Yet in spite of all of these machinations, truth has a terrible way of interfering with the plans of mice and men, ...and women. The woman Rice lured to return to Pakistan to save the day for George Bush and his idea of Freedom’n'Democracy is now dead, possibly murdered with the silent instigation of Rice’s rivals in the Defence Department, and by the Pentagon’s undoubted Man of the Moment, Musharaff. She is now far more useful to everyone in death than ever in life.

Bhutto was never as popular as her own press releases alleged. Indeed, local polling put her rival, Nazwar Sharif, ahead. Revelations concerning the much vilified amnesty, which legalised grand larceny upon some of the poorest people in the world, knocked down her numbers, and fatally destroyed any legitimacy she might have otherwise held. Furthermore, suspicions concerning both her collusion in an American-brokered deal with Mushraraff, and her ultimate loyalty in Bush’s silly “War on Terror”, alienated much of her base. She would have lost the election, if and when it would ever had been held.

Ms. Rice has failed in her mad experiment to revive this Pakistani Frankenstein to decorate the already politically dead corpse of the Musharaff regime. She failed with 911, she failed with the Iraq War, and now, most dangerously, she has failed in Pakistan.

Dr. Condoleeza Rice, once a limp academic and present Bush sycophant, after suffering personal ignominy and public ridicule for her strangely dyslexic command of her portfolios, took over the reigns of the State Department. She disappointed no one with a repeat perfomance of utterly ineffectual stewartship, her chief accomplishment being little else but the accumulation of frequent flyer points. And so in watching the time run out in this her last stint in the vainglorious sunshine of power and celebrity, where shopping for shoes or scolding a clerk made her more headlines than her foreign policy, she seized a last chance for redemption and gratitiude from her host ego, George Bush, by thinking up a way to put a smiley face over the glowering scowl of Musharaff, in the vain hope that the hopelessly naive, i.e. the people of Pakistan, would fall in love with its perfect makeup, its perfect hair and its oh so western love for conspicuous consumption. That face was Benazir Bhutto.

Therefore, as only the truly empowered and enrich can do, with nary a care or concern for principles, or victims, Condoleeza Rice began to play house with real people, a Paris Hilton on steroids. In collusion with Negroponte, her chaperon, and Gordon Brown, her footman, the plot was hatched: foist a corrupt and reliable figurehead upon a gullible electorate, get it voted in by hook or crook, ensure it abides by any marching orders emanating from DC, and keep it happy like a Digimon Pet with regular feeding and affection until we can can all flee the jurisdiction this January, 2009 with our amnesties, pardons and most importantly, our contracts intact.

Yet alas, this 54-year-old smiley face came with wrinkles, and to be rude, specifically $1.5 billion-dollar wrinkles, tucked away in various Swiss bank accounts, chiefly embezzled from the horrendously impoverished people of Pakistan. Let no one dare doubt the plaintive professions of love for her people, the regular declamations of the evil of Musharaff, the tireless tirades against the terrorist Taliban, versus the nice Taliban of yesteryear she supported when last in power, all voiced in that perfectly cadenced politician’s cant, bred by the best bastions of olde English imperialism: Oxford AND Cambridge. Nothing could keep her back from running to Her People in Their Time of Need. But what money don’t buy, she don’t need. Hence, the awkward need for an amnesty from a compliant judiciary. For Condy, it would just not do to have Benazhir’s trademark glasses and many flounces of fabric flying over who gets the top bunk with an Islamabad hooker in a Pakistani correctional facility (“The people of Pakistan demand I get it!”). Enter Musharaff.

From Vietnam, through Iran to Iraq unto Pakistan: as every deposed US-backed dictator in the history of the post-WW II world would ruefully report, once that proverbial American ace in the back pocket is withdrawn, you may as well pack your bags and start googling all countries with air conditioning and no extradiction treaties. Musharaff knows as well as any corporate shyster how to do “the Google”, but he would much rather stay at home than absquatulate to a foreign jurisdiction. Hence, “one amnesty coming right up, Ms. Rice.” Presto, the National Reconciliation Ordinance, shoved through an obeisant legislature and soon to be ratified by a “new and improved” Pakistani Supreme Court. And in keeping with the spirit of the matter, Musharaff expanded the amnesty to cover not just the “innocent” Bhutto, but heavens to betsy, everyone everywhere who at anytime embezzled funds from the people of Pakistan, the vast majority being former members of his military.

Bhutto had no business being in Pakistan but for Rice. Rare indeed does a government policy end in so spectacular a failure as having the bloody brains blown out of a former and potentially future head of state before millions of onlookers. It was in the name of the State Department’s “Freedom and Democracy” agenda that Rice first conceived of the purely cosmetic notion of having the telegenic and politically pliable Bhutto pose as the duly elected spokesmodel, for what was to remain a brutal, military tyranny directed by the US to root out, torture, and exterminate every deemed pro-Taliban/Al-Queda lifeform in Pakistan from lizard up. Even in an Administration infamous for using plausible gullibility to exonerate its members from personal responsibility and guilt for catastrophic failures, surely this last, in a long, long line, of world historical blunders should compel that rarest of occasions in the Bush White House, a resignation for failure. Rice has got to go.
As one looks back on the unremitting gross blunders of this White House, the offical media narrative designed to minimize personal liability has always featured the supposed rivalry between the Pentagon and State for control of America’s agenda abroad. The subvertion of the State Department by Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, and their neocon cohorts in the Pentagon with respect to the prosecution and management of America’s ridiculous “War on Terror” and the fraudulent Iraq War is well documented. The horrendous fiascoes, and more importantly, the personal embarassment, which resulted led to the political necessity of re-establishing some semblance of authority and control to formulate and implement foreign policy at State. Thus, the Department was butressed with the appointment of a man with undoubted gravitas and authority, and with a long record of dirty deeds for further credibility, to work beside Condoleeza Rice, namely John Negroponte.
In contradistinction to the Pentagon’s eternal reply to, what LBJ onced complained of, was for every foreign policy conundrum, specifically “Bomb! Bomb! Bomb!”, and its blind faith in Musharaff and the Pakistan military to keep things in order, Rice’s State Department appeared to be the only entity on the face of the planet to take seriously the Bush alibi and mantra of “Freedom and Democracy”. And no where was America’s insistence that all of the blood spilt and money spent was done for “Freedom and Democracy” more utterly exposed for the ugly truth of its detestable hypocrisy than in Pakistan. In cruel contrast to all of the sanctimonious talk of reversing America’s traditional support of the most vicious of tinpot dictators and their tyrannical regimes with Bush’s Born Again inspiration for freedom-lovin’ people all around the world, oft-quoted to justify our recent relish for criminality, there stood the spectre of our active support for General Pervez Musharaff, our “most important ally in America’s War on Terror”, with his guns and ammo, tanks and torturers, who toppled a civillian government legally elected in a peaceful and ordered way by a nation of 170,000,000 people. Yet, even he was aware of the bad optics of it all. Thus, he claimed, he promised, he decried, he re-promised, he swore, he warned, he guaranteed, he apologized, he excused, and for over 8 years, he sat on top. But at the end of the day, when he had played all of his cards, with an American ace in his back pocket, he was still in danger of being trumped by his enemies, and far worse than any fantastical Taliban or mythical Al-Queda conspiracy, stood his greatest enemy: the people of Pakistan. Thus, he suspended, he declared, he abolished, he imprisoned, and in the end, he assassinated. And with that ace still in his pocket, he continues to sit on top.

all the points made by ms. goodman fall on the shoulders of Condi and the decisions she either made or helped make.

I still cannot understand why people think she is talented. Diplomacy and foreign policy is not a pre-teen’s ice skating rink, fer cripes sake.

correction:  Question mark following this-

“And why would Bush/Musharraf want to take out a corrupt leader, just because it didn’t matter if she was corrupt, since she was “threatening” the country with democratic ideals for reformation, and that was more important?”

In other words, Bhutto, even though she was corrupt and therefore worthy of US support, was encouraging too much democratic reform, so she presented a threat to this US proxy regime and had to be eliminated. Handily, the more corrupt Musharraf was there and competing for power with her so it made it easy to use him to assassinate her.  She was even revealing of this before the eventuality, and it helped point the finger away from the US, for those of us who didn’t know better. Since the US could appear clean, conducting the assassination through the Pakistan Military intelligence and Musharraf was efficacious. If she was not a woman, this would have been more difficult, since the US public’s eye is focussed on a US woman presidential candidate and has been trained through propaganda that Muslim women are oppressed. Whether the oppression is true or not is irrelevant because it serves well as a distraction from the real agenda of strategic foreign policy and US hegemony.  In any case, this places the US in a less likely position to be implicated. So it becomes easier to divert the investigation to Scotland Yard as opposed to the UN.

This falls in line with our appeasement relations with the Taliban, to hold enough control of the country to protect our gateway interests in India and the Far East and line up the appropriate allies to have the upper hand for the new war of Armegeddon in Jerusalem. As long as we continue our policies of arming both sides in any conflict, we have much more apparent control of our chosen outcomes.

That is my feable assessment of the situation.  Now I have to listen again to the story from David Barsamian from his recent trip to Pakistan from this am on KGNU at 8:30.

I do think Musharraf is out of there. He’s just playing to much of both sides. So we’ll position some more compliant proxy—maybe a woman that’s not so into democratic reform.  Like Hilary Clinton after she loses Iowa tonight.  But that’s going to be tough because Pakistan is a raucous place these days with it’s own idea of who’s the terrorist.

a ggod example of blowback is 9/11
democracy and peace comes with a price so anywhere that educated freedom loving people are coming together to form a uprise against the current state of affairs there will be turmoil and violence created by the elite feel the need to retain power by anymeans necessary .oppression is clear and vivid in pakistan mostly because the american foreign policy needs it to retain so called “balance” over a nuclear country. its tru to say that the wmd were not in iraq but in pakistan. and that pakistan has been the most dangerous place in the world since the beginning of the iraq war.the assasination bhutto along with the purchase of those war planes should signify a job well done gift of gratitude by the us to musharraf for keeping his people on check. and to believe the nerve of that clown to sit there and pretend he is the guardian of democracy in his country….? american interest played a big part on bhuttos murder and american people must realize and empower themselves to change the world as well as the present state of our democratic country. bhutto and her populist party was manipulated by cia operatives and used as a ploid to destabilize the country and its fragile democracy. pakistani people are not going to allow one more round of colonial rule they have tastes freedom and want it more than ever even if it is under a muslim state of affairs.

are you blind? what books or blogs do you read to come to that illustrative conclusion that lacks any foundation at all. your pakistani leader is a dictator who will do whatever it takes to stay in power and the only one that are actually ruling the country are clerics, jihadist, and military cabals with strong ties to the cia
get it right

you can bomb the world to pieces but you cant bomb the world to peace.
narrow minded ideologies turn you into a blind fool!

she went back to pakistan because she felt it was the right conditions for a populist uprise but instead ended up being taken advantage of and used as a ploid to further destabilize the country and the region in order to stablish a reason for the continued oppression

I too am disappointed that Bill Richardson has not received the attention he deserves in Amy’s article as well as in the MSM.  He is the only candidate whom I really trust.

This claim:  “The New York Times revealed last week that at least $5 billion in U.S. aid delivered to Pakistan since 9/11 to fight al-Qaida and the Taliban actually went into weapons systems against another U.S. ally, India.”  is utterly false.  The NYT revealed no such thing.  Please read and understand news stories before you cite them—thanks.

Here is an example of a “multi-cultural, polyglot India next door” to a “Violent, misogynistic, totalitarian in nature, and Jihadist ” Pakistan:

http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20071228/NEWS02/83 2052108/-1/headlines

jaki, khokar

Well this is kind of a confusing mess. Benazir wasn’t such a saint, so why were the students and lawyers rioting for her return?  And why would Bush/Musharraf want to take out a corrupt leader, just because it didn’t matter if she was corrupt,  since she was “threatening” the country with democratic ideals for reformation, and that was more important. I mean usually the PNAC supports corruption.

Khokar—I agree it’s a rhetorical lexicon, the war on terror.  Its my terror vs. your terror.

Jaki—No, I’m not an apologist for women’s rights abuses, that is why I support a noninterventional political solution as the quickest route to the lifting of their restrictions.

Yes, I know that space is limited, leaders are leading, and odds are long.

Still,  how could you not note that Bill Richardson is the exception among the candidates on maintaining anti - democratic support for Musharraf since Ms. Bhutto’s assassination?

And why not note it, especially this week prior to Iowa and New Hampshire?

I appreciate your perspective often.  Thus I’m disappointed this time.  Thanks.

“There are indications that the assassination of Benazir Bhutto was anticipated by US officials:

  ‘It has been known for months that the Bush-Cheney administration and its allies have been maneuvering to strengthen their political control of Pakistan, paving the way for the expansion and deepening of the “war on terrorism” across the region.

  Various American destabilization plans, known for months by officials and analysts, proposed the toppling of Pakistan’s military…

  The assassination of Bhutto appears to have been anticipated. There were even reports of “chatter” among US officials about the possible assassinations of either Pervez Musharraf or Benazir Bhutto, well before the actual attempts took place.’”

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=view Article&code=20071230&articleId=7705

“Those who thought Ms. Bhutto the agent of democracy and progress, because she was young and a woman and told them in fluent English exactly what they wanted to hear, should know that she, like every other woman who has risen to power in the region, including a prime minister of India, two in Bangladesh, and now two in Sri Lanka—inherited dynasties founded by powerful men. The (murderous) “Good Queen Bess” did not rise to the throne in 1558 on a wave of democracy and feminism in late mediaeval England. She rose as the daughter of the (murderous) Henry VIII. It is the failure to grasp such simple facts that makes so much western journalism ridiculous.”

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/columnists/stor y.html?id=42d0728d-4fbe-44b8-85bb-bf2e207ed265

that it’s an ISLAMIC country.

Violent, misogynistic, totalitarian in nature, and Jihadist.

Compare with multi-cultural, polyglot India next door.

Don’t even go there Jaki!

Because you are getting sucked in to the black hole of deceit, that the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) propaganda is luring you with.

Women’s rights in the WORLD is the debate that needs to be argued outside the arena of opportunistic US foreign policy full spectrum dominence as exhibited in Pakistan.

That is it for that worn out subject.

Now, what I am curious about is the details and validity thereof, of the corruption charges against Benazir Bhutto?  Any takers?

Lynn

The general is not the lesser of two evils. Evil is evil. What it really expresses is what level of evil does this country represent, and if anyone has been alive for the last seven years, in particular, you can plainly see that we now represent international terror. The politics of capitulation through destruction is as bad as it gets and that is the doctrine of ALL of those currently in this administration, as well as Congress, including the democrats. It is time for a renewed America, and it begins with us. Viva la revolucion!!!!!