PAKISTAN Special

BY: SHAFQAT MEHMOOD
The easiest explanation is that Al Qaeda or Pakistani Taliban killed her and this is what the government has been pedaling. In twenty four hours, it not only determined the exact cause of Benazir Bhutto death but also solved the case. Baitullah Mehsud, we were told, is the culprit and there are tapes to prove it. I wish the interior ministry had shown similar efficiency in protecting her.

While these explanations are convenient let us look at Mr Mehsud's motives. There is little doubt that Benazir Bhutto hated Al Qaeda/Taliban and had vowed a relentless struggle against them. But, how was this any different from what Mr Musharraf has been saying and doing. What extra measures would she have undertaken that are not being used now. The only instrument available to her for crushing the extremists was Pakistan army and it is already engaged in a war against them. What was the extra that Ms Bhutto would have brought to the table that scared Al Qaeda/Taliban so much that they were determined to eliminate her?
Let us be clear. The October 18 attack on her procession, the day she arrived back in Pakistan from exile, was a serious assassination attempt. She survived because the armored truck protected her. What her killers learnt from this was that while a bomb may fail because of the protective measures, it disables the vehicle and makes it necessary for the target to be shifted to another vehicle. The process of shifting, which in Karachi was actually filmed by a TV crew, and further transportation in a non-amour plated vehicle, became the weak link in the security measures.

On December 27, the murder attempt included a suicide bomber, plus one or more shooters. In fact, for such a serious attempt, up to a dozen people may have been involved. Even if she had not come out of the hatch to wave to her supporters, they would have exploded the bomb and then attacked her while she was being shifted and transported in an unprotected vehicle. Her coming out just made it easier for the killers and the sequence was reversed. They were determined to get her this time.

I am not ruling out the Al Qaeda/Taliban as the suspects but the relentless desire to kill her requires a bigger motive than the fear of a focused drive against them. The state is already taking them on and I don't believe holding its punches. What else could Benazir have done? It is this that makes the easy explanation of their involvement suspect. They may have wanted her dead but it was probably in a general sense, just as they want all their opponents dead. Their going after her again and again lacks a specific focused motive.

If not the Pakistani Taliban, then who else? For this, one has to look at a bigger scenario that may sound conspiratorial but dealing with a tragedy like this, everything needs to be discussed. There is a body of opinion in this country that believes that United States is looking for an opportunity to take out our nuclear programme and dismantle the effective strength of our armed forces. Some columnists keep harping on this and one Ahmed Quraishi articulated this in an article that has been widely circulated.

His thesis is that movement against Musharraf after March 9, was sponsored by the US and everyone was paid including lawyers, journalists, judges etc. He further goes on to add that the real target was not Mr Musharraf but the Pakistan Army and by extension its nuclear arsenal . Also please remember that while referring to this period, Mr Musharraf keeps talking of conspiracy without actually explaining what it was. I don't know how much he subscribes to the Quraishi view, but the ire against Geo is allegedly because it tows the American line. Sponsored articles on the net actually accuse the channel of being directly in the Americans pay and of working against the interest of Pakistan.
This worldview that America is out to destabilize Pakistan and take control of its nuclear weapons, is bolstered by the statements of US leaders and reporting in the American media. Newsweek famously declared Pakistan the most dangerous country in the world, and op-ed articles in The Washington Post and The New York Times have called for US troops to go and 'secure' Pakistan's nuclear weapons. One piece by Frederick Kagan was particularly absurd and spoke in detail about how a million troops would be required for the invasion.

Other articles in prestigious papers also talk of how Mr Musharraf would not allow American special forces to operate in Pakistani tribal areas. Some hint at the involvement of the Pakistan army in the nuclear proliferation activities of Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan. Almost everyone talks of Pakistan as a failing state with nuclear weapons. The implication being that the west can't sit back and let this dangerous place slide into chaos. In other words, the sum total of American opinion reaching Pakistan, fuels the paranoia that is already present in certain circles within the country.

Ms Bhutto stepped into this cauldron by saying all the things that would make the paranoiacs mad. She said that under certain circumstances she would allow the American forces to target terrorists in the tribal areas. She said that she would make Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan available to the International Atomic Energy Commission for questioning. Both these statements touched very sensitive nerves. She also spoke often to American diplomats and officials of the state department and they in turn made no bones of the fact that she was their favourite candidate for Prime Minister.

Her American connection thus became her bane as far as the paranoiacs were concerned. As Benazir's political fortunes rose, they saw her as a Trojan horse for American interests who would allow American forces ingress into Pakistan and expose our nuclear program. These people saw her as a clear and present danger to the very survival of the country and a big enough reason in their mind to eliminate her. This is why they tried again and again until they succeeded.

The difficult part to prove is who 'they' are. I find it hard to believe that Mr Musharraf or our state institutions are involved in any of this. They may have had misgivings about her but that did not extend to seeing her as traitor or someone who would compromise our national interest. In any case, the Prime Minister would only have been one element of the tripod of power and they could checkmate her as and when they desired.

If the state establishment is not involved then who? It has to be the shadowy groups who have connection with the state but operate independently. They also have 'soldiers' in the shape of elements who worked closely with them in the past during the Afghan and Kashmir proxy wars. While the state has stopped sponsoring them, they have not disappeared. It is they who I believe are prime suspects in the tragic murder of Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto.

"The assassination of Benazir Bhutto was not an attack on this brave woman alone; it was an attack upon democracy, freedom and the United States ." This statement by Asa Hutchinson, former undersecretary of homeland security, was typical of the reaction of the American political and media establishments.

The claim that the assassination was an attack on democracy and freedom is dubious because Bhutto's two spells as prime minister of Pakistan were not notable for either one. Whether it was an attack on the United States depends on what that means. It certainly was not an attack on the American people. How could it be construed that way, unless one has such an imperialist notion of "our interests" that nothing can happen in the world without impinging on them?

But if by "United States " we mean the policies of the current administration, then indeed it was such an attack. Bhutto, after all, favored bringing U.S. military forces into Pakistan , according to Michael Scheuer, a former CIA analyst and region specialist. If that's an option President Bush planned to exercise, the loss of Bhutto is a grave blow to his policy.

It is during a crisis that the establishment hoists its true colors for all to see. With few exceptions, the most prominent voices in politics and the news media are chanting in unison that Bhutto's assassination proves that the United States needs to be more involved in Pakistan than it has been.

Could the United States be more involved? American presidents have been meddling in Pakistani politics for a long time. After the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979 both Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan regarded the brutal military dictator Gen. Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, who had come to power by overthrowing — and later executing — Bhutto's father, the elected prime minister, Zulifqar Ali Bhutto, as a key ally. Once again the U.S. government used the Cold War as an excuse to back a despot.

Shortly before the current Pakistan president, Pervez Musharraf, staged a coup and named himself chief executive, Bill Clinton had pressured then-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to get Musharraf, who was then the head of the army, to pull his forces out of the part of Kashmir controlled by rival India . Sharif was thus perceived as a puppet of the United States . That could not have helped his fortunes.

Since 9/11, of course, Musharraf has been crowned a key ally in Bush's "war on terror." Some $10 billion in cash and arms has poured into the dictator's coffers. The largess did not slow down when Musharraf suspended the constitution, sacked the Supreme Court, declared martial law, and arrested lawyers and civil-libertarians — all to fight terrorism and protect democracy.

When even Bush couldn't escape the fact that the Pakistanis were outraged about Musharraf, his administration tried to engineer an unlikely political marriage between the dictator and Bhutto. Whether her death came at the hands of Musharraf's security forces, parts of which have notorious ties to radical Islamic elements, or al-Qaeda and the Taliban, the murderers' opportunity has the mark of bumbling U.S. interventionism all over it. Before someone calls this a "blame America first" point of view, note that former Bush UN ambassador John Bolton told Fox News, "We in effect helped — helped — precipitate this dynamic that led to her tragic assassination."

What is so fascinating is how impervious the political and media establishments are to the lessons of reality. After all that's happened, the dominant voices still insist that Bush redouble efforts to determine Pakistan 's future. The arrogance and pretense of knowledge displayed by such people are astounding. Haven't they learned that America's political leaders can't possibly know what they would need to know to run Pakistan ? Their meddling here creates one mess after another — how can they hope to succeed there?

But Pakistan is the most dangerous country in the world, we're told incessantly. If that's true, it's all the more reason for the United States to keep its hands off. Intervention only creates and provokes enemies. That endangers the American people, precisely the opposite of what the Bush administration says it wants to do.

Sheldon Richman is senior fellow at The Future of Freedom Foundation.