While Bhutto herself was no "martyr" for her country - despite her party spokesman's protestations to the contrary - and used her two stints in power to enrich herself, support the Taliban and even perhaps murder her own brother, her assassination is nonetheless a truly cowardly and despicable act carried out by cold-blooded killers whose understanding of Islamic law and morality once again seems non-existent.
Her death will also have massive repercussions for Pakistan and its political future. As the veteran Pakistani journalist (and Taliban-watcher) Ahmed Rashid points out in the Washington Post today:
"The assassination of Benazir Bhutto has left a huge political vacuum at the heart of this nuclear-armed state, which appears to be slipping into an abyss of violence and Islamic extremism. The question of what happens next is almost impossible to answer, especially at a moment when Bhutto herself seemed to be the only answer.
"...Bhutto's death leaves the largest possible vacuum at the core of Pakistan's shaky and blood-stained political system."
Read the full piece here.
Today's bloodshed only reinforces my own long-held (and, admittedly, Indian-tinged) conviction that Pakistan (like Israel) should never have been created in the first place. And, although such views have traditionally been heretical amongst Pakistanis, and even amongst Brits of Pakistani origin, it is truly a sign of the times that this view is now spreading amongst the expat and second-generation communities - as writer Sarfaraz Manzoor pointed out in the Guardian back in August:
"Without Jinnah, there would not be a Pakistan, but comparing how India and Pakistan have fared during the past 60 years also made me wonder whether partition had perhaps been a mistake. The human cost of dividing India and Pakistan was huge, with the greatest migration in history and one million people killed in the months leading up to partition.
"Sixty years on and today's India is sexy, forward-looking and economically powerful; Pakistan, on the other hand, remains trapped by the contradictions which led to its creation and in the grip of the mullahs and the military.
"....In his novel Shame, Salman Rushdie described Pakistan as a "place insufficiently imagined"; when one considers its troubled history, perhaps it is not heretical to confess some sadness that it was ever imagined at all."
P.S. On a side note, while the world obsesses over the Benazir assassination and its fallout, repercussions, consequences, etc, the Washington Post also has a (rather underreported) scoop from its defence analyst William Arkin, concerning the impending deployment of US troops inside of Pakistan, in 2008:
"Beginning early next year, U.S. Special Forces are expected to vastly expand their presence in Pakistan, as part of an effort to train and support indigenous counter-insurgency forces and clandestine counterterrorism units, according to defense officials involved with the planning.
"These Pakistan-centric operations will mark a shift for the U.S. military and for U.S. Pakistan relations. In the aftermath of Sept. 11, the U.S. used Pakistani bases to stage movements into Afghanistan. Yet once the U.S. deposed the Taliban government and established its main operating base at Bagram, north of Kabul, U.S. forces left Pakistan almost entirely. Since then, Pakistan has restricted U.S. involvement in cross-border military operations as well as paramilitary operations on its soil.
"But the Pentagon has been frustrated by the inability of Pakistani national forces to control the borders or the frontier area. And Pakistan's political instability has heightened U.S. concern about Islamic extremists there."
So, not content with invading Iraq and Afghanistan in the wake of 9/11, the United States now wants to provide yet another recruiting sergeant for the fanatics of Al Qaeda and the rest of its militant ilk by setting up shop, militarily, inside another unstable and radicalised Muslim nation - this time, Pakistan. You couldn't make this up.
2 comments:
One small quibble by way of a side debating question - you repeat the Bush line that not only is this the fault of Al Qu'ida (and not Musharaff), but also that the suicide killing was "cowardly". Is cowardly the right description of someone willing to take their own life for their cause, however twisted? Evil - maybe. Nasty, horrific, murderous, disgraceful - certainly. But cowardly?
Mr Anonymous (don't you have a proper name or nickname?), I never said the killing was the "fault" of Al Qaida. I said it was "Al Qaeda style". It was. I would never directly and automatically attribute a killing or bombing to AQ because I doubt the organisation remains as a single, coherent, monolithic whole and because there are other associated militant groups who carry out similar acts of terror these days. Many of those groups had warned Benazir that she was in their sights. So, no real conspiracy there. (Although I would never rule out the direct or, more likely, indirect involvement of Pakistani ISI, who have long been connected to the Taliban and AQ).
As for the use of the word "cowardly", of course they are not cowardly in the sense that such people have the 'guts' to sacrifice their own lives for their 'cause'. But they are cowardly in the sense that they strike without warning, in public, 'from behind' as it were, taking random and innocent women and children with them to their graves. In this sense, there is no other word to describe suicide bombers in civilian areas than "cowardly".
- The Radical
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