking Kerr & Whitlam. I used to be a partisan of Whitlam, persuaded by his post-1975 outpourings on the role of G-G. Now I’m not so sure.
I’m not sure that Kerr “broke his oath of office”, Katz. Are you sure that he did? If so, why did the ALP not take a case to the High Court on 12th November 1975? (Barwick they knew was persuaded by Kerr, but a Full Bench was not Barwick solely.)
Ambigulous,
If I recall correctly Whitlam played matters down a little at the time for fear of a revolution. Whether his fear was justified or not is beside the point. He told everybody to go home. And like good little sheep trained in the obsequious ways of convicts, we did. No bllodshed here, such as we have in Pakistan and Kenya.
I never said he did. I opined that Kerr is the kind of appointee to the sensitive post of GG who might break his oath.
The Constitution stipulates very few things that the GG must do. With two exceptions all functions of a GG are couched with the word “may” not “shall”.
1. Call elections within stipulated timeframes.
2. Annul a law already passed that has been disallowed by the monarch. (Sec 59.)
The GG’s reserve powers allow him to do just about anything he likes in regard to the functions of executive government.
However, not mentioned in the constitution is the fact that the PM can get rid of the GG with a phone call.
Under present arrangements the HC should have no call over the GG because s/he derives his/her authority from the monarch, to which the HC is also subject.
The situation is unstable and untenable. It can be cured only by rethinking radically the nature of our executive. And if we have to do that we may as well establish a republic.
One does rather get the impression does one not that El Strocchi wouldn’t mind have a go at being a ‘benevolent’ third world Supreme Administrator himself.
His comments already have the heft and shape of diktats broadcast at a surly populace don’t they?
“I am primarily interested in the progress of typical individuals within a given jurisdiction. Democracy may or may not be the best way of bringing this about. That depends on the level of cultural development and division for any given jurisdiction.”
Now form orderly queues as directed.
134 Nabakov Jan 4th, 2008 at 7:04 am
Individual autonomy works well for middle-class people who have absorbed British norms of civic culture. But uber- and unter-class people need to restrained by institutional authority, lest they get up to no good. Particularly nowadays when technology can empower deranged or demoralised individuals.
I spent quite a bit of time in the Nothern Territories and observed the emergence of Lord of the Flies amongst feral youth. Plus lived and worked in TX and NY during the Crack Wars.
A good way to shed the last remnants of one’s liberal illusions.
Real world experience of rampant disorder is certainly an antidote to the facile brand of post-modern liberalism that you and your political cronies are hustling. That racket has long since passed the point of diminishing returns.
Back on thread:
I see the extension of democracy is working real well in Kenya too. Just like the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and large bits of “Arabia”.
Democratization of the “Southern” regions is going to guarantee us real interesting times ahead. Lots of lovely tribes all celebrating their diversity in one big happy democratic family.
Shame on Musharaff for trying to suspend Pakistani democracy for the sake of civil order. I dont see why the Pakistani liberals are complaining. They have never had it so good – and hard.
“Free institutions are next to impossible in a country made up of different nationalities.”
J.S. Mill
Katz,
My list was for President OR G-G, whichever we have. I don’t think the current situation is either untenable or unstable. Reserve powers have been used rarely. In the end it’s down to the judgement of one woman (final arbiter), be she President or G-G. Every game needs a final referee, if the participants are deadlocked. I don’t mean to demean politics by calling it a game. Every contest needs rules. Yes: I’m a petit bourgeois. As aree my fellow citizens, by and large.
But that’s no different to a final Court of Appeal in the Law, I thnk. At some stage you may need a final arbiter. In 1975 the dismissal was followed by a general election, so we voters had our say. No putsch, no High Court challenge, no troops on the streets, no assassinations; just an election. Sorry if this sounds smug, but I think empirical observations are germane.
********************
Back to Benazir: Bhutto clan? faked will?
Katz,
The latest video shown on TV news Friday 4th Jan, is taken with the much-vaunted sunroof handle in prominent view, and Benazir ducks or falls down below it BEFORE the bomb blast, so she can’t have hit her head on it (fatally) as claimed by a Pakistani Govt fantasist.
Today (5th Jan) newspeper report says Benazir’s husband took his own video of her woulds before she was buried.
But recent reports also said leaders of huge Bhutto clan have
* queried authenticity of her (political) will
* objected to her husband assuming power in PPP
* queried her son’s position too
I had assumed her family was a small group assuming dynastic power [as in Kennedy clan in USA or Kim Il Jung/Kim Song Il in North Korea]. As anti-democratic as that would be, it seems the position may be much more complicated….
I have to say I know four-fifths of zero, about Pakistan.
cheerio
The Bhuttos have long been at war with each other. I mentioned way upthread Benazir’s role in covering up the circumstances of her brother’s assassination when she was PM.
The handle story was so ridiculous it makes you wonder why the govt bothered.
If her widower really wants to clear up the issue of her death why doesn’t he allow an exhumation. I think using Benazir’s mystique for political advantage probably explains this behaviour. Although, don’t forget that the body can be exhumed at any time before the election.
I know it’s macabre, but Benazir’s body could be the PPP’s ace in the hole, so to speak.
The Right Wing US Nut Jobs are all over this story now.
Of course, they cannot resist a story that features a handgun.
http://www.winterpatriot.blogspot.com/
Oh dear, the
Crusadestruggle for democracy has to be put on hold.What makes you think that Musharif didn’t do it?
This happened in what amounts to the Pakistani version of West Point. And they then hosed all the evidence away with firehoses.
Of course the Pakistani government killed her. Thats got to be the assumption until they prove themselves innocent. The Pakistanis are a terrorist regime.
More news re the shooter.
http://www.zeenews.com/articles.asp?rep=2&aid=417158&sid=SAS
“Pakistan’s investigation agencies” claim to have identified the shooter.
Having identified the chap using the “National Database and Registration Authority” (whatever that is were able to inform the “investigation authorities” where the suspect lived (in Swabi).
The police rushed there and arrested some folks at the suspect’s home.
So far, so Sun Hill.
But here’s the weird bit. The police fear “that the suspect died in the explosion that took place after he fired shots at Benazir”.
In other words, the police would have the world believe that Pakistan’s “National Database and Registration Authority” were able to name this individual without having any access to the body of the shooter.
Either the shooter is dead and the authorities have the body, or the shooter got away but the “National Database and Registration Authority” was still able to name him and point the police to where he lived.
Someone is telling some more whopper lies.
And the story doesn’t get any less weird.
Katz, if the shooter is the same person who then blew himself up then the police have his head, which is something to start with.
The video would tend to indicate otherwise. The shooter was almost touching the car, whereas the blast appears to be somewhere behind him.
There is some discussion upthread about the likelihood of the bomber and the shooter being two different people.
Some more fascinating detail about the circumstances of the shooting:
So Wolfe-jinmaro is just a monkey, Mark and GregM?