Uh-Oh, Pakistan
Benazir Bhutto. General, or once-General, Musharraf. Nawaz Sharif. Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and their friends. The Pakistani Army. George W. Bush and Condi Rice. There are no good guys in the story of Bhutto’s assassination, no holy cows.
They are only the latest in the rogues’ gallery that has become Pakistan today. As I have been saying for many years, especially well before the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, Pakistan is the most dangerous country in the world, far more dangerous than Iraq, Iran, or North Korea.
America took out Saddam on the pretext that he was a military dictator with WMDs. It turned out he probably didn’t have them at the time. Well, Pakistan does have a military dictator with WMDs, who came to power by coup against a democratically elected leader. With a nuclear scientist Dr. A.Q. Khan who is known to have helped bring atomic WMD technology to Iran, North Korea, and probably others. With laws that force the government to stone women to death for adultery after they have been raped or even worse, gang-raped. As host of an impenetrable mountain region on the uncontrollable Afghanistan border, Waziristan, that is not controlled by the central government. Flanked by two nuclear-armed powers on its borders, arch-nemesis India and China. If this isn’t troubling enough, Pakistan is also the home base of the Taliban and Al Qaeda today, including many of the people responsible for the greatest murder of Americans in history on 9/11.
Not that Sharif, nor his predecessor Benazir Bhutto, did much to advance the country in its bid to be a stable place for people to live. Not that Musharraf has been much more effective at it. And the U.S., continuing many decades of bumbling and contradictory relations with South Asia, played its part in the assassination by convincing Bhutto to come back home from her safe and luxurious exile in London, and by coaxing Musharraf into dropping the criminal corruption charges against her and letting her come home.
Ms. Bhutto’s arrival was welcomed by massive explosions that almost killed her within hours of stepping off the plane. Was the government providing adequate security at the time? Of course not. Why would her political enemies try their best to protect her- the one person in the universe who was capable of removing them from the seats of power? Was the security adequate last Thursday when she was killed by suicide bombers and/or a gunman (three days later and there is still a controversy about how she died!)? To arrive at the answer let’s ask another question: what would have changed between the two days of bloody violence? If my life were in the hands of my enemies, whether they would themselves try to kill me or not, I wouldn’t be too confident in my chances to live.
Let’s not pretend that the election, which Bhutto was planning to stand in, would have been fair. Or that it will be now that it’s supposedly happening anyway. When the societal rot of a country is so deep, so pervasive, and so inevitable, a fair election is the last possible thing that could happen.
America’s billions of dollars in aid to the Pakistani government, the very money that is keeping Musharraf in power, in the context of a foolhardy "war on terror," is not the answer either. Musharraf has America by the balls- we haven’t figured out a way around him in his 8 years. It is laughable to think that America’s help gives it the right to dictate terms to Pakistan. In fact, I am concerned that this aid- money cut from the taxes that have come out of my paychecks and yours- may have been funneled toward the assassination effort. Don’t I feel better now that I know money from my own pocket was a part of this mess.
Whether the assassination was carried out by Muslim extremists, or elements of Pakistan’s military intelligence, or some combination of both is irrelevant. We already know there are plenty of both running around Rawalpindi. The investigation that will ultimately be completed in the next few weeks will have plenty of holes in it. If we can’t agree as to how she died, we sure as hell will not be able to get an honest answer on who did it. It doesn’t even have to be due to a Musharraf government cover-up; Pakistan doesn’t even possess the forensic resources necessary to get to the bottom of this, and of course the country won’t embarrass itself by letting Western powers send in the FBI or James Bond. In fact Musharraf’s control over his country is itself questionable at best, regardless of whether he is trying to do the right thing or not.
Which brings us to where we are now. A murder that will probably go unsolved, causing the feuding sides involved to gleefully attack each other well into the future while commerce slows down to a standstill, causing many of the people whose lives depend on the few dollars a day they might earn in the store or the market or the factory, to die when the store or the market or factory shuts down. If political violence doesn’t kill them first. The masses in one of the world’s poorest countries are the real losers from this saga, but at least it’s par for the course in Pakistan’s sordid 60 year history.
It’s an unbelievably depressing scenario. Unfortunately it’s real. So what are the so-called civilized countries of the world supposed to do now?
I don’t know. What I do know is that World War I was kick-started by an earlier high profile political assassination, also with a bullet to the neck of Austrian Archduke Ferdinand in 1914 in Sarajevo. I do know that Pakistan could end up being another Vietnam or Iraq for a foreign power or coalition that attempts to right the sinking ship. I also know that an arsenal of approximately 80 active nuclear weapons or many hundreds more dirty bombs in the hands of a failed state, or a state in civil war, or a state infiltrated by extremists carries far more potential for wasting people than World War I or Vietnam ever did.
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And now I’ll leave you with a little humor. After all, smile, it’s a new year!
I have spoken to each of the presidential candidates about their
positions on last Thursday’s event.
Mitt Romney: “I used to think it was a good
thing that she was alive. I now think it’s a good thing she’s
dead.”
Mike Huckabee: “Who is Bhutto? Did she ever
go to church? That may determine if she makes it to heaven or not. I
spoke to God yesterday on the phone, that’s what he told me. By the
way, if you don’t vote for me or at least donate to my campaign, chances
are I may ask him not to let you in either.”
Hillary Clinton: “I once had dinner with Bhutto on
Brick Lane in London. Plus, she was a woman and I still am one. Therefore
I am more experienced in both being a woman, and in eating at Brick Lane with
Bhutto. So I’m more qualified to be president than the others,
especially when it comes to exotic dinner table diplomacy, between two
attractive and powerful women, my husband kind of likes that, now that’s
not very naive.”
Rudy Giuliani: “She was probably a terrorist.
After all, she was born entire oceans away from America. When I’m
in power, there won’t be any terrorists left, or oceans for that matter, so
we wouldn’t have to talk about them like we are forced to now by the
media who is trying to assassinate me, along with the mob.”
Barack Obama: “This happened because blue states
and red states can’t get along, and because Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke
of the fierce urgency of now. Now that something urgent happened, I
should be elected. Fiercely.”
Dennis Kucinich: “Man, she was hot. She couldn’t
hide it under that veil of hers.”
Fred Thompson: “I once played a third-world Prime
Minister on television, so I know what it’s like to be in a position of
executive leadership. And to wear all that dark makeup for 12 hours of
takes and re-takes! It was gross.”
