Secret White House meeting plans US military escalation in Pakistan

Bill Van Auken, WSWS.org: Secret White House meeting plans US military escalation in Pakistan

Top members of the Bush administration together with US military commanders and intelligence chiefs met in secret at the White House Friday to draw up plans for stepped-up military intervention in Pakistan, the New York Times reported Sunday.

Citing unnamed senior administration officials, the Times report indicates that the administration is aiming to exploit what it sees as a new opportunity opened up by last month’s assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

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Bhutto’s Assassination: Who Gains?

by F. William Engdahl

Global Research, January 4, 2008

Assassination of prominent political leaders, presumably protected by the best security, is no easy thing. It requires agencies of professional intelligence training to insure that the job is done and that no person is caught alive who can lead to those behind. Typically, from the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand in Sarajevo in July 1914 to JFK, the person pulling the trigger is just an instrument of a far deeper conspiracy. So too in the assassination on December 27th, of Pakistani former Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto. Cui bono?.

What was behind the murder of Bhutto at the moment her PPP party appeared about to win a resounding election victory in the planned January 8 elections, thereby posing a mass-based challenge to the dictatorial rule of President Musharraf?

Musharraf’s government was indecently quick to blame “Al-Qaeda,” the dubious entity allegedly the organization of Osama bin Laden, whom Washington accused for masterminding the September 11 2001 attacks. Musharraf just days after, declared he was “sure” Al Qaeda was the author, even though, on US pressure, he has asked Scotland Yard to come and investigate. “I want to say it with certainty, that these people (Al Qaeda) martyred … Benazir Bhutto,” Musharraf said in a Jan. 3 televised address. He named Baitullah Mehsud, a militant tribal chief fighting the Pakistani Army, who has alleged ties to al-Qaeda and the Afghan Taleban. Mehsud denied the charge. Had he been behind such a dramatic event, the desired propaganda impact among militant islamists would require taking open responsibility instead.

By linking the Bhutto killing to Al Qaeda, Musharraf conveniently gains several goals. First he reinforces the myth of Al Qaeda, something very useful to Washington at this time of growing global skepticism over the real intent of its War on Terrorism, making Musharraf more valuable to Washington. Second it gives Musharraf a plausible scapegoat to blame for the convenient elimination of a serious political rival to his consolidation of one-man rule.

US presidential candidates pledge support to Pakistani dictator

Patrick Martin, WSWS.org: US presidential candidates pledge support to Pakistani dictator

The response of the leading US presidential candidates to the December 27 assassination of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto has been to pledge continued American support to the Musharraf military dictatorship, with little more than lip service to the democratic rights of the people of Pakistan.

While offering a variety of criticisms, either of US government policy or of their rivals for the presidential nomination, both Democrats and Republicans embraced the basic framework of the Bush administration’s approach, which views the Musharraf regime as the most reliable guarantor of the interests of US imperialism in the region. (Emphasis added/uthevelse tilføyet)

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Benazir assassination: where are US, UK , other diplomats now?

by Aziz Narejo

Global Research, January 2, 2008

Benazir assassination: where are US, UK , other diplomats now?

United States Ambassador Anne W. Patterson and British High Commissioner Robert Brinkley were very active until a few days ago and were seen calling on Benazir Bhutto and other Pakistani politicians so frequently and pressing them to participate in the dubious election process. Even US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher were not far behind. Why are all of them silent now when Benazir Bhutto has been martyred making her Shaheed-e-Jamhooriat in Pakistan ?

We don’t expect from them to urge Musharraf to quit and hand over the power to the people of Pakistan but they can at least ask the United Nations to hold an investigation into the assassination of the popular leader of Pakistan on the line of the UN probe into the assassination of former Lebanese leader Rafik Al-Hariri. Why wouldn’t they want justice in this case?

Anglo-American Ambitions behind the Assassination of Benazir Bhutto and the Destabilization of Pakistan

by Larry Chin

Global Research, December 29, 2007

It has been known for months that the Bush-Cheney administration and its allies have been manuevering to strengthen their political control of Pakistan, paving the way for the expansion and deepening of the “war on terrorism” across the region. The assassination of Benazir Bhutto does not change this agenda. In fact, it simplifies Bush-Cheney’s options.

Seeding chaos with a pretext

“Delivering democracy to the Muslim world” has been the Orwellian rhetoric used to mask Bush-Cheney’s application of pressure and force, its dramatic attempt at reshaping of the Pakistani government (into a joint Bhutto/Sharif-Musharraf) coalition, and backdoor plans for a military intervention. 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.

As succinctly summarized in Jeremy Page’s article, “Who Killed Benazir Bhutto? The Main Suspects“, the main suspects are 1) “Pakistani and foreign Islamist militants who saw her as a heretic and an American stooge”, and 2) the Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, a virtual branch of the CIA. Bhutto’s husband Asif Ali Zardari directly accused the ISI of being involved in the October attack.

The assassination of Bhutto has predictably been blamed on “Al-Qaeda”, without mention of the fact that Al-Qaeda itself is an Anglo-American military-intelligence operation. (Emphasis added/uthevelse tilføyet)

Bhutto assassination heightens threat of US intervention in Pakistan

Bill Van Auken, WSWS.org: Bhutto assassination heightens threat of US intervention in Pakistan

With Pakistan erupting in violence over the assassination of its former prime minister Benazir Bhutto and amid conflicting accounts as to both the identity of her assassins and even the cause of her death, official Washington and the American mass media have coalesced around a version of events that has been crafted to suit US strategic interests.

Without any substantive evidence, the crime has been attributed to Al Qaeda, while Bhutto herself has been proclaimed a martyr both in the struggle for democracy in her own country and in the US “global war on terror.” Meanwhile, the government of President Pervez Musharraf has been exonerated. There is ample reason to question this “official story” on all counts.

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In wake of assassination of Benazir Bhutto, Bush administration rushes to defense of Musharraf

Keith Jones, WSWS.org: In wake of assassination of Benazir Bhutto, Bush administration rushes to defense of Musharraf

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There are conflicting accounts of how the assassination occurred. Many news reports are citing witnesses as saying that Bhutto was shot in the neck and torso before her assassin blew himself up. The explosion killed at least 20 other people. However, the New York Times has reported senior Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) officials as saying Bhutto was hit by a rooftop sniper before a second assailant carried out the suicide bombing.

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Before any evidence had been collected, let alone examined, and with key facts about the assassination still in dispute, the US political establishment effectively declared the investigation over, categorically attributing Bhutto’s murder to Al Qaeda or a like-minded Islamicist group. (Uthevelse tilføyet)

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Red. anm.: Noen som ser et mønster her? Det er forunderlig hvordan “det politiske etablissement i USA” støtt er på høyden og peker på mistenkte så godt som umiddelbart etter terroranslag, attentat og lignende.

Men – then again – det er vel bare en indikasjon på hvor god kontroll de har på terrorister og deres organisasjoner. Eller kanskje al-Qaida konstituerer “etablissementets” alltid tilstedeværende syndebukk?

Det er nyttig med slikt om man skal selge en evigvarende krig mot terror.

Fotnote 2 i Peter Dale Scotts stykke How the FBI protected Al Qaeda’s 9/11 Hijacking Trainer:

Richard Clarke heard that the FBI had the names at 9:59 AM, the time of the collapse of WTC Tower 2. See Richard A. Clarke, Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terrorism (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004), 13-14; Thompson, The Terror Timeline, 441. This investigative tour de force is even more amazing when we consider that in the FBI, according to the 9/11 Report (77), “prior to 9/11 relatively few strategic analytic reports about counterterrorism had been completed. Indeed, the FBI had never completed an assessment of the overall terrorist threat to the U.S. homeland.”

Ah, for en utrolig tilfeldighet!

Bhutto Buried As Pakistan Unrest Spreads

Ashraf Kahn, The Huffington Post: Bhutto Buried As Pakistan Unrest Spreads

“We have the evidence that al-Qaida and Taliban were behind the suicide attack on Benazir Bhutto,” Interior Minister Hamid Nawaz said.

Red. anm.: Så fint for “Krigen mot Terror”, BushCo og alle nikkedukkene…

Pakistan Is ‘Central Front,’ Not Iraq

Robert Parry, Consortiumnews.com:Pakistan Is ‘Central Front,’ Not Iraq

Benazir Bhutto is the latest victim of the deadly mix of George W. Bush’s wishful thinking and his obsession with Iraq. U.S. officials encouraged the former Pakistani prime minister to return to her homeland to help counter Islamic extremists when there was no way the over-stretched U.S. intelligence agencies could give her much protection.