All history as reconstruction of the past is of course myth

The Plan To Topple Pakistan Military

Ahmed Quraishi.

Update IV

It takes awhile for a real journalist to come up with thoughtful comment. Meanwhile:

From Pakistan:

While the opposition resigned en masse from the parliament to block Musharraf’s re-election in a year that saw a rejuvenated judiciary challenge the president’s authority, Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party merely abstained from voting providing the general an easy run.

The extremists were annoyed with Bhutto for her unqualified support to the US ‘war on terror’ and her willingness to play ball with the Bush administration

This is a policy that Musharraf has found to his chagrin remains hugely unpopular in Pakistan but, which was seen by her party as a politically correct course in order to win back power.

Bhutto’s apparent grandstanding in offering to give the International Atomic Energy Agency access to disgraced nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan to probe his role in nuclear proliferation, and allow American troops to enter the Pakistani hinterland to take out al-Qaeda, sparked outrage even in the intelligentsia.

And more

My deepest condolences to the family of Benazir Bhutto, who will no doubt now have to return the Bentleys they have bought in anticipation of the billions she planned to steal from Pakistan, and will have to eke by on the billions her family has already stolen.

…

The fact is that she was parachuted in by Washington in order to win a rigged election in a country where just about every power group absolutely hated her, a recipe for disaster. It is not so much a question of who killed her, but who got the first opportunity to succeed.

More.

Update V

Could the assassination be linked to the failed attack on Iran and release of NIE report?

Was Pakistan Plan B?

And don’t you think it is bizarre that same people Benazir Bhutto struck an open war (Hint. Red Mosque) are now least critical of her policy?

Update VI

Ahmed Quraishi on Benazir Bhutto

 

Mrs. Bhutto’s transformation in Washington – in less than a year and a half – from a failed politician into a democratic icon, is mind boggling. It also raises questions as to why Washington was so eager to install her in Islamabad despite her record and despite the legal ban on third-time premiership.

For an entire decade, Mrs. Bhutto was ignored by the American media and political elite. The U.S. media had documented colorful stories about the ineptitude of Mrs. Bhutto’s two administrations during the 1990s.

By mid 2006, there was a sudden change of heart in Washington. It coincided with a gradual increase in American criticism for Pakistan, a concerted U.S. media campaign portraying Pakistan as a country ripe for American military intervention, and unwarranted focus on the Pakistani nuclear and strategic arsenal. There was open talk about Washington contemplating regime-change in Islamabad after what appeared to be Pakistani leadership’s refusal to play ball on China, Iran, and Afghanistan.

and:

This change of heart in Washington surprised even American political observers. One of them, Mr. Arthur Herman, who is writing a book on Gandhi and Churchill, was so stunned at how the U.S. media was creating a new image for Mrs. Bhutto that he wrote a letter to the editor of the Wall Street Journal, published on 16 June 2006, reminding the American audience that, “As prime minister of Pakistan, Ms. Bhutto proved to be one of the most incompetent leaders in the history of South Asia.”

 

and:

After her return, she had demanded that one of Pakistan’s professional intelligence agencies, the ISI, be ‘restructured’, mirroring arguments prevalent on the American think-tank circuit. And in a press conference during her house arrest in Lahore in November she went as far as asking Pakistan army officers to revolt against the army chief, a damning attempt at destroying a professional military from within. She has also said she would consider handing over Dr. A. Q. Khan, a hero to most Pakistanis, to international investigators, and allow U.S. forces to operate inside Pakistan.

but she did not stop there!:

 

When the New York Times came out with a report on 24 December quoting unnamed U.S. officials accusing Pakistan of misusing $ 5 billion in U.S. reimbursements, one of Mrs. Bhutto’s spokespersons, Sherry Rehman, came out within hours to confirm the report.

“The latest reports,” she said, “cast doubt on the [Pakistani] military regime’s commitment to fight the war on terror.” It was a sad statement, coming from a possible future chief executive of the country, reposing undue trust in U.S. allegations, which incidentally, happened to be ridiculous. This was not U. S. aid but reimbursement for war expenses incurred by Pakistan. There is no question of U.S. oversight on how they were spent.

They are responsible for the way they pushed Pakistan into a political mess, first by forcibly parachuting Mrs. Bhutto into Pakistan at a time when American support for any politician is a kiss of death. And then by encouraging her on to a path of confrontation with the political elite in Islamabad [The famous list accusing three prominent Pakistani personalities of wanting to kill her, which was prepared before her return to Pakistan. And now we learn, courtesy CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, that there was a fourth name in the list: Mr. Musharraf himself.]

Already, we have seen a special U.N. Security Council session to discuss the security situation in Pakistan. This adds to very deliberate attempts in the U.S. media over the past few months to demonize Pakistan and prepare the world opinion for a possible military intervention in the country on the lines of Afghanistan and Iraq.