Bhutto Fingered Musharraf, Neocons Finger Al CIAda

Neocons favourite boogeymen advancing their agenda again

December 28, 2007

In the wake of Benazir Bhutto's assasination Thursday, the flurry of initial reports were necessarily based on incomplete information and guesswork. Was she killed by the bomb blast, the bomber's gun or shrapnel from the bomb? Was she killed by an AK-47 or the handgun that has been shown on Pakistani TV lying in a splatter of blood on the scene? Initial reports were not even sure if she had been injured by the blast, let alone killed.

It is strange, then, that the Neocons—through an article released almost immediately by their mouthpiece, the Weekly Standard—were quick to dismiss the idea (which they attributed to Bhutto supporters) that Bhutto had been killed by Musharraf. "But this attack was most likely carried out by the Taliban and al Qaeda," the Neocons assert with a remarkably conclusive tone. There was not even time to question why they were so certain of this fact before the Department of Homeland Security started touting that al CIAda had indeed taken responsibility for the attack—although even the usually unquestioning CNN points out that the report "has not appeared on radical Islamist Web sites that regularly post such messages from al Qaeda and other militant groups." No, the Department of Homeland Security had issued their bulletin based solely on a story circulated by Adnkronos International (AKI), an Italian news agency.

This seems especially odd since the idea that Musharraf had Bhutto assasinated is not an idea circulated merely by disgruntled supporters, but by Bhutto herself, who sent an email to her friend two months ago warning that if she was killed, Musharraf was likely to blame. Why would the Department of Homeland Security be so quick to make a definitive judgement about who perpetrated this attack? Why not wait for the proper investigative agencies to conduct their investigation (assuming they even will?). Such a rush to judgement seems ill-advised.

One reason suggests itself in this article from The Australian. According to this report, "US Special Forces are to increase their presence in Pakistan amid assessments that the country is to become the central battlefield for al-Qa'ida as it is driven from Iraq." Now part of the agenda behind this rush to judgement comes to light: after being denied the next front in their eternal unwinnable war on terror the Neocons have been handed a golden opportunity to take it elsewhere. The destabilization of Pakistan provides a good pretext for expanding the war and perhaps allowing US troops a foothold in one of the dwindling number of countries on earth without US bases.

Another piece of the puzzle suggests itself in reports from just before the assassination that high ranking British and European diplomats had just been expelled from Afghanistan for negotiating with the Taliban...something that Gordon Brown declared he would not do just two weeks ago. Clearly there are serious power plays being made in the region at the moment and it remains to be seen which players will benefit most from Bhutto's assassination.

One thing is clear, though: Bhutto believed she was going to be killed by Musharraf. She also believed that Osama Bin Laden is dead, as evidenced by this interview (skip to the 6:12 mark):