"Musharraf Playing the West Like a Fiddle” Alleges Benazir Bhutto

[TexasLawyer]

"Musharraf Playing the West Like a Fiddle” Alleges Bhutto

Glenn Swift
April 9, 2007

Speaking before a packed audience at the Community Church in Vero Beach, Florida on March 26th of this year, Benazir Bhutto pulled no punches when declaring “Islamabad is the world’s epicenter of terrorism.” <snip> The former Prime Minister of Pakistan pulled no punches in lashing out against the current military regime in her native country.

“To justify its very existence, General Musharraf’s military government has deluded the United States and its allies into believing that democracy cannot be restored to Pakistan for fear of handing the country over to the religious extremists,” said Bhutto.

The only woman to hold the position of head of state in a Muslim nation, Bhutto argued passionately that the enormous sums of money that have been squandered by the Musharraf government through mismanagement and corruption have driven many of her country’s poor into the ranks of the terrorists.

“Disillusioned with military dictatorship and lacking the basic necessities of life, the masses are unable to express their dissatisfaction through a fair electoral process, and many of the poor have become radicalized.” Bhutto made it clear why the world cannot wait much longer for a democratic transition to take place in Pakistan.

<snip>

http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=23946

[RufusTFirefly]

1. Hey, what's not to like about a guy who...

took over the country through a military coup;

possesses actual nukes not just plans for them; and who

quite likely is hiding Osama Bin Laden

I'd call that guy an ally! Yesirreee!

Be kind to Musharraf. Let's go after that whacked out Holocaust denier with delusions of grandeur instead. Yeah, that's the ticket!

[TexasLawyer]

2. and who

allowed Dr. A.Q. Khan to spread nuclear technology to North Korea and other similarly friendly nations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Qadeer_Khan

[Djinn]

5. actually that occurred earlier

he was originally appointed by Bhutto's father and did much of his nuclear grape-vining under her government.

Whatever else he's guilty of, AQ Khan was NOT Musharraf's baby.

[cliss]

3. It always amazes me

when Bush says, "PRESIDENT Musharraf".

Really?

[Djinn]

4. Anyone want to take a guess as to who'd replace him?

Bhutto is speaking through her arse if she thinks an election in pakistan wouldn't hand victory to pro-Taliban anti-Western religious nuts.

Religious parties have FAR FAR more support than any secular parties do and outside of upper middle class professionals in the capital the western world is viewed as a negative force (at best)

Perhaps if Bhutto's govt had been more focussed on improving the lot of the average Pakistani instead of lining their pockets with millions of dollars of extorted cash then people wouldn't have felt that the religious parties were the only reliable option.

I'm no fan of Musharrafs but he's a damn sight better (for Pakistanis AND the west) that what would undoubtedly replace him.

Oh and as far as appeasing religious terrorists go, Bhutto should know all about it from her days of sending money and troops to help the Taliban take Afghanistan, her hypocrisy is astounding.

[tom_paine]

6. Her words describing Pakistan also describe Bush-Occupied America

“Disillusioned with military dictatorship and lacking the basic necessities of life, the masses are unable to express their dissatisfaction through a fair electoral process, and many of the poor have become radicalized.”

Everything but "lacking the basic necessities of life" and it's not just the American poor, our biggest growing segment of society, that are becoming radicalized by Bush-Occupation policies.

America in the past 6 years has taken on many of the characteristics of a Third-World Nation.

[malaise]

7. Rather like the corrupt Benazir

and her criminal father.

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. "Award-winning" Glenn R. Swift needs to tighten up his research

"The only woman to hold the position of head of state in a Muslim nation, Bhutto ..."

Err, no. List of elected or appointed female heads of state. You will see there Megawati Sukarnoputri, President of Indonesia until 2004. But you won't see Bhutto, because she was Prime Minister of Pakistan - the head of government (which, in the periods of democracy in Pakistan, tends to be the more powerful position - the president is appointed, not elected by the people). There have been female heads of government in Senegal, Bangladesh and Turkey as well as Pakistan.

Still 'American Chronicle' is just an online 'magazine', that accepts articles from just about anyone, with no quality control.

Anyway, what is in the news is that she says she's going to return to Pakistan this year:

Former prime minister Benazir Bhutto has said that she could be gunned down at the tarmac when she returns home this year but the risk would not deter her from making an attempt to participate in the general elections.

In a revised edition of her autobiography “Daughter of the East” — excerpts of which were made available here on Saturday — she also accused President Gen Pervez Musharraf of advising her, when he was a major general in 1996, to invade and capture Srinagar, a proposal she rejected.

“So as I prepare to return to an uncertain future in Pakistan in 2007, I fully understand the stakes not only for myself, and my country, but the entire world. I realise I can be arrested… I can be gunned down on the airport tarmac when I land,” Ms Bhutto says. But return she will.

“I do what I have to do, and am determined to fulfil my pledge to the people of Pakistan to stand by them in their democratic aspirations…. Democracy in Pakistan is not just important for Pakistanis, it is for the entire world.”

http://www.dawn.com/2007/04/08/nat1.htm

She's very much a politician, so that shouldn't be taken as a simple promise. But it could make things even more interesting in Pakistan this year, just having rumours of her returning.