Democracy for Vancouver

Photos defy state’s version of events

THE official version of how Benazir Bhutto was killed lay in tatters last night as the Pakistani Government faced mounting demands, led by the US, for a full investigation.

The Government’s claims that she died from massive brain damage sustained when she smashed her head against the sunroof of the Toyota Land Cruiser in which she was travelling were undermined by the publication of photographs clearly showing a gunman firing directly at her.
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Further crucial backing for the gunshot theory came yesterday from one of Bhutto’s closest aides, her spokeswoman Sherry Rehman, who helped bathe her body for burial. Ms Rehman said she had clearly seen a gunshot wound.

Brigadier Cheema, however, insisted she was not shot, even though his own boss, the caretaker Interior Minister, went on television immediately after the assassination to say Bhutto had been hit by bullets. No post-mortem examination was conducted.

With many Pakistanis openly voicing their belief that there was some official complicity in her death, other events are contributing to the mystery. Within minutes of her being killed, for example, high-pressure hoses were produced to wash the area clean.

Something stronger than high-pressure hoses will be required to wash the blood off Bush & Cheney’s hands. U.S. support for Musharraf has given that dictator the kind of security and safe passage that Bush’s fondest dictatorial dreams are made of.

I was going to quote all of Bush’s blather over the years (from March 2006, September 2006, December 2004, June 2003, etc., etc.), as if any of Bush’s proclamations of support for Pakistani democracy, and the administration’s expectations of Musharraf, were anything but the purest distilled bullshit.

Bush doesn’t want Pakistan to be a democracy any more than he wants the U.S. to leave Iraq. Democracies make bad puppets. While BushCo may have jawboned Bhutto into returning to Pakistan, that was surely only in the hope that if Musharraf was finally forced into holding elections (or if events overtook Musharraf), the U.S. would have a finger in the back of the next puppet to take the stage.

Bhutto never intended to be a puppet. But just as Musharraf has been kept alive and in power by the billions we have thrown his way, which he has used to payoff the various factions that might want to assassinate him, the literal and political survival of Musharraf’s successor has always depended on the continued largesse of the U.S. government. Our machinations in that part of the world for the last 3 decades have ensured such fatal polarization that U.S. aid money is the only thing standing between Pakistan and its devolution into Afghanistanic anarchy.

Even if Bhutto’s return was engineered by the administration, it was surely not to advance Pakistani democracy. This is about imperialism, pure and simple. And the blood of hundreds of thousands, of which Bhutto is just the latest prominent victim, is as nothing next to the voracious geopolitical appetites of Bush & Cheney.

[emphasis added.]