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Anglo-American
Ambitions behind the Assassination of Benazir Bhutto and the
Destabilization of Pakistan
By Larry Chin
12/29/07 "Global
Research" -- -- It
has been known for months that the Bush-Cheney administration
and its allies have been maneuvering to strengthen their
political control over 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 fact that Al-Qaeda itself is an
Anglo-American military-intelligence operation.
Page’s piece was
one of the first to name the man who has now been tagged as the
main suspect: Baitullah Mehsud, a purported Taliban militant
fighting the Pakistani army out of Waziristan. Conflicting
reports link Mehsud to “Al-Qaeda”, the Afghan Taliban, and
Mullah Omar (also see here). Other analysis links him to the
terrorist A.Q. Khan.
Mehsud’s
profile, and the reporting of it, echoes the propaganda
treatment of all post-9/11 “terrorists”. This in turn raises
familiar questions about Anglo-American intelligence agency
propaganda involvement. Is Mehsud connected to the ISI or the
CIA? What did the ISI and the CIA know about Mehsud? More
importantly, does Mehsud, or the manipulation of the propaganda
surrounding him provide Bush-Cheney with a pretext for future
aggression in the region?
Classic “war
on terrorism” propaganda
While details on
the Bhutto assassination continue to unfold, what is clear is
that it was a political hit, along the lines of US agent Rafik
Harriri in Lebanon. Like the highly suspicious Harriri hit, the
Bhutto assassination has been depicted by corporate media as the
martyring of a great messenger of western-style “democracy”.
Meanwhile, the US government’s ruthless actions behind the
scenes have received scant attention.
The December 28,
2007 New York Times coverage of the Bhutto assassination offers
the perfect example of mainstream Orwellian media distortion
that hides the truth about Bush/Cheney agenda behind blatant
propaganda smoke. This piece echoes White House rhetoric
proclaiming that Bush’s main objectives are to “bring democracy
to the Muslim world” and “force out Islamist militants”.
In fact, the
openly criminal Bush-Cheney administration has only supported
and promoted the antithesis of democracy: chaos, fascism, and
the installation of Anglo-American-friendly puppet regimes.
In fact, the
central and consistent geostrategy of Bush-Cheney, and their
elite counterparts around the world, is the continued imposition
and expansion of the manufactured “war on terrorism”; the
continuation of war across the Eurasian subcontinent, with
events triggered by false flag operations and manufactured
pretexts.
In fact, the
main tools used in the “war on terrorism” remain Islamist
militants, working on behalf of Anglo-American military
intelligence agencies---among them, “Al-Qaeda”, and Pakistan’s
Inter-Services Intelligence, the ISI. Mehsud fits this the same
profile.
Saving
Bush-Cheney’s Pakistan In an amusing quote from the same New
York Times piece, Wendy Chamberlain, former US ambassador to
Pakistan (and a central figure behind multinational efforts to
build a trans-Afghan pipeline, connected to 9/11), proudly
states: “We are a player in the Pakistani political system”.
Not only has the
US continued to be a “player”, but one of its top managers for
decades.
Each successive
Pakistani leader since the early 1990s---Bhutto, Sharif and
Musharraf---have bowed to Western interests. The ISI is a
virtual branch of the CIA.
While Musharraf
has been, and remains, a strongman for Bush-Cheney, questions
about his “reliability”, and control---both his regime’s control
over the populace and growing popular unrest, and elite control
over his regime---have driven Bush-Cheney attempts to force a
clumsy (pro-US, Iraq-style) power-sharing government. As noted
by Robert Scheer, Bush-Cheney has been playing “Russian
roulette” with Musharraf, Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif---each of whom
have been deeply corrupt, willing fronts for the US.
The return of
both Bhutto and the other former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has
merely been an attempt by the US to hedge its regional power
bets.
What exactly
were John Negroponte and Condoleeza Rice really setting up the
past few months?
Who benefits
from Bhutto’s murder? The “war on terrorism” geostrategy and
propaganda milieu, the blueprint that has been used by elite
interests since 9/11 to impose a continuing world war, is the
clear beneficiary of the Bhutto assassination. Bush/Cheney and
their equally complicit pro-war/pro-occupation counterparts in
the Democratic Party enthusiastically support the routine use of
“terror” pretexts to impose continued war policies.
True to form,
fear, “terrorism”, “security” and military force, are once
again, the focuses of Washington political rhetoric, and the
around-the-clock media barrage.
The 2008 US
presidential candidates and their elite campaign advisers, all
but a few of whom enthusiastically support the “war on
terrorism”, have taken turns pushing their respective versions
of “we must stop the terrorists” rhetoric for brain-addled
supporters. The candidates whose polls have slipped, led by 9/11
participant and opportunist Rudy Guiliani, and hawkish
neoliberal Hillary Clinton, have already benefited from a new
round of mass fear.
Musharraf
benefits from the removal of a bitter rival, but now must find a
way to re-establish order. Musharraf now has an ideal
justification to crack down on “terrorists” and impose full
martial law, with Bush-Cheney working from the shadows behind
Musharraf---and continuing to manipulate or remove his
apparatus, if Musharraf proves too unreliable or broken to suit
Anglo-American plans.
The likely
involvement of the ISI behind the Bhutto hit cannot be
overstated. ISI’s role behind every major act of “terrorism”
since 9/11 remains the central unspoken truth behind current
geopolitical realities. Bhutto, but not Sharif or Musharraf
would have threatened the ISI’s agendas.
Bhutto, militant
Islam, and the pipelines Now that she has been martyred, many
unflattering historical facts about Benazir Bhutto will be
hidden or forgotten.
Bhutto herself
was intimately involved in the creation of the very “terror”
milieu purportedly responsible for her assassination. Across her
political career, she supported militant Islamists, the Taliban,
the ISI, and the ambitions of Western governments.
As noted by
Michel Chossudovsky in
America’s “War on Terrorism”, it was during Bhutto’s second
term that Jamiat-ul-Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) and the Taliban rose to
prominence, welcomed into Bhutto’s coalition government. It was
at that point that ties between the JUI, the Army and the ISI
were established.
While Bhutto’s
relationship with both the ISI and the Taliban were marked by
turmoil, it is clear that Bhutto, when in power, supported
both---and enthusiastically supported Anglo-American
interventions.
In his two
landmark books, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism
in Central Asia and Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central
Asia, Ahmed Rashid richly details the Bhutto regime’s
connections to the ISI, the Taliban, “militant Islam”,
multinational oil interests, and Anglo-American officials and
intelligence proxies.
In Jihad, Rashid
wrote:
“Ironically
it was not the ISI but Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, the
most liberal, secular leader in Pakistan’s recent history,
who delivered the coup de grace to a new relationship with
Central Asia. Rather than support a wider peace process in
Afghanistan that would have opened up a wider peace process
in Afghanistan, Bhutto backed the Taliban, in a rash and
presumptuous policy to create a new western-oriented trade
and pipeline route from Turkmenistan through southern
Afghanistan to Pakistan, from which the Taliban would
provide security. The ISI soon supported this policy because
its Afghan protégé Gulbuddin Hekmatyar had made no headway
in capturing Kabul, and the Taliban appeared to be strong
enough to do so.”
In Taliban,
Rashid provided even more historical detail:
“When Bhutto
was elected as Prime Minister in 1993, she was keen to open
a route to Central Asia. A new proposal emerged backed
strongly by the frustrated Pakistani transport and smuggling
mafia, the JUI and Pashtun military and political
officials.”
“The Bhutto
government fully backed the Taliban, but the ISI remained
skeptical of their abilities, convinced that they would
remain a useful but peripheral force in the south.”
“The US
congress had authorized a covert $20 million budget for the
CIA to destabilize Iran, and Tehran accused Washington of
funneling some of these funds to the Taliban---a charge that
was always denied by Washington . Bhutto sent several
emissaries to Washington to urge the US to intervene more
publicly on the side of Pakistan and the Taliban.”
Bhutto’s one
mistake: she vehemently supported the pipeline proposed by
Argentinean oil company Bridas, and opposed the pipeline by
Unocal (favored by the US). This contributed to her ouster in
1996, and the return of Nawaz Sharif to power. As noted by
Rashid:
“After the
dismissal of the Bhutto government in 1996, the newly
elected Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, his oil minister
Chaudry Nisar Ali Khan, the army and the ISI fully backed
Unocal. Pakistan wanted more direct US support for the
Taliban and urged Unocal to start construction quickly in
order to legitimize the Taliban. Basically the USA and
Unocal accepted the ISI’s analysis and aims---that a Taliban
victory in Afghanistan would make Unocal’s job much easier
and quicken US recognition.”
Her appealing
and glamorous pro-Western image notwithstanding, Bhutto’s true
record is one of corruption and accommodation.
The “war on
terrorism” resparked Every major Anglo-American geostrategic
crime has been preceded by a convenient pretext, orchestrated
and carried out by “terror” proxies directly or indirectly
connected to US military-intelligence, or manipulated into
performing as intelligence assets. The assassination of Benazir
Bhutto is simply one more brutal example.
This was
Pakistan’s 9/11; Pakistan’s JFK assassination, and its impact
will resonate for years.
Contrary to
mainstream corporate news reporting, chaos benefits
Bush-Cheney’s “war on terrorism”. Calls for “increased worldwide
security” will pave the way for a muscular US reaction, US-led
force and other forms of “crack down” from Bush-Cheney across
the region. In other words, the assassination helps ensure that
the US will not only never leave, but also increase its
presence.
The Pakistani
election, if it takes place at all, is a simpler two-way choice:
pro-US Musharraf or pro-US Sharif.
While the
success of Bush-Cheney’s 9/11 agenda has met with mixed results,
and it has met with a wide array of resistance (“terroristic” as
well as political), there is no doubt that the propaganda
foundation of the “war on terrorism” has remained firm, unshaken
and routinely reinforced.
As for Nawaz
Sharif, who now emerges as the sole competitor for Musharraf,
he, like Musharraf and Bhutto, is legendary for his
accommodation to Anglo-American interests---pipelines, trade,
and the continued US military presence. As Jean-Charles Brisard
and Guillaume Dasquie noted in the book Forbidden Truth, the
October 1999 military coup led by Musharraf that originally
toppled Sharif’s regime was sparked by animosity between the two
camps, as well as “Sharif’s personal corruption and political
megalomania”, and “concerns that Sharif was dancing too eagerly
to Washington’s tune on Kashmir and Afghanistan”.
In other words,
Bush-Cheney wins, no matter which asset winds up on the throne.
© Copyright
Larry Chin, Global Research, 2007
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