More Thoughts About The War Between The USA And Pakistan

Since I wrote my recent post about the war between the USA and Pakistan, some questions have come up which have put me in mind of a piece I posted about 18 months ago, featuring some very sharp commentary from a young female Pakistani journalist.

In a column published November 4, 2007, the day after emergency rule was declared in Pakistan, and in the midst of a strict political clampdown, Fatima Bhutto [photo] honored the restriction against ridiculing the President, General Pervez Musharraf, by not mentioning him at all.

But she extended no such courtesy to her aunt, Benazir Bhutto, whose welcome-home convoy had been the stage of an obviously false-flag terror attack. Fatima Bhutto referred to her estranged (but not yet assassinated -- did anybody say "martyred"?) aunt in glowing terms such as "a formerly self-exiled political dynamo" and "the Daughter of the East (read: West)".

Fatima also mocked the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO), which granted amnesty to all (read: selected) former politicians. The NRO paved the way for the return of Benazir Bhutto and her husband Asif Ali Zardari, but denied the same courtesy to another former Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, who was arrested at the airport and deported to Saudi Arabia when he tried to enter Pakistan in September.

The amnesty law, drafted in secret negotiations between Musharraf and Benazir, was brokered by Americans desperate to forge an alliance between Musharraf and Bhutto no matter what the cost to the country, and was proclaimed a step toward civilian democracy. But not everyone was deceived, even before the state of emergency was declared.

Fatima Bhutto's column was published in Pakistan's The News, and it was ostensibly a reaction to Newsweek's October 29, 2007 piece, "Where the Jihad Lives Now", but it covered quite a bit more ground.

The original link is ancient history, but fortunately the piece is not. I've added the photos. In light of what we have learned about Baithulla Mehsud since this piece was written, the text seems to take on a fresh air of overpowering evil. But I don't want to prejudice you against it.

As Fatima Bhutto says, "Let's spend a moment imagining just how spectacular our Iraqi style democratic landscape is going to be."

Iraq redux?

Wither Iraqi style democracy? According to a very ominous cover story in Newsweek, it's here in Pakistan. Newsweek is confident in asserting that 'today no other country on earth is arguably more dangerous than Pakistan'. Not even Iraq. In fact, according to Newsweek Iraq is so 2006, Pakistan is it now; we're the new black. We've managed to kick Iraq off the pages as the world's most horrifying, most destructively precarious country and reclaim the title for ourselves. According to the Newsweek article, Pakistan has 'everything Osama Bin Laden could ask for' including a vibrant jihadi movement, political instability, access to worrisome weaponry, and a lonesome nuclear bomb. The article quotes a now deceased Taliban commander as romantically noting that 'Pakistan is like your shoulder that supports your RPG'. It is swoon worthy stuff really.

While the Newsweek article is no doubt an excited piece of fear mongering journalism, is it actually so far off the mark? Not really. We have recently been brought Iraqi style democracy by a formerly self-exiled political dynamo (remember to say thank you). Our nascent 'democracy' has been shipped over to Pakistan at the behest of delightful Neo-Con masters -- George W. Bush et al. -- and is complete with letters from the United States Senate and phone calls from Condi. If this isn't enough to strike you as eerily familiar, there's more.

Like our own harbinger of 'democracy', Iyad Allawi, the American choice for Iraq's post occupation Prime Minister, was deftly assisted by a Republican lobbying firm in Washington D.C. Allawi's firm spent $340,000 in their campaign to push him as the people's Prime Minister. How much did the Daughter of the East (read: West) spend on her campaign for a glorious return? Democracy does nothing if not advocate transparency and accountability of its public servants, but not in Pakistan where we are a step above the rest thanks to the fact that our criminals are cloaked by the National Reconciliation Ordinance.

Similar to Iraq's foray into Neo-Con democracy, ours has kicked off with a spate of portentous violence. One hundred and forty dead? No problem. That's called collateral damage. They died for democracy, just like the estimated 655,000 dead Iraqis did. As Mistress Condi would say, these are the birthing pangs of democracy. Our Iraqi style democracy will be bloody, but we're being heralded into a new era. That should be a comfort to us. Before we go silently into this good night, it's worth taking a look at our predecessor. Let's spend a moment imagining just how spectacular our Iraqi style democratic landscape is going to be.

The corruption that plagued the Iraqi occupation will be no problem for Pakistan. The US led provisional Authorities, headed by Paul Bremer, managed to 'lose' $8.8 billion dollars worth of funds meted out by the US government by the time they handed power over to a 'democratic' Iraqi government. The Iraqi Central Bank also faced a mysterious cash shortage as millions of dollars disappeared from its vaults. Allawi's government, in time, managed to drain one fund of $600 million dollars, leaving no paperwork behind. What amateurs these Iraqis are. We're set. We have the NRO; there will be no money troubles in Pakistan, the new Iraq.

Poverty? We have that in spades. Figures from 2006 place eight million Iraqis as living on less than $1 a day. Almost 70 per cent of Iraqis are unemployed thanks to Neo Liberal shock therapy economics and some 96 per cent of Iraq's population depends on food rations. In Pakistan we don't have food rations for our poor, we let them starve. Note to self, we'll have to get on that.

Underdevelopment is also something we Pakistanis will beat Iraq at. Who does Newsweek think they're kidding? We've long been worse than Iraq and our successive governments continually pride themselves on doing absolutely nothing about it. More than 500,000 residents of Baghdad are deprived of running water and when they do have access to it, it's not potable due to the fact that 65 per cent of Iraq's water plants have been subject to leaks and sewage contamination. These figures, largely from US Foreign Relations Committee hearings and other independent American sources, offer proof of America's wanton destruction of Iraq. Pre-war Saddam era figures don't even come close.

Households in Baghdad receive on average only two to six hours of electricity a day, largely due to the collapse of Iraq's supply grid after the invasion. Prior to March 2003, Iraq's total power generation was around 4,300 megawatts, after Operation Iraqi Freedom it dropped to 3,700 megawatts. Isn't Neo-Con democracy wonderful? We have so much to look forward to.

A United Nations study of 2005 found that one third of Iraqi children suffer from malnourishment, whereas an Iraqi Health Ministry study of the previous year found that 'easily treatable conditions such as diarrhea' account for 70 per cent of deaths among children. We can match those figures, those brutal figures, and we don't even have a large-scale war going on. Baghdad has nothing on Karachi -- the many million residents of Lyari are routinely denied access to water and electricity. Households across this city in Malir, Ibrahim Hyderi, and Saddar -- you name it -- have always been deprived of these basic rights and not by occupational governments, but by our own 'elected' representatives. Tragically, we choose the very men and women who keep our city's neighborhoods entrenched in poverty. We vote for them. We'll probably vote them in again in 2008. As voters, we Pakistanis are either incredibly forgiving or monumentally stupid.

When Pakistan enjoys the same democracy that Iraq does -- and you know certain people are hanging their careers on this happening -- we won't even need hired armies like Blackwater to come in. Our police out-Blackwater Blackwater. They already behave like private mercenary forces, for hire wherever power and money call them. They do not protect and serve, no, not our police force. They are the protected and they serve only their own interests. Police brutality in Pakistan has raged for many years; Iraqi style democracy won't tame our vigilante cops, only empower them.

The violence is building, it's getting bloodier. Rawalpindi, Dera Bugti, Wana and that's only in the past week. Look at Swat. Once known for its beautiful Buddhist ruins and idyllic Northern beauty, it has been consumed by death and ruin. Just as Najaf and Karbala were overcome, just as Fallujah and Mosul were earmarked for destruction, so has Swat been. And what about those left behind? The victims of this rising violence? Like Cindy Sheehan, the courageous mother who followed President Bush all over the country holding a vigil for her son Casey, killed in the unjust Iraq war, we have our own mothers, wives, and sisters sitting Shiva outside government offices protesting the disappearance of their loved ones. Newsweek was not prescient; truthfully, they're a little late to the party.

As I wrote at the time,

The same could be said for the bulk of the American media, of course. A little late to the party, and with blinders on.

As for the American people, we still haven't even come to the party.

What is going to prevent Iraq-style democracy from taking Pakistan?

What is going to prevent the same thing from taking the USA?

If not us, who? If not now, when?

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Thoughts On The War Between The USA And Pakistan

Scrub towers in the distance,
Riders cross the blasted moor
Against the horizon.
Fickle promises of treaty,
Fatal harbingers of war;
Futile orizons…
-- Van Der Graaf Generator: "Arrow"

Signs and omens, suddenly everywhere, tell us war between the USA and Pakistan is imminent.

Chris Floyd has been doing his usual fine job in covering the recent developments and reading the tea leaves. Particularly disappointing is the flow of war propaganda from McClatchy, in the person of Jonathan Landay. McClatchy and Landay were among the few voices of skeptical reason on the national media scene during Bush's pre-Iraq propaganda campaign. But apparently they are now on board with Obama's pre-Pakistan propaganda campaign. Success at last! This must be the change we were hoping for, just as Obama's marketers promised!

As you might expect if you've been paying attention for any of the previous six years, or six decades, all the reasons given for war by US politicians and media types are quite false, and transparently so -- yet no one in the national media can tackle any of them head-on. It's a remarkably dangerous situation, of course: the world's most heavily armed nation is still under a media blackout against certain aspects of reality, just as if Obama's election and inauguration had never happened. Fancy that!

The signs are misleading. War between the US and Pakistan is not imminent. It's ongoing. So far the US has made more than 60 airstrikes against Pakistan using unmanned aircraft, and one commando raid using ground troops and attack helicopters. These attacks have killed more than 700 people, and even the most "optimistic" government reports count only 14 al Qaeda leaders among the dead.

It goes without saying that if any foreign country flew just one bombing mission against the USA, or mounted a single commando raid, it would be regarded as an act of war and treated accordingly. Of course this sort of analysis, putting the shoe on the other foot as it were, is missing from our national political discourse, because in mainstream American political analysis, there is no other shoe; there is no other foot; and anyone who suggests otherwise is promptly banished.

In any case, "imminent" is the wrong word. The war is not imminent. What's imminent is a grave escalation. And the escalation, in my view, is not only imminent but inevitable.

A major, horrific war between the USA and Pakistan is, as I understand it, not only inevitable now; it has been inevitable for many years. I'm quite certain about this. The only question remaining in my mind is: How many is "many"?

If you're with me so far, you may be wondering: How do I know the reasons given for the war are false? And if the reasons are all false, why is the war imminent, much less inevitable? And why has this war been inevitable for many years?

If you'll stay with me for a few more minutes, I'll try to explain. But it's not easy, because we have to untangle a pack of interwoven lies.

Tell me lies
Tell me sweet little lies
-- Fleetwood Mac: "Little Lies"

Depending on which warmongers you listen to, you may be hearing that America must wage war against Pakistan in order to prevent the Taliban from conquering (or at least destabilizing) Pakistan and seizing the country's arsenal of nuclear weapons, and/or to ensure that terrorists can never attack the United States as they did on September 11, 2001, and/or to eliminate the "safe havens" from which "insurgents" are attacking American and NATO forces in Afghanistan, and/or because the Pakistani army hasn't been able to defeat the scourge of terrorism all by itself.

But none of this makes any sense. Pakistan's nuclear weapons are under American control, as they have been since September of 2001. The "loose nukes" scenario, which the war against Pakistan is supposedly designed to prevent, is not only a thoroughly fictional argument, but a thoroughly cynical one as well.

If Pakistan's nukes were not under American control, the Americans wouldn't dream of attacking Pakistan. (If you've been paying attention for any of the previous six years, or six decades, you may recall that the US only attacks countries which have no chance to defend themselves, or to retaliate.)

Furthermore, an all-out attack on Pakistan by the US is more likely to cause fragmentation and destabilization in Pakistan than to bring peace and democracy. (Think of Iraq; think of Afghanistan.) So the idea that an American intervention is necessary to prevent a horrific outcome is equally false, and equally cynical. In fact, a horrific outcome -- fragmentation and destabilization -- is much preferred by the American warmongers, and that's why they're so intent on waging this war. It's really quite simple, once you cut through all the propaganda.

Meanwhile, the only way to ensure that terrorists cannot attack us as they did on 9/11 would be to run a complete and open investigation of the attacks of that day, and who made them possible, and who benefited from them ... and to hold the guilty parties accountable. This has manifestly not been done, and clearly, had it been done, we would be in a much different position today. Significantly, president Obama has no intention of allowing an independent investigation into the so-called "terrorist" attacks, so the official fiction remains in place now and is poised to remain in place forever.

The myths of 9/11, monstrous and murderous though they may be, carve out a space in which all manner of other monstrous and murderous fictions can thrive. And these other lies create an environment in which endless war is inevitable. So it's not easy to answer questions such as: How long has this war been in the cards? Has it in fact been inevitable for "many years"? And what do we mean by "many"? But we do need to try.

"Many" is a word
That only leaves you guessin'
Guessin' 'bout a thing
You really ought to know
-- Led Zeppelin: "Over The Hills And Far Away"

If you take a short-term view, you might say President General Pervez Musharraf signed Pakistan's death warrant in the immediate aftermath of 9/11.

It was all quite simple. George Bush declared the attacks of 9/11, which he and his administration had done so much to enable, "an act of war". Then he blamed it on "terrorists of global reach" and he asked the world's leaders, "Are you with us, or are you with the terrorists?"

Pervez Musharraf, no dummy in situations of this type, said "We're with you!"

Choosing any other option, of course, would have ensured Pakistan's immediate destruction.

But by choosing as he did, Musharraf allied himself with a lie, and made Pakistan complicit in the war crimes and crimes against humanity that were about to unfold in Afghanistan.

The American and NATO invasion and occupation of Afghanistan has sparked the inevitable reaction, from people we know as "terrorists" and "insurgents". Our terminology implies, falsely, that the US and NATO troops and the puppet government they installed and support are there legitimately. But this is not true, or even close to the truth.

In fact, the resistance to American subjugation, no matter what we call it, correctly sees Pakistan both as America's number one ally in an effort to destroy Afghanistan, and as America's primary regional source of logistical and other support. So counter-attacking in Pakistan makes at least some strategic and tactical sense, from the Afghan point of view. Most Americans know little or nothing about any of this. So we guess about the things we really ought to know.

Suppose -- here's that other shoe again -- Russia bombed, invaded and occupied the US, in a campaign based in and supplied from Mexico. Would an American resistance spring up? Would the resistance attack Russian installations in Mexico? Would it also attack Mexican institutions that supported the Russians? One could only hope so.

The shoe's on the other foot now
Bet you're wondering how.
And it's just something you're going through...
You'd better keep your eyes open
-- Graham Parker : "Something You're Going Through"

If only the truth were that simple. The reality is much worse than the hypothetical. Since a semi-plausible rationale exists for Afghan attacks against Pakistan, the Americans in Afghanistan, always eager to foment a little terrorism which then requires a reaction, have been using Afghan proxies to attack Pakistan, according to reports from Asia which you will never read in any American newspaper.

It's no coincidence that spectacular bombings and gory suicide attacks keep happening in Pakistan whenever it seems the government is approaching a condition of peaceful co-existence with the so-called militants who live in the mountains near the border with Afghanistan. Or is it?

It's no coincidence that American forces were moving freely, un-hampered by the usual security precautions, in Islamabad's Marriott Hotel just before the hotel was the site of a spectacular bombing attack. Or is it?

It's no coincidence that Baithulla Mehsud, Pakistan's public enemy number one, who has recently been blamed for virtually everything, and who has made outrageous public threats against the American homeland, eludes the Pakistan security forces whenever they get close to him, while communicating using encryption they cannot crack. Or is it?

It doesn't take a genius to connect these dots. Or does it?

And I have met my destiny
In quite a similar way
The history book on the shelf
Is always repeating itself
-- ABBA: "Waterloo"

A longer-term view of Pakistan's current problem would show that its roots were planted almost exactly 30 years ago. In the mid-70s, Afghanistan had shaken off its long-standing feudal monarchy and was beginning to move in progressive directions. A democratic election had empowered a legitimate, representative government, for the first time in Afghanistan's history, and a new social and economic awakening seemed imminent.

Unfortunately for the people of Afghanistan, these developments provided an opportunity certain Americans had been waiting for. They called their plan "Operation Cyclone" and they implemented it in secret. It involved recruiting the baddest bad-guys they could find in the Muslim world, and bringing them to the US for training in terrorist techniques such as murder and sabotage. Once trained, they were sent to Pakistan, were infiltrated into Afghanistan, and began to wreak havoc.

The new government of Afghanistan -- still trying to figure out how to make social democracy work in an Islamic context -- was not at all prepared to deal with terrorists, and asked the Soviet Union for help with security. The Soviets wanted no part of Afghanistan's problem, but neither could they sit back and watch while terrorists destabilized a neighboring country. And the Afghans kept begging for help.

In December of 1979, six months after "Operation Cyclone" went into effect, the Soviets sent troops to assist the Afghan security services -- just what the Americans had hoped for. Immediately, propaganda organs around the world began to trumpet the "fact" that the Soviets had "invaded" Afghanistan. The terrorists who had been sent to attack Afghanistan now turned their attentions to the Soviet troops, and suddenly what had been an internal security problem became the trigger for a major war.

The war raged for almost a decade, killed more than a million people, and destroyed what little infrastructure there was to destroy in Afghanistan; it also did untold damage to the already-crumbling Soviet Union. This was all to the good, according to American policy-makers.

The USSR was at the time America's most powerful "competitor" in the "grand game" of global domination; its fall was a blessing to those American leaders who had been yearning to become the world's only superpower.

And as for Afghanistan, the experiment with social democracy there could not be allowed to stand, much less succeed, for the same reason that similar experiments cannot be allowed to stand anywhere else in the world that American military power can reach: to preserve the myth that capitalism -- unbridled dog-eat-dog militarized capitalism -- is the only path that can possibly lead to prosperity.

There were other factors involved, to be sure. We shouldn't say anything about Afghan poppies and CIA heroin trafficking. We shouldn't say anything about natural resources or pipeline routes either. To do so would put us off the map -- well beyond the limits imposed on "polite" political analysis and far too close to the reality behind the American occupation of Afghanistan today.

Thirty years ago the Soviet Union was the target, Afghanistan was an expendable battlefield, and Pakistan provided the logistical base. Now the situation is slightly different: China is the target, Afghanistan is the logistical base, and as for Pakistan ...

In terms of the "grand chessboard", one might be tempted to say that turnabout is fair play for Pakistan. Those who do the bully's dirty-work always end up as victims themselves. And what's been happening to Pakistan lately, and what's about to happen to Pakistan in the near-term Obama-driven future, could be seen as blowback: retribution for the crimes Pakistan has committed, in complicity with the Americans, against Afghanistan.

But the "grand game" is simply an abstraction, one that "justifies" mass murder on a horrific scale in defense of dimly perceived "national interests". In reality, we're talking about hundreds of millions of people whose lives are about to be destroyed, or in the process of being destroyed, as the "players" continue to see strategic advantage in the destruction and destabilization of foreign countries.

And -- for the most part, and as always -- the victims, and the soon-to-be victims, have done nothing wrong. They've been trying to live their lives and provide for their families under a repressive government which came to power with American support, and which, for most of the past several decades, has been doing America's bidding. Is it a coincidence that the people of Iraq can say the very same thing?

"Operation Cyclone", which filled Afghanistan with terrorists and planted the roots that grew into both the Taliban and al Qaeda, was started during the presidency of Jimmy Carter. The Carter administration's marketing slogan -- "Human Rights" -- gave it perfect cover for a clandestine program of fomenting terrorism in one country in order to destabilize another. And the chief architect behind the plan, Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was Carter's National Security Advisor, is now one of Barack Obama's inner circle. That's no coincidence, either.

And this, ultimately, is what makes a major escalation of the war between the US and Pakistan inevitable. The Obama administration embodies none of the change we were hoping for. We are still governed by Bush/Clinton retreads, neo-con chicken hawks, friends and agents of Israel, and Wall Street bankers. None of these people see anything wrong with the American imperial project. The destruction of Pakistan is, and always has been, essential to that project. And the movers and shakers don't care how much pain and suffering they cause.

To prevent a disastrous war between the USA and Pakistan, it would be necessary to dismantle the American imperial system, and this -- as we keep seeing over and over and over -- is not about to happen.

We are all on the run
On our knees
The sundial draws a line upon eternity
Across every number.
-- Van Der Graaf Generator: "Arrow"

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Pakistani Lawyers Protest For Reinstatement Of Judges, Tear Down Posters Of Zardari

In Pakistan, the lawyers' movement for the restoration of the judiciary has finally had enough of Asif Ali Zardari's endless dipsy-doodle.

For the past eight months, since the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, his former wife and the former leader of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), Zardari has been pretending to support Pakistan's so-called "transition to democracy".

But he's been working against it at the same time, using the support from the other opposition parties to oust Prevez Musharraf, but planning to succeed Musharraf himself, and also planning to retain all the extra-legal powers Musharraf has accumulated.

There's no doubt that all this connivance has suited Zardari's American backers, who have been strangely silent since it became clear that Musharraf's days as President were numbered.

But then again, that depends on what you mean by "silent".

The "militants" in the mountains have stepped up their suicide bombing campaign, just like they always do when the Americans want to put pressure on the Pakistani government.

In recent days they have attacked a police station, the home of a politician, and a defense-industrial complex in the heart of the national capital.

The moves and counter-moves in the most recent campaign seem to have been carefully orchestrated, and the motives are transparent as ever.

It suits America to have as many wars going simultaneously as possible, especially if Americans don't have to fight them all.

It suits America to have a weapon to use against whatever Pakistani government emerges from the upcoming Presidential election.

The majority of the violence has been blamed on Baitullah Mehsud, who is called the leader of the Taliban in Pakistan.

In recent days details have emerged indicating that Baitullah Mehsud is probably a CIA asset, which would hardly be surprising, considering his amazing immunity from reprisals.

It's been reported that the intelligence services cannot crack Baitullah Mehsud's communications, the encryption is so advanced.

It's also been reported that he gets advance notice of Pakistani troop movements from an unidentified foreign government, and that US forces have mysteriously refused to attack him, despite knowing exactly where he was.

I'm normally reluctant to make predictions, but it's easy to see that the violence will continue until the next government is installed -- whoever that may be -- and declares undying loyalty to the US and the GWOT and an unflagging determination to root out the extremists.

Meanwhile, the root cause of the terrorism -- Pakistan's support for the US and the GWOT, especially as applied against Afghanistan -- will remain topic non grata. And the contradiction will sit there, naked in full view and unmentioned in any of the mainstream media.

In any case ... following Nawaz Sharif's announcement earlier this week that the PML-N has left the governing coalition, and that PML-N will not support Zardari's candidacy for President but instead will run a candidate of their own, Pakistan's lawyers for democracy have taken to the streets of many cities simultaneously.

And as you can see in these fabulous photos from Reuters, they're even tearing down posters of Zardari.

They haven't linked him and his takeover of the PPP with his American backers yet, at least not in public.

Just wait.

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Is Pakistan's "Public Enemy Number One" A CIA Asset? Of Course He Is! Otherwise He'd Have Been Dead A Long Time Ago

Pakistan's most feared terrorist communicates with encryption so strong the Pakistani intelligence services cannot crack it. He gets information on Pakistani troop movements from an unidentified foreign government. He's said to be responsible for the vast majority of terrorist attacks in Pakistan (including the assassination of Benazir Bhutto), but the Americans -- who don't mind bombing "Islamic militants" in Pakistan every now and then -- have refused to attack him despite having solid information as to his whereabouts. And on, and on, and on...

All this and more is highlighted in a excellent piece from "State of Pakistan", which I have reproduced in full below, with just a bit of editing and a few comments.

Baithullah Mehsud could be a CIA ‘intelligence asset’ in this double game

A report published by the News on August 5, 2008 includes the following (apparently based on information given by the ISI officials):

”The top US military commander and the CIA official were also asked why the CIA-run predator[s] and the US military did not swing into action when they were provided the exact location of Baitullah Mehsud [photo], Pakistan’s enemy number one and the mastermind of almost every suicide operation against the Pakistan Army and the ISI since June 2006. One such precise piece of information was made available to the CIA on May 24 when Baitullah Mehsud drove to a remote South Waziristan mountain post in his Toyota Land Cruiser to address the press and returned back to his safe abode. The United States military has the capacity to direct a missile to a precise location at very short notice as it has done close to 20 times in the last few years to hit al-Qaeda targets inside Pakistan. Pakistani official[s] have long been intrigued by the presence of highly encrypted communications gear with Baitullah Mehsud. This communication gear enables him to collect real-time information on Pakistani troop movement from an unidentified foreign source without being intercepted by Pakistani intelligence.”

Both the CIA and the ISI have been playing a double game. Fighting and nurturing terrorists and warlords at the same time! Why?

If this is a serious question then perhaps I can answer it.

Now please carefully read the following published and circulated by the State of Pakistan on January 31, 2008.

Nicholas Schmidle, who was expelled from Pakistan in January 2008 for writing a detailed report in the NY Times on the tribal areas and the NWFP, later wrote in the Washington Post,

“foreign journalists are barred from almost half the country; in most cases, their visas are restricted to three cities — Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi. In Baluchistan province, which covers 44 percent of Pakistan and where ethnic nationalists are fighting a low-level insurgency, the government requires prior notification and approval if you want to travel anywhere outside the capital of Quetta. Such permission is rarely given. And the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), where the pro-Taliban militants are strong, are completely off-limits. Musharraf’s government says that journalists are kept out for their own security. But meanwhile, two conflicts go unreported in one of the world’s most vital — and misunderstood — countries.”

What does the government want to hide?

I could probably answer that, too.

Most governments make every effort to expose terrorists. Authorities pursue them relentlessly including placing advertisements about purported crimes, requesting people to come forward and give information. When arrested they prosecute the alleged terrorists vigorously and publicize convictions. But no such pattern in Pakistan. The website of Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency lists only two, yes only TWO terrorists from the federally administered tribal areas (FATA) as wanted. The star of ‘Jaish-e-Muhammed’ Masood Azhar was allowed to escape. The other star, Omar Saeed Sheikh, is still alive (ostensibly because his case is under appeal) although he was sentenced to death in July 2002. The alleged ‘master mind’ of the plan to blow up trans-atlantic flights, Rashid Rauf, has mysteriously escaped and the government does not even want to hear about it. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the master mind of 9/11, has been kept in Guantanamo since 2004 and has not been tried. Abdullah Mehsud (Baitullah’s relative) was released by the U.S. from Guantanamo and allowed to return? Why? So that they can issue threats to blow up the White House (interview to Al-Jazeera on Jan. 29, 2008) and provide justification for the so-called ‘War on Terror’ which has not seen a single terrorist attack on the U.S. soil since 9/11?

YES! Exactly!

Let’s now talk about Baitullah Mehsud who became a big militant leader soon after Abdullah’s release by the U.S. government from Guantanamo Bay in March 2004. Until the end of 2004, Baitullah Mehsud (former FATA secretary Brig. Mahmood Shah says he is in 40s) lived in the shadow of his daring and charismatic fellow tribesman, Abdullah Mehsud, who, with his long black hair, was considered a terrorist rock star. Abdullah fought with the Taliban in Afghanistan against the Northern Alliance and in 1996 lost a leg when he stepped on a land mine. He was taken captive by warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum who turned him over to American forces. Abdullah Mehsud was sent to Camp Delta at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba and held for two years, insisting the whole time that he was just an innocent tribesman. He was released in March 2004 for reasons which remain unclear and returned to Waziristan. Soon after his return, he orchestrated the kidnapping of two Chinese engineers working on a dam in his region, proclaiming that Beijing was guilty of killing Muslims. He also ordered an attack on Pakistan’s Interior Minister in which 31 people perished. The government came under tremendous pressure from the Chinese to hunt Abdullah after the killings of their engineers.

The Afghan Taliban, who were in the process of organizing themselves to fight in Afghanistan and were desperately trying to avoid a head-on confrontation with Pakistani forces in the tribal regions, were not pleased with the killing of the Chinese engineers. Abdullah was made a deputy of Baitullah Mehsud and a shura or tribal council was set up which further undermined his authority. It was said at the time that the Taliban preferred a cool-headed Baitullah over the temperamental Abdullah. Dejected, Abdullah left for Afghanistan to fight in Musa Qilla in the southern Afghan province of Helmand and was killed by security agencies in the Zhob area of the south-western province of Baluchistan while returning home to Pakistan.

Mehsud’s first battlefield experience was in Afghanistan in the late 1980s against Soviet invaders. His mentor at the time was Jalaluddin Haqqani, a powerful commander in eastern Afghanistan backed by the United States against the Soviets. Now Haqqani is wanted as a terrorist by the U.S. and NATO but the CIA has also been trying to get his support according to the Wall Street Journal. The ISI once considered him a ‘moderate’ Taliban.

For almost three years now, Baitullah Mehsud has been the leading face of militant resistance whose influence, security officials acknowledge, transcends the borders of South Waziristan, according to the sources in the governments of Pakistan and the United States. But there is little independent reporting on the tribal areas. Most of the so-called experts writing for the think tanks have never visited these areas. Mostly they cite each other in their papers or quote US or Pakistani officials.

[The] government [...] acknowledged Baitullah Mehsud as the new chief of militants in the Mehsud part of South Waziristan [...] in February, 2005, when it entered into an agreement with him in Sara Rogha following violent clashes and ambushes. He was reportedly paid [20 million rupees] as part of this deal though it remains unclear who picked [up] the tab, Pakistani or the U.S. government? But read the following report of Jan. 30, 2005 published by the Daily Times, Karachi:

“Baitullah Mehsud gets ready to surrender, Sets aside demand for amnesty to Abdullah Mehsud

By Iqbal Khattak

PESHAWAR: A key local Taliban militant expressed his willingness to surrender to the government after holding talks with tribal elders and clerics at an undisclosed location in South Waziristan Agency, said one of the negotiators on Saturday.

Baitullah Mehsud, a key tribal Taliban commander in the troubled South Waziristan tribal region bordering Afghanistan, expressed readiness to surrender, Brig (r) Qayyum Sher, a member of the peace committee that met the militant, told Daily Times from Tank.

“He (Baitullah) is ready to settle the matter with the government,” said the tribal negotiator. “We met him today and he said he is ready to resolve the matter.” The tribal negotiator said Baitullah did not press his old demand that his comrade Abdullah Mehsud should also be pardoned if he surrenders. “He (Baitullah) will surrender alone,” said Brig Qayyum.

However, the peace committee will discuss modalities for Baitullah’s surrender with the government. “The modalities will now be sorted out with the government. How, when and where he will surrender will be discussed with the military and the political administration,” said Brig Qayyum.

A military source told Daily Times that Baitullah’s surrender would prove a serious setback to Abdullah Mehsud. “That is what we want. But we have to wait for the moment when he (Baitullah) surrenders,” the source said on condition of anonymity. Lt Gen Safdar Hussain exempted Abdullah Mehsud from amnesty after his alleged involvement in two Chinese engineers’ kidnapping in October last year.

Brig Qayyum said Baitullah, who unlike Abdullah Mehsud and Nek Muhammad was not in the media limelight, set no conditions for his surrender and the Peshawar corps commander had already declared amnesty for him if he laid down arms.

Gen Safdar set a January 26 deadline for the two militants to surrender or “face military onslaught” and hoped sanity would prevail upon Baituallah to live peacefully. However, Gen Safdar had refused to pardon Abdullah Mehsud.

He pledged to cease attacks on security forces and government installations in return for a commitment by the government to withdraw forces from the Mehsud territory and not to take any punitive action against him and his associates. This followed a brief lull in fighting, prompting the then Pakistani army corps commander, Peshawar, Lt-Gen Safdar, to declare Baitullah Mehsud a “soldier of peace” after a meeting with him at Jandola in August, 2005.

The meeting followed accusations by Baitullah Mehsud that the government was not honouring its commitments, was refusing to withdraw its forces and was continuing to attack his mujahideen. Violence erupted again in the restive tribal region and a time came when the government’s writ was restricted to the compounds of the political administration.”

Why was not Baitullah captured when he was ready to surrender? Instead, he was given money and allowed to grow his militia from a few hundred to nearly 20,000? Why? Who made the decision?

Who else?

Baitullah Mehsud addressed his tribe after the Sararogha pact and clearly swore allegiance to Mullah Umar of the Taliban. His power over the two agencies is owed to his wealth and his ability to wage war. He goes around in a bullet-proof car and is followed around by 30 armed guards. Like Nek Muhammad, he too has two wives and has three castle-like houses in North and South Waziristan. Although he is not a tribal leader by lineage or by election, he is more respected as a warlord by the people of the two agencies than any other person. Although he denies that he received [20 million rupees] from the secret funds of the government without signing a receipt, corps commander Peshawar General Safdar Hussain is on record as saying that the money was indeed set aside for him.

Government officials now claim that Baitullah has been running a number of training camps for militants and suicide bombers. And in January 2007, helicopter gunships targeted what the government claimed was a militant compound, killing 20 people. Baitullah responded angrily and threatened revenge which he said “would be such that it would pain their heart”. It was followed by a string of suicide attacks in Peshawar, Dera Ismail Khan and Islamabad. By this time, government officials had begun pointing the accusing finger at Baitullah Mehsud. A UN report released in September 2007 blamed Baitullah for almost eighty percent of suicide bombings in Afghanistan. Now since when has the UN become so well informed as to be able to account for the exact percentage of the perpetrators of suicide bombings as to their source? Who is feeding this information (or disinformation).

In an address to the nation on January 2, 2008, Mr. Pervez Musharraf said that he believed Maulana Fazlullah and Baitullah Mehsud were prime suspects in the assassination of Bhutto.In its January 18, 2008 edition, The Washington Post reported that the CIA has concluded that Mehsud was behind the Bhutto assassination. “Offering the most definitive public assessment by a U.S. intelligence official, [Michael V.] Hayden said Bhutto was killed by fighters allied with Mehsud, a tribal leader in northwestern Pakistan, with support from al-Qaeda’s terrorist network.”

The CIA is really well informed! It could not trace Mullah Omar (who reportedly lived in Quetta) or Osama (who escaped helped by the cease fire ordered by Dick Cheney at Musharraf’s request in 2001) in more than six years but it can “conclude’ within three weeks of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto that Mehsud was behind it. Meanwhile Talibans in Afghanistan want to distance themselves from him?

According to a DAWN report (Jan. 28, 2008), the Taliban in Afghanistan have distanced themselves from Pakistani militants led by Baitullah Mehsud, saying they don’t support any militant activity in Pakistan. “We do not support any militant activity and operation in Pakistan,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told Dawn on telephone from an undisclosed location on Monday. The spokesman denied media reports that the Taliban had expelled Baitullah Mehsud, the head of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan. “Baitullah is a Pakistani and we as the Afghan Taliban have nothing to do with his appointment or his expulsion. We did not appoint him and we have not expelled him,” he said.

Now a $10 billion question: What is the end-game of the U.S. if Baitullah Mehsud is indeed an ‘intelligence asset’ of the CIA?

That's simple: Either they continue to protect him and hide the truth (about him, about themselves, about 9/11, and about the entire bogus "War On Terror"), or they all go straight to the guillotines.

Is the aim is to create a theatre of the ‘War on Terror’ in Pakistan to create the justification for the landing of the U.S. troops so that the republican administration can continue to tell American people that it is fighting terrorism while spending billions to enrich the military-industrial complex, win the next elections in Nov. 2008 and tighten its control over Pakistan to pursue its anti-China and anti-Iran foreign policy goals?

For those Pakistanis who may think this is far-fetched, here is a quote from “Devil’s Game” by Robert Dreyfuss (pp. 336-337, published 2005). Citing the infamous policy memo written by leading neocons in 1995, entitled, “A Clean Break” to then Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel to ‘contain, destablize, and roll back’ various states in the region, Dreyfuss concludes:

“Neoconservatives want to control the Middle East, not reform it, even it means tearing countries apart and replacing them with rump mini-states along ethnic and sectrian lines. The Islamic right, in this context, is just one more tool for dismantling existing regimes, if that is what it takes.”

It's not far-fetched at all; it's happening in many countries simultaneously.

And "dismantling existing regimes" is indeed "what it takes".

Furthermore, it will continue until and unless a few "existing regimes" -- in Washington, Islamabad and a few other places -- are "dismantled". That is to say: indefinitely.

Bad For Bush: Peace Breaking Out In Pakistan

There have been some interesting developments -- or non-developments -- in the Pakistani sector of the Terror War since the February election in which the party and policy of President Pervez Musharraf were soundly repudiated.

The awful wave of suicide attacks which has plagued the country for the past several years, claiming thousands of lives, has vanished -- into the mists, as it were -- as the new government plays its hand in a very different way.

Rather than trying to bomb the "militants" into submission, the Pakistani government is now letting people go about their lives in relative peace, and presto change-o, the "militants" are suddenly not so militant after all.

As Ishtiaq Mahsud, Riaz Khan and Stephen Graham report for the Associated Press via the International Herald Tribune:

Taliban leader urges halt to violence and Pakistan government talks peace with key tribe

A Taliban commander wanted in the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has urged his followers to halt violence as Pakistan's new government steps up peace talks in hopes of turning a rising tide of Islamic militancy.

Followers of Baitullah Mehsud [photo], considered Pakistan's top Taliban commander, distributed fliers in his name around the lawless region on the Afghan border telling his supporters not to break a ban on acts of "hostility."

A copy of the flier obtained by The Associated Press on Thursday warned that those who disobeyed the order would be "strung upside down in public and punished."

Apparently when they say "knock it off!", they're not kidding.

Pakistan has enjoyed a monthlong respite from a wave of devastating suicide bombings blamed on Islamic militants that included the December assassination of Bhutto. The army and the militants have been observing an unofficial cease-fire for more than a month.

The lull follows the election of a new government which has vowed to negotiate with militants who renounce violence and sought to distance itself from the strong-arm tactics of U.S.-backed President Pervez Musharraf, whose influence is fading.

and so on.

Maulvi Umar, a spokesman for Mehsud, told AP that militants across the region were ready for peace if the government met their demands to withdraw the army and release militant prisoners.

U.S. officials have voiced some support for the government's peace initiative, while urging the government to exclude Taliban and al-Qaida figures suspected of orchestrating attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan — and perhaps plotting major terrorist attacks in the West.

Of course this development puts "U.S. officials" in a bit of a spot: they have to say they support any government initiative that appears to reduce terrorism, even while their government's official policy is to instigate terrorism.

For in-the-know "U.S. officials", things must look grim, and the longer the "unofficial cease-fire" holds, the grimmer they will look.

Despite the most fervent wishes of those who would steer the course of history in more extremist directions, Pakistan had an actual election and the people spoke.

And even after all the damage he has done to the rule of law in his country, Musharraf's power is waning, the "war on terror" is fizzling, peace is breaking out in the "lawless frontier regions", and Bush's number one ally in the so-called Global War On Terror is showing how to de-escalate a "crisis" fomented by the previous government.

It remains to be seen whether anything of the sort can happen in the United States.

Pakistan has the advantage of a pro-democracy movement led by the country's lawyers and journalists.

But the U.S. has Predators and Reapers and no compunctions about using them.

If ever there were a situation where a drone needed to drop a bomb to kick-restart a nasty little war, this would seem to be it.

But don't worry -- they didn't get the idea from me!

37 Dead As Suicide Bomber Attacks Pakistani Political Rally

More horrible violence racks Pakistan in the final days before Monday's parliamentary election, as Jane Perlez of the New York Times reports from Lahore.

A suicide bomber rammed a car into a campaign rally in the tribal areas on Saturday, killing 37 people and wounding at least 90 others.

The attack in Parachinar, a town in Kurram, occurred two days before parliamentary elections on Monday and was apparently intended to deter voters from participating, said Brig. Javed Cheema, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry.

“It’s the same people who have been carrying out attacks, whose purpose is to create confusion and chaos and stop the polling process,” Brigadier Cheema said. The government of President Pervez Musharraf has blamed a Pakistani Taliban leader, Baitullah Mehsud, who is allied with Al Qaeda, for the steep rise in suicide attacks in the past year.

It seemed unlikely, however, that the attack on Saturday would have a significant effect on voter turnout because the tribal areas, which are semiautonomous and border Afghanistan, are considered remote and lawless by most Pakistanis.

Thus Perlez points out one aspect of the Interior Ministry's announcement that seems odd, but she doesn't mention the other: The government has no proof of anyone's complicity in anything.

She goes on to describe the scene of the attack:

The rally at Parachinar was organized by Syed Riaz Hussain, a candidate for the national Parliament who is affiliated with the Pakistan Peoples Party, the opposition party of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated in December. After the rally, supporters of Mr. Hussain gathered on a roof for food, and others stayed on the roadside below in a large group, Brigadier Cheema said.

The suicide bomber, driving a car filled with explosives, attacked the group on the side of the road, the brigadier said. Kurram is known for sectarian violence between Shiite and Sunni Muslims, although Saturday’s attack was aimed at a political rally. According to one account, the people at the rally had emerged from a Shiite shrine and were on their way to the headquarters of Mr. Hussain when the bomber drove into the crowd.

Hours later, two people were killed and eight wounded in a suicide attack outside an army media center in the northwestern Swat Valley, Agence France-Presse said.

The Parachinar attack was the first violent incident in the immediate prelude to the election that pits President Musharraf’s party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Q, against two main opposition parties, the Peoples Party and the faction of the Pakistan Muslim League led by former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

The first violent incident in the immediate prelude to the election but not the first violent attack of the campaign and likely not the last either, sad to say.

Mr. Musharraf was re-elected late last year to a five-year term as president, but the parliamentary elections are viewed by many as a referendum on his rule, which has been marred in the last year by an increasingly aggressive insurgency of Islamists, the killing of Ms. Bhutto and the imposition of emergency rule.

It's very interesting to see what details are left out of this report.

For instance, Jane Perlez gives no indication that Musharraf's "re-election" (last October 6) was even more "marred" than his "rule" has been. As we have discussed here many times, Musharraf's "re-election" was a tragic farce, the conduct of which violated three distinct laws. The Supreme Court of Pakistan was about to strike down the "result" of that "election" when Musharraf imposed emergency rule on November 3.

Musharraf said he was going after the terrorists, but one of his first moves was to sack the Chief Justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, and the eight other justices who refused to go along with the program. Those nine judges are still under house arrest, more than three months after the emergency was declared. These facts are well known to anyone who cares to learn.

So when the Americans send observers to monitor Monday's election, they are not really interested in democracy; if democracy were the goal, the US would have cut ties with Musharraf a long time ago. He did take power in a military coup, after all.

Oh, no. What the Americans are interested in is the appearance of democracy.

Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who will be an election observer, said Friday before leaving Washington for Pakistan that the United States should cut military aid to Pakistan if the elections were substantially rigged.

Guess what, Joe? The election last October was substantially rigged -- illegal three times over. The president could only maintain his power by arresting the Supreme Court and keeping them still and quiet, so that's what he did.

The rule of law is still suspended and the honest judges are still under house arrest and bombers are ravaging the opposition and the government keeps blaming it on "extremists".

But the fact remains that extremists are barely represented in Pakistani parliaments and have very little to lose in this election. Musharraf, whose hold on power grows increasingly tenuous, has much more to lose, should the election go ahead as scheduled and in peace. And therefore it is very difficult to dismiss the claims of those who say Musharraf and/or his security forces have been behind all this violence.

The American collaborators in this farce have said nothing about any of this; if they had any principles (other than maintenance of power) they wouldn't be sending observers at all -- they'd be denouncing the horrific Pakistani-American farce that pretends to be democracy.

Pakistan: Dangerous And Violent Nonsense In Wake Of Bhutto Assassination

The dangerous nonsense coming out of Pakistan has reached seemingly impossible new levels of absurdity in the wake of Benazir Bhutto's assassination in Rawalpindi on Thursday.

[Seemingly impossible? Maybe. But the bar has been raised yet again, and this piece has been updated (twice) with even more absurdity than the absurd original.]

The government's story of how she died changed twice in the first 36 hours after her death, and now they don't want to talk about it anymore. Their story of who did it has only changed once, and that's all they want to talk about.

In short, Bhutto's party -- the Pakistan People's Party -- blames the government, and the government blames the terrorists. Which terrorists? Who cares! But if they could be connected to al Qaeda, so much the better...

... unless they also happened to be connected to the ISI, and therefore to Musharraf, and therefore (willingly and wittingly, or otherwise) to the Bush Administration.

We'll have more on these connections -- tenuous though they may be -- below. More on the future of the PPP below as well.

The government's shifting tales of the details of the former Prime Minister's death haven't helped quell the inevitable conspiracy theories; on the contrary, they tend to implicate the government in the murder -- or at least in the coverup.

Not incidentally, three days of violent protests have left at least 40 people dead, and tens of millions of dollars of damage to thousands of buildings and other facilities, including elections offices where voters lists have been "reduced to ashes".

AFP reports:

The interior ministry insists she had no gunshot or shrapnel wounds ...

"This is ridiculous, dangerous nonsense because it is a cover-up of what actually happened," Bhutto's spokeswoman Sherry Rehman, who was involved in washing her body for burial, retorted....

"There was a bullet wound I saw that went in from the back of her head and came out the other side," Rehman told AFP.

In any case it is clear that certain factions within the government are playing fast and loose with reality.

According to Javed Iqbal Cheema, spokesman for the Interior Ministry,

“It is not important now how she died because the fact is that we have lost her and the important thing is that who killed her and how can we catch them.”

The Bangkok Post had a slightly different quote, yet quite the same sentiment:

"It is immaterial how she died," he told journalists. "What is more important is, who are the people who killed her? I think we have to uncover those people."

Saeed Shah details the ever-changing story that has now been declared immaterial in Toronto's Globe and Mail:

Babar Awan, a senior People's Party official. He said he saw her body after the attack and there were at least two bullet wounds, one in the neck and one on the top of the head.

"It was a targeted, planned killing," he said. "The firing was from more than one side."

But

Instead of pronouncing her assassinated, the latest official account gives her a much more prosaic end. Cynics suggested it was an attempt to rein in the legend that has already sprung up of Ms. Bhutto as a martyr for democracy. Others say it's an effort to blunt criticism she wasn't adequately protected.

This is the second time the story has been changed.

Just 24 hours earlier, the government had been putting forward a different account that also contradicted the People's Party version of events. It had said Ms. Bhutto was not killed by gunfire, but by flying shrapnel from the blast.

And that story didn't agree with what the eyewitnesses saw, either.

Nearly all eyewitnesses and accounts by people travelling in her vehicle agree she was first shot and had slumped back into the jeep when the blast occurred.

Amateur video released yesterday shows a gunman firing at least three shots at Ms. Bhutto followed by a huge blast, but the government says the gunman missed.

The doctors at the hospital told journalists and People's Party leaders that she had died as a result of a bullet wound to the neck. Some of the doctors apparently later changed their stories.

So the question remains: How can you catch the people who did it if you don't care to find out what they did? It's a very strange way to solve a crime, so to speak. Some people will probably say it's a good way to keep a crime unsolved.

And it's not the only sign of a coverup:

Ms. Bhutto was sent to her grave yesterday without autopsy. Her body was flown immediately from the hospital, in a sealed coffin, to the burial. So the truth of government assertion that she died in an extraordinary accident will probably never be known.

Mohammadmian Soomro, the caretaker prime minister of Pakistan, told the cabinet that Ms. Bhutto's husband, Asif Zardari, had insisted on no autopsy.

But in a case of this nature, an autopsy is mandatory under the criminal law of Pakistan, according to leading lawyer Athar Minallah - and it is the state's responsibility.

"It is absurd, because without autopsy it is not possible to investigate," he said.

Firefighters also cleaned the scene of the attack in Rawalpindi with high-pressure hoses within an hour, washing evidence away.

Meanwhile the government has released a transcript of what it claims is a conversation between Baitullah Mehsud and an unidentified tribal leader, which is says proves that Baitullah Mehsud was behind the assassination.

"We have intelligence intercepts indicating that al-Qaeda leader Baitullah Mehsud is behind her assassination," said Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema.

Mr. Mehsud is a tribal chief in the Waziristan region, on the border with Afghanistan, and the leader of Pakistan's homegrown version of the Taliban. He is said to be close to Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, who is an ally of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

According to a transcript released of a conversation between Mr. Mehsud and an unidentified religious cleric, the tribal chief conveyed his congratulations for the attack.

"It was a spectacular job. They were very brave boys who killed her," Mr. Mehsud said, according to the transcript, on being told by the cleric that three of his men were behind the assassination.

The article reprints the transcript. The empahsis is mine:

The following is a transcript released by the Pakistani government yesterday of a purported conversation between militant leader Baitullah Mehsud, who is referred to as Emir Sahib, and another man identified as a Maulvi Sahib, or Mr. Cleric. The government alleges the intercepted conversation proves al-Qaeda was behind the assassination of Benazir Bhutto:

Maulvi Sahib: Peace be on you.
Mehsud: Peace be on you, too.
...
Maulvi Sahib: They were our men there.
Mehsud: Who were they?
Maulvi Sahib : There were Saeed, the second was Badarwala Bilal and Ikramullah was also there.
Mehsud: The three did it?
Maulvi Sahib: Ikramullah and Bilal did it.
Mehsud: Then congratulations to you again.
...
Mehsud: It was a spectacular job. They were very brave boys who killed her.
Maulvi Sahib: Praise be to God. I will give you more details when I come.
Mehsud: I will wait for you. Congratulations once again.
Maulvi Sahib: Congratulations to you as well.
...
Mehsud: Peace be on you.
Maulvi: Same to you.

Leaving aside for the moment the question of whether this transcript is legitimate, the flow of the conversation seems to show Maulvi Sahib telling Baitullah Mehsud who executed the attack.

Does this show that Baitullah Mehsud was behind it? One might think that if Baitullah Mehsud were responsible for the assassination, he would be the one giving the details.

And one might think the shooter shown in the photo would at least have a beard! But this is Pakistani politics after all, where nothing makes any sense at face value.

Even the alleged connection between Baitullah Mehsud and al Qaeda is in dispute.

And there's been more nonsense elsewhere, including this bit in the US, courtesy of TIME magazine:

An FBI and Department of Homeland Security bulletin sent out Thursday cited unsubstantiated reports that Lashkar-i-Jhangvi had claimed responsibility for Bhutto's assassination. An FBI official said that the bulletin was based on press reports and would not comment on whether the claim had been independently confirmed.

The same TIME article makes even less sense in spots.

"It is probable there are links between Lashkar-i-Jhangvi and al-Qaeda," says [Frederic Grare, a former French diplomat in Pakistan and a scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace], "but it is certain they do have links to the government." He adds, "If the government itself says Lashkar-i-Jhangvi is involved, it is suicidal because it opens the door to speculation about their own role."

Indeed, while Pakistani authorities have had a hand in encouraging groups like Lashkar-i-Jhangvi and Lashkar-i-Tayyba, Islamabad has done little to systematically dismantle these jihadist "armies" now that their original purposes — fighting the Soviets and supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan or fighting the Indians in Kashmir — are over.

"They have nothing else to do," says [Stephen Cohen, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution], "and they are causing mischief."

The fighting with India over Kashmir is by no means over, and the idea that terrorist groups send out suicide bombers to take out major political figures because they have nothing else to do is most fanciful. Only in America will readers take this sort of dangerous nonsense seriously.

Elsewhere in the article Cohen is quoted as saying:

"Bhutto was the only Pakistani politician willing to stand up and say, 'I don't like violent terrorists,'"

which is clearly false, as anyone who has been following the story of terrorism in Pakistan (here or elsewhere) can attest. It's the same old story: Nobody likes violent terrorists. But some people do like freedom-fighters.

And if the difference between the two is sometimes a bit blurry, well, then, that's quite handy in the propaganda sense, because the more confusing and frightening a subject, the fewer people will take it skeptically. As inhabitants of a nation terminally confused by violent terrorists, many Americans will believe almost anything.

And that makes it more and more inevitable that more and more disconnected terrorist groups will soon be described as affiliated with al Qaeda and/or Osama bin Laden, since such an affiliation is obviously the sine qua non of attracting serious American media attention ... and becoming a target in the GWOT.

~~~

As for the violence, an Interior Ministry spokesman enumerated the results of the violence in the first two days after the assassination, according to Dawn:

38 people were killed and 53 injured, 174 banks were gutted, 26 ransacked, 158 offices were burnt, 23 ransacked, 34 petrol stations were set ablaze and two damaged, 370 vehicles were set on fire and 61 damaged, 18 railway stations were torched and four ransacked, 72 train bogies were burnt, 765 shops, offices gutted and 19 offices ransacked.

According to a more detailed report from the Times of India:

Demonstrators have clashed with police and torched hundreds of buildings, trains and vehicles in the wake of the gun and suicide attack that claimed Bhutto's life on Thursday.

"In two days 38 innocent people have lost their lives and 53 have been injured," ministry spokesman Brigadier Javed Cheema told a news conference.

"At a time when the nation is mourning the death of Benazir Bhutto in a terrorist attack, some elements of criminal mentality have taken undue advantage of the situation," Cheema said.

More than 100 criminals had escaped when rioters broke open jails, he said.

But by Saturday, despite continued unrest, the spokesman was looking at the bright side:

Cheema said the overall situation was "satisfactory" on Saturday, partly due to the army's presence in several hotspots.

"The situation is getting back to normal rapidly and we hope that in a day or so life will return to normal in the country," he added.

President Pervez Musharraf earlier ordered security chiefs to take firm action to restore order to the country. Paramilitary troops have already been ordered to shoot rioters on sight in the southern city of Karachi.

Cheema also pledged that Pakistani authorities would bring to justice all the "miscreants" behind the unrest.

"I want to say that those who are involved will not be spared... they will face tough punishment," he added.

Do you want some more nonsense? CTV reports a fine bit of lingo-jingo from Cheema:

"This is not an ordinary criminal matter in which we require assistance of the international community. I think we are capable of handling it."

... in which the Interior Ministry spokesman suggests that Pakistani police are incapable of solving the small crimes on their own ... but they can handle the big ones without assistance? Yeah, sure!!

The Parliamentary election scheduled for January 8th is now in doubt. Nawaz Sharif has announced his party will boycott. Musharraf's party will run, of course. And the late Benazir Buhtto's PPP will meet on Sunday to decide whether to stand in the election or join the opposition boycott.

According to AFP, the wishes of the former PPP leader will be made known at Sunday's meeting and will be very difficult to disregard.

The PPP was to meet around 3:00pm (1000 GMT) in her home town of Naudero in the south to decide what to do next, with her husband Asif Zardari expected to read out instructions she left about the party's future.

"It will be almost impossible for the party to go against her wishes," said political analyst and columnist Shafqat Mahmood. Party officials said her son Bilawal Bhutto was favourite to take over what has become a political dynasty, with an advisory council running affairs until he finishes his studies at Britain's Oxford University.

The election commission will meet on Monday to decide whether to postpone the January 8 election, but according to the same political analyst, Shafqat Mahmood, their decision depends on the result of the PPP meeting. If PPP decide to boycott, it won't matter much whether the election commission wants to have an election on January 8th or not.

So here we are, on the edge of a great precipice, with emerging opportunities for the forces good and evil to shape the decades to come -- and our collective future now hinges on such weighty matters as whether a dead woman has left instructions to turn over the leadership of her party -- the largest opposition political party in the sixth most-populous nation on earth -- to a 19-year-old university student.

And this is democracy?? Nonsense indeed!

There are dangerous and violent times to come, for certain. But our future may have to wait, because the new prince of the democratic Pakistani opposition is still being trained -- at Oxford!

~~~

[update 1]
from Reuters India: Bhutto's son, husband to be co-leaders of party

NAUDERO, Pakistan (Reuters) - The 19-year-old son of assassinated Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, Bilawal, was on Sunday appointed chairman of her Pakistan People's Party (PPP) along with his father, party officials said.

"It has been decided that Bilawal will be the chairman and Mr (Asif Ali) Zardari will be co-chairman," one of the party officials said in the southern town of Naudero, where top officials of Bhutto's party were meeting.

Asif Ali Zardari was Bhutto's husband.

[update 2]
from Dawn: Bhutto party will take part in election: husband

NAUDERO, Pakistan, Dec 30 (AFP) - Slain Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party will take part in national elections set for January 8, her husband Asif Ali Zardari said at a Press conference Sunday.

He also called on former premier Nawaz Sharif to reverse his decision to boycott the polls, which Sharif had announced in the wake of Bhutto's death on Thursday. “We will go to elections,” Zardari said.

[the photos]
The photos accompanying this piece depict (from top) troops patrolling in Larkana, Benazir Bhutto's hometown, amid the wreckage of burnt-out cars; (2) shops in Larkana utterly destroyed, (3) a soldier on duty in Larkana, (4) a very military-looking person shooting at Benazir Bhutto, (5) soldiers arriving in Hyperabad, and (6) police in Karachi guarding a burning trailer.

[additional reading]
Robert Fisk in the Independent : They don't blame al-Qa'ida. They blame Musharraf
Tariq Ali at London Review of Books: Daughter of the West
Tariq Ali at the Guardian: A tragedy born of military despotism and anarchy
Melanie Colburn at Mother Jones: America's Devil's Game with Extremist Islam

Pakistan: Was A Deadly Missile Launched From A CIA Drone?

Fighting in the mountainous northwest of Pakistan continues to escalate; witnesses say at least ten people were killed on Friday when three houses were destroyed by two missiles launched from a drone -- a pilotless, remote-controlled aircraft.

The missile struck

a compound [...] on the outskirts of Miran Shah, the main town in the North Waziristan tribal region,

according to a report from the AP (via the IHT), quoting

an army official and two local security officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

As Reuters reported, the attack occurred near a madrasa "in a village near the town of Miramshah".

The sprawling religious school or madrasa near Miranshah, the main town in the Waziristan tribal region, was founded by veteran mujahideen commander Jalaluddin Haqqani, whose ties to bin Laden go back to the 1980s jihad against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

According to AFP,

Local sources [...] said the house [hit by the missile] was used as a training camp by insurgents loyal to Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of Pakistan-based Taliban militants who have been blamed for a string of suicide attacks that have killed 400 people since July.

No one has claimed responsibility for this attack, which occurred in the North Waziristan village of Danday Darpakhel.

The Pentagon has denied any involvement. Pakistan says they didn't do anything, and their Air Force doesn't even have any drones. The CIA, which reportedly does have drones, declined to comment, as usual.

The attack complicates Pakistan's political situation, which is already teetering on the edge of instability, and the embattled President, General Pervez Musharraf, has reportedly been advised repeatedly by his American "friends" not to declare martial law.

According to the BBC:

"A drone was flying very low and fired the missile. It destroyed three houses," a villager told the Reuters news agency.

"I have seen human flesh scattered all over the area near the houses."

The BBC report also noted:

North and South Waziristan have been at the centre of fighting between the army and Taleban and al-Qaeda militants.

The Pakistan military has frequently denied giving permission for US forces to carry out strikes on its soil.

The Pentagon told everybody the same thing. Here's their statement from Reuters via the Washington Post:

Pentagon says not involved in Waziristan strike

The Pentagon said the U.S. military did not carry out a missile strike on Friday that witnesses said killed at least five people near a religious school run by pro-al Qaeda mujahideen in Pakistan's Waziristan region.

"There was no indication that that was any U.S. military asset," said Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman after speaking with U.S. military officials in Afghanistan.

"Every indication was that there was no U.S. military involvement in this activity that you've seen," he said.

Asked if the strike could have been launched by aircraft owned by another U.S. agency, such as an intelligence agency, Whitman said he did not speak for other agencies.

"I only talk for the United States military," he said.

A CIA spokesman declined to comment.

Witnesses said a U.S. drone aircraft launched a missile on the religious school founded by an old friend of Osama bin Laden. The Pakistan military does not possess drones.

The AP report in the IHT appears to describe a drone reconnaissance mission earlier in the day.

Residents in Miran Shah, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the Afghan border, said they saw a low-flying drone an hour before hearing a loud explosion.
...

"I saw a spy plane about one hour before the explosion," said local shop owner Arman Khan, adding that it came from the direction of the Afghan border. Two other residents had similar reports.

AFP fills in some more local details:

"There was a roar in the sky, we feared it was an air raid but we saw no jets. Then there was a huge blast," Noor Mohammad, a student at a religious school in the region's nearby main town of Miranshah, told AFP.

Missile attacks have claimed the lives of several militants in Pakistan's volatile tribal belt. A US Predator drone targeted Al-Qaeda's deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in January 2006, killing several rebels but missing him.

According to Simon Cameron-Moore of Reuters:

Nuclear-armed Pakistan's internal security has deteriorated sharply in the past few months and the country is trembling from a wave of suicide attacks by al Qaeda-inspired militants.

Political uncertainties abound, with President Pervez Musharraf uncertain whether the Supreme Court will let him keep his re-election victory in parliament last month, because he ran while still army chief.

Pakistan was awash with rumors this week that General Musharraf, who came to power in a 1999 coup, might invoke emergency powers, declare martial law or put off a national election due in January that is supposed to transform the country into a civilian-led democracy.

And here's more background from AFP:

Pakistan moved 2,500 troops into Swat last week to counter cleric Maulana Fazlullah, also known as "Mullah Radio" for his speeches on his private radio station, in which he calls for a holy war on the authorities.

Fazlullah, who runs a banned group that sent thousands of fighters into Afghanistan after the US-led invasion to topple the Taliban in late 2001, is demanding the imposition of strict Islamic Sharia law in Swat.

The militants have taken control of several villages in the scenic Swat Valley, which was once best known for its ancient Buddhist heritage and relics, and set up checkpoints.

The violence has fuelled fears that military ruler Musharraf, who seized power in a coup in 1999, may impose an emergency or even martial law in the face of mounting political opposition and a hostile Supreme Court.

The court is a danger to the President General because his "election" has not yet been ratified, and by the letter of the law it appears to be illegal on two counts, if not three.

The Supreme Court may rule according to "the law of necessity", a doctrine which excuses any and all abuses. But then again it may uphold the law. Nobody knows. And that's why Musharraf has been floating a trial balloon called "Martial Law"

But the President General's American friends are against the idea -- so much so, that Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice herself said "free and fair elections" -- as in:

"Pakistan needs to prepare for and hold free and fair elections"

which is the first time anyone from the State Department has mentioned "free and fair elections" and "Pakistan" in the same breath in a very long time.

Is Condoleeza Rice hyperventilating even more than usual, or is the State Department sending a message to the President General: "Watch your step, buddy-boy, you can't survive free and fair elections and you know it!"

Musharraf has his own response ready for the State Department, of course: "I'm fighting the front line battle in the War on Terror. And it doesn't help me when you tell me what to do."

But in the meantime, Musharraf's troops are still pressing the fight in the mountains, a fight which has spread into the Swat Valley, as the attack in Karachi which killed 140 people two weeks ago continues to reverberate, and the GWOT continues to engulf Pakistan.