Bhutto's assassination

i know that many here are by now familiar with the story of fmr pakistani PM Benazir Bhutto and her assassination. while i will not go into details about the case, i will bring up a couple main points that stick out in my mind, and present questions.

firstly, let's make it clear that this is not the first attempt to have bhutto killed. there was an attempted bombing a bout 2 months prior that she escaped from. this being said, whoever wanted her dead wanted it badly enough that when the first plan failed, a second plan was already in the works.

lets look at the supposed facts of the case. a man on a motorcycle supposedly shot bhutto as she stuck her head out of her vehicle's sunroof to wave at supporters. after this he then detonated a suicide bomb, killing people in his surrounding area. to be clear, it is not known at this time if these are the actual events, i am basing this on the news articles i have read.

question #1: why did this man detonate the bomb if he could see that he shot her in the neck?

possible solutions: he detonated the bomb so that he could not be captured for questioning, or he had hoped that the bomb would do enough damage that it could not be ascertained whether bhutto's death was result of the shots or the blast, or he just watned to take as many of her supporters with him as possible.

my brain is telling me that the first solution makes the most sense, as whoever sent this person to kill bhutto would not want the person to be captured so that it could be traced back to them. the second solution only makes sense to me if there was more than one person acting to kill bhutto. perhaps there was a contingent in place that if it looked as though bhutto might live through the shooting, that a bomb should be detonated to hopefully finish the job.

question #2: who had bhutto killed?

this will be the question on many minds for long to come. al qaida has taken responsibility for the death, but did they actually perpetuate this plan? were they contracted by an outside party to have bhutto killed? if so, who? gen. musharraf? it is not difficult to see that he did not want to share power with bhutto, even though he agreed to begin talks about sharing the power he holds over his country. he states that he will not rest until all terrorists are destroyed, and until that happens the country of pakistan can not advance forward. this statement does not make sense to me if this is the same person that brought the entire country to a halt by imposing a state of emergency. yep... that's moving forward.

also, bhutto's husband said that the killing came as a shock to him... this seems strange since there was an attack barely 2 months prior, and even bhutto said she felt her life was in danger. im not saying he had something to do with this, but it should not have come as a shock that they tried to kill her again. this is like saying that it came as a shock that we dropped another nuclear weapon on japan after they didn't surrender when we dropped the first one.

to close, i would just like you all to think about the possible repercussions of this action. i will not make any assumptions about the future of pakistan, i will leave that open to debate. hopefully time will tell the true story of what happened here, but i think that like most assassinations, we'll never know the true story.

[edit on 28-12-2007 by sandman692]

Swiss

On 23 July 1998, the Swiss Government handed over documents to the government of Pakistan which relate to corruption allegations against Benazir Bhutto and her husband.[27] The documents included a formal charge of money laundering by Swiss authorities against Zardari. The Pakistani government had been conducting a wide-ranging inquiry to account for more than $13.7 million frozen by Swiss authorities in 1997 that was allegedly stashed in banks by Bhutto and her husband. The Pakistani government recently filed criminal charges against Bhutto in an effort to track down an estimated $1.5 billion she and her husband are alleged to have received in a variety of criminal enterprises.[28] The documents suggest that the money Zardari was alleged to have laundered was accessible to Benazir Bhutto and had been used to buy a diamond necklace for over $175,000.[29]

The PPP has responded by flatly denying the charges, suggesting that Swiss authorities have been misled by false evidence provided by Islamabad

On 6 August 2003, Swiss magistrates found Bhutto and her husband guilty of money laundering.[30] They were given six-month suspended jail terms, fined $50,000 each and were ordered to pay $11 million to the Pakistani government. The six-year trial concluded that Bhutto and Zardari deposited in Swiss accounts $10 million given to them by a Swiss company in exchange for a contract in Pakistan. The couple said they would appeal. The Pakistani investigators say Zardari opened a Citibank account in Geneva in 1995 through which they say he passed some $40 million of the $100 million he received in payoffs from foreign companies doing business in Pakistan.[31]

In October 2007, Daniel Zappelli, chief prosecutor of the canton of Geneva, said he received the conclusions of a money laundering investigation against former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto on Monday, October 29, but it was unclear whether there would be any further legal action against her in Switzerland.[32]

Poland

The Polish Government has given Pakistan 500 pages of documentation relating to corruption allegations against Benazir Bhutto and her husband. These charges are in regard to the purchase of 8,000 tractors in a 1997 deal.[33][34] According to Pakistani officials, the Polish papers contain details of illegal commissions paid by the tractor company in return for agreeing to their contract.[35] It was alleged that the arrangement "skimmed" Rs 103 mn rupees ($2 million) in kickbacks.[36] "The documentary evidence received from Poland confirms the scheme of kickbacks laid out by Asif Zardari and Benazir Bhutto in the name of (the) launching of Awami tractor scheme," APP said. Bhutto and Asif Ali Zardari allegedly received a 7.15% commission on the purchase through their front men, Jens Schlegelmilch and Didier Plantin of Dargal S.A., who received about $1.969 million for supplying 5,900 Ursus tractors.[37]

France

Potentially the most lucrative deal alleged in the documents involved the effort by Dassault Aviation, a French military contractor. French authorities indicated in 1998 that Bhutto's husband, Zardari, offered exclusive rights to Dassault to replace the air force’s fighter jets in exchange for a five percent commission to be paid to a corporation in Switzerland controlled by Zardari.[38]

At the time, French corruption laws forbade bribery of French officials but permitted payoffs to foreign officials, and even made the payoffs tax-deductible in France. However, France changed this law in 2000.[39]

Western Asia

In the largest single payment investigators have discovered, a gold bullion dealer in the Western Asia was alleged to have deposited at least $10 million into one of Zardari's accounts after the Bhutto government gave him a monopoly on gold imports that sustained Pakistan's jewellery industry. The money was allegedly deposited into Zardari's Citibank account in Dubai.

Pakistan's Arabian Sea coast, stretching from Karachi to the border with Iran, has long been a gold smugglers' haven. Until the beginning of Bhutto's second term, the trade, running into hundreds of millions of dollars a year, was unregulated, with slivers of gold called biscuits, and larger weights in bullion, carried on planes and boats that travel between the Persian Gulf and the largely unguarded Pakistani coast.

Shortly after Bhutto returned as prime minister in 1993, a Pakistani bullion trader in Dubai, Abdul Razzak Yaqub, proposed a deal: in return for the exclusive right to import gold, Razzak would help the government regularize the trade. In November 1994, Pakistan's Commerce Ministry wrote to Razzak informing him that he had been granted a license that made him, for at least the next two years, Pakistan's sole authorized gold importer. In an interview in his office in Dubai, Razzak acknowledged that he had used the license to import more than $500 million in gold into Pakistan, and that he had travelled to Islamabad several times to meet with Bhutto and Zardari. But he denied that there had been any corruption or secret deals. "I have not paid a single cent to Zardari," he said.

Razzak claims that someone in Pakistan who wished to destroy his reputation had contrived to have his company wrongly identified as the depositor. "Somebody in the bank has cooperated with my enemies to make false documents," he said

I think she made alot of enemies....Cmon her and her hubby were corrupt...

reply to post by Sentinel 1


good stuff sentinel, a and a star for you!

alot of the corruption you mentioned was also seemingly perpetrated by bhutto's husband... while i was reading a little about him, i came across this article that was written in 2004, it can be found HERE.

the marriage between bhutto and zardari seems to be one of mutual convenience moreso than love or a relationship, but that is just speculation on my part

There are a couple of aspects about this that are curious.

• Bhutto claimed Bin Laden was dead on 2nd November this year
  
  
• Bin Laden regularly 'releases' videos; a new one is apparently scheduled for 27th December
  
  
• Al Qaeda has emerged as the chief suspect in the assassination, having previously denounced her as an instrument of U.S. policy in Pakistan
  
  
• And, as a matter of historical record, al Qaeda has been known to work closely with the CIA, usually through intermediaries, as was recently reported to be the case with Jundullah in Iran

So a couple of things strike me as odd.

Al Qaeda is said to have targeted Bhutto because, they claim, she is an instrument of the U.S. If this were a genuine reason for targeting her, why has Musharef not been targeted? He has been funded to the hilt in the US-led War on Terror and is widely regarded as a US ally; why isn't he in the cross-hairs?

And, more as a throwaway comment than anything else, if Bhutto knew Bin Laden was dead and got into the habit of repeating this until it became widely accepted, Bin Laden's Glodsteinesque video releases would have to stop.

In sum, I guess what I'm suggesting is that al Qaeda could possibly be an instrument of the US and that, for whatever reason, Bhutto had to be shut up.

Originally posted by coughymachine
In sum, I guess what I'm suggesting is that Al Qaeda could possibly be an instrument of the US and that, for whatever reason, Bhutto had to be shut up.

Al Qaeda was created by the CIA back in the 80's- Bhutto knew that the puppet Bin Laden was dead thus blowing their cover on supporting the war in Iraq and the war on terror. I'm beginning to think this is all a ploy by the US to control the masses.

im just wishing we were in an advanced society, where this crap isnt made into what it is now.

the very definition of "advanced civilization" means we would be above elements like these, byzantinian ways. this is the way of iron age-dark age civilizations. lol

then agian it could all be a script. or twisted heavily. it always is isnt it?

what if they are just trying to see our reaction?

like its a big psych test? lol

the whole thing is just so , strange. cant put my finger on it.

thats alot of questions but i have no answers.

Benazir Bhutto was a piece of work. As one poster has pointed out already in an excellent way, she headed a corrupt government that looted the national treasury.

I'm beginning to think that she was suckered into returning to Pakistan just so she could be eliminated in the style of a troublesome chess piece whose presence leaves unwanted possibilities open. Removing her forces the Pakistani political situation to develope along certain lines, lines that favour Musharraf and the status quo.

I'm wondering about the role of Nawaz Sharif in all of this. I'm thinking that there is a distinct possibility that he may have cut a secret deal with Musharraf prior to the return of Ms. Bhutto, a deal that would see him, a much less powerful figure step into the limelight in a power sharing relationship with Musharraf.

A development along this line would probably keep the lid on things for some time into the future.

Benazir Bhutto was a beautiful woman, particularly when she first came to public attention. If she was your standard issue chubby, middle aged weasel in politics, nobody would be paying attention to this.

Incidentally, wasn't it impressive how those champions of democracy in Ms.Bhutto's party chose her successor? Democracy marches on! Three cheers for democracy!!

Bhutto was not killed by extremists, though this will be the public line from Pakistan and the Bush administration alike. She was clearly killed by insiders within the Pakistani government, long known to resent her and others trying to reinstate a democratically elected Prime Minister. These elements within the Pakistani government like the cloak of martial law, whether in place officially or unofficially. They have tentacles throughout the Pakistani government and military, as can be seen by the fact that security forces stepped away, abandoned their posts, during Bhutto's assassination, and the fact that street lights went out and security forces were absent during the prior assassination attempt. Her death is intended to put an end to all discussion of elections, as turmoil will necessitate the continuation of essential martial law, which was their goal. This is not Musharraf, but elements within his government so entrenched he could not root them out. The ISI is like the CIA, very secretive and with an arrogant assumption that they can form governments, topple governments, and not be called to account.

What hand did the Bush administration have in Bhutto's death? Although in the past Bush and especially Cheney wanted turmoil in Afghanistan and Pakistan to incite war with Iran, it has become increasingly obvious to them that the US military would not engage Iran simply because of shouted claims about Iran's hand in the Iraq turmoil or claims that Iran is developing nuclear weapons. Attempting to goad Iran into battle also has not worked, and an attempted theft of a US nuclear warhead to precipitate a confrontation in the Middle East also was foiled. Creating turmoil in Iraq by blowing up the Golden Mosque also did not tumble the Iraq conflicts over the border into Iran, and fomenting Iran rebellion by supporting Iran's internal rebels likewise failed. Thus, starting a war with Iran in order to sit on their oil fields has not become the central focus of the Bush administration of late. Instead, Bush and Cheney have become concerned that they may in fact be removed from power altogether shortly, if by no other reason than the general elections to be held in 2008.

Bhutto was unquestionably encouraged by the Bush administration to return to Pakistan. In a complete about face, they now wanted to suppress turmoil, as the situation in Iraq had become so unstable that they feared being run out of Iraq. The US military is frankly wanting to exit Iraq, and only cooperated with the surge on the surface. If deaths have gone down, statistically, it is not because the surge has worked, but because soldiers are no longer being sent out on dangerous missions. They are hunkering down at the bases, allowing the country to establish whatever local rule evolves. The US military, like the British and Australian forces, are withdrawing, by this means. If they are no longer involved in local rule, keeping the peace, then a quick exit from the bases can be accomplished without much fuss and even without much notice! If Afghanistan and Pakistan blow up, then because of the nukes Pakistan is known to possess, the focus of the US military would move there, and Iraq's oil fields abandoned. Thus, Bush and Cheney and Condi hoped to bolster Musharraf's popularity with the public by an alliance with Bhutto, to avoid the turmoil that was seething just under the surface in the populace.

Responsibility for Bhutto's assassination also lies with Bhutto herself. She knew, acutely, that an assassination was likely to be attempted not just once but repeatedly. The prior attempt in October which she escaped only because she ducked into the inner bunker on her bus in time to escape the blast told her that, if nothing else. Where at that time she was listening to her intuition and wanted to escape assassination, she had since become jaded and discouraged. She had once fled Pakistan, and did not want to repeat that humiliation. It was no accident that she escaped the assassination attempt in October, no accident that her timing in seeking the safety and comfort of her bunker because of sore feet was such that she barely escaped the bomb blast. She was under protection of benign aliens who were advising her. But the rule in Service-to-Other alien cultures is that if an entity wishes to commit suicide, or become a martyr, they are allowed to do so. Whatever was Bhutto thinking, to be sticking her head out of the sunroof of her car in that manner, like a duck in a shooting gallery, virtually asking for a bullet!

What now? Will Pakistan's nukes be put into play, potentially slipping into the hands of terrorist elements? This is highly likely, especially because in the past the CIA encouraged the ISI to side with the Taliban in their battles with Russia, who had invaded Afghanistan. It is not by accident that Bin Laden is rumored to be in the mountains of Pakistan, as the government is not pursuing the Taliban, so recently their old friend. The US will be frantic to assist Musharraf in guarding these arsenals, and high drama may ensue, but because there are no oil fields in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the Bush administration will not hoping for a nuclear disaster. This would, at this point, only point the finger back at them for poor policy. They pointed at Iraq and Iran as the enemy, while North Korea and Pakistan were the real worry. Yet another failure by the Bush administration, who are now frankly hoping for a secure retirement within the continental US, and a well stocked and protected bunker during the pole shift. They do not wish for more of their Republican friends to turn away from them in disgust.


Zeta Talk

I just wonder this effect will have in their future

Some other ATS related discussions for reference:

In no particular order

Pakistan says sunroof, not bomb or bullets, killed Bhutto

US had provided Bhutto with security intel

New Footage of Bhutto's death

Benazir Bhutto Assassination Conspiracy

Bhutto email named killers weeks before assassination

Pakistan: Al-Qaeda claims Bhutto's death

Al-Qaida denies involvement in slaying despite official accusations

Bhutto assassination video!!!

TV station shows shooting footage

Bhutto's son new leader of Pakistan opposition party

Pakistan rejects help in Bhutto probe

Pakistan Militants, Aides to Benazir Bhutto Allege Government Cover-Up in Assassination

Bhutto Killed=Pakistan Chaos=Nuke Hunt=Iran War

Pakistan's Bhutto was Shot in Head, says Aide

Explosion heard at Bhutto rally (Bhutto Killed)