Thursday, January 03, 2008
Benazir Bhutto Not Such A Hero
But two important facts need to be stated about this story, something - not coincidentally - not being mentioned by many of those bloggers who are members of the Insane Liberal Clown Posse:
1) It is Bhutto's husband, Asif Ali Zardari, who refused to agree to an autopsy which would have - in all likelihood - provided an explanation of what exactly caused her death. AHN:
Bhutto was already dead when she arrived at the hospital shortly after Thursday's attack.
Lawyer Athar Minallah told CNN that preventing an autopsy is against Pakistani criminal law.
Without an autopsy, the cause of Bhutto's death could not be ascertained.
Saud told CNN that contrary to Minallah's statement, he was the one who suggested an autopsy. However, Bhutto's husband, Asif Ali Zardari , supposedly objected.
From Internet Center for Corruption Research, July 1997:
The impact of the index was perhaps greatest in Pakistan. The anger of people in Pakistan over their government's participation in rampant corruption was catalysed by Pakistan's position as second-worst in the world table.
[...]
Many speakers at this conference stated that the index had contributed to the downfall of the notoriously corrupt Bhutto administration. It was the former Prime Minister after all, who had erupted angrily when the index was referred to in parliament claiming that her's was "the most honest administration in Pakistan's history". Only days later she was dismissed from office by the President who was reportedly influenced in his decision to act by Ms Bhutto's wholly irrational response to the index. Ms Bhutto lost the ensuing elections in a landslide.
- A decade after she led this impoverished nation from military rule to democracy, Benazir Bhutto is at the heart of a widening corruption inquiry that Pakistani investigators say has traced more than $100 million to foreign bank accounts and properties controlled by Bhutto's family.
Starting from a cache of Bhutto family documents bought for $1 million from a shadowy intermediary, the investigators have detailed a pattern of secret payments by foreign companies that sought business favors during Bhutto's two terms as Pakistan's prime minister.
The documents leave uncertain the degree of involvement by Bhutto, a Harvard graduate whose rise to power in 1988 made her the first woman to lead a Muslim country. But they trace the pervasive role of her husband, Asif Zardari, who turned his marriage to Bhutto into a source of virtually unchallengeable power.
MIM, quoting an excerpt from FPM article " Pakistan's Peril" on Bhutto's ties with the Taliban:
But Bhutto was not always what she appeared to be.
Under her leadership, Pakistan in the 1990s became one the leading patrons of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Even as she promised to take her country into the 21st century, Bhutto secretly provided military and financial aid to Islamic guerillas [sic] whose ideology placed them closer to the middle ages. Publicly, she rejected any affiliation with the Taliban. Behind closed doors, she subscribed to the view that they were a pro-Pakistan force that could help stabilize Afghanistan.
Duped by Bhutto's act was the Clinton administration and prominent Democratic Congressmen like Texas Rep. Charlie Wilson. As reporter Steve Coll noted in Ghost Wars, his detailed account of the rise of Islamic fanaticism in Afghanistan, when it came to supporting the Taliban, "Bhutto had decided that it was more important to appease the Pakistani army and intelligence services than to level with her American friends."
We all know how the Left maintains a healthy denial of cognitive dissonance, applying their appreciation of one dictator and their contempt and hatred of another; one, which oddly, excludes their mantra of late to "talk with your enemy." Oh well, so much for Liberal Hypocrisy, right.
I'm not saying Bhutto is in the same category as Chavez, Castro, et al. But her government was far from perfect, having its share of corruption and back room deals.
By no means was Bhutto a Saint, not even close.
Oh - and one other thing the Lefties out there are trying connect dots to when no dots exist: Musharraf isn't running in any upcoming election - no matter how much Hillary Clinton seems to think he is - so there was nothing he had to fear from Bhutto being elected.
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