Pak journalist: It was not Taliban

bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful

=== News Update ===

Pak journalist: It was not Taliban:

Pakistani journalist Aroosa Alam says the Taliban, who are already being named as the culprits, could have had no real interest in assassinating Benazir Bhutto.

The full story in
http://www.asianage.com/presentation/leftnavigation/news/india/pak-journalist-it-was-not-taliban.aspx

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Pakistan: The “Other” Bhutto

bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful

=== News Update ===

Pakistan: The “Other” Bhutto

BY Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy

December 14, 2007

Fatima Bhutto campaigning for her mother in Pakistan’s Sindh province.

Length: 4:54

Editor’s Note: Despite all the talk of boycotting the January 8 parliamentary elections in Pakistan, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has returned to the campaign trail. So has President Musharraf’s other main rival, Nawaz Sharif.

In her latest dispatch, FRONTLINE/World correspondent Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy visits the Bhutto ancestral home in the province of Sindh to interview former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s niece, Fatima, who has become a thorn in her aunt’s side. Educated in the U.S. and fast becoming a prominent figure in her own right, the 25-year-old could turn out to be a serious political challenger to Benazir in the coming years. And there’s no love lost between the two women. Fatima blames her aunt for the 1996 murder of her father, Benazir’s brother, and calls her “one of the most corrupt leaders the world has ever seen.” Watch excerpts from the interview and read more about Fatima below.

There are deep divisions within the Bhutto family. In 1996, Mir Murtaza Bhutto, Benazir’s younger brother and her political opponent, was brutally gunned down just steps from his house in Karachi, while his sister was the prime minister.

The authorities claimed he died in a police shootout with his body guards, but the public — depending on whom you talk to — point fingers at Benazir and her husband Asif ali Zardari.

Benazir Bhutto has publicly denied any involvement in the death of her brother.

A graduate of Columbia University, the 25-year-old Fatima spends her days campaigning against her aunt [Benazir Bhutto], who, she says, is “one of the most corrupt leaders the world has seen.”

Fatima is Murtaza’s eldest daughter. A graduate of Columbia University, the 25-year-old spends her days writing and campaigning against her aunt, who, she says, is “one of the most corrupt leaders the world has seen.”

Many Pakistanis see Fatima as an alternative to Benazir, a serious challenger in the coming years and the rightful heir to the country’s most powerful political dynasty. She seems to have the pedigree required to contest and win elections, if she so chooses. In Pakistan, a Bhutto surname is almost enough to guarantee someone the job of a premier.

As I drove up to 70 Clifton, the house in which Benazir grew up and where Fatima now lives near the Arabian sea in Karachi, I thought of the similarities between the two: Both their lives were shaped by the death of their fathers at a young age, and both spent time at Ivy League universities in the United States and are articulate and educated. But the similarities end there.

The house and its adjoining office are steeped in history. The walls are covered with historical photographs and the library is filled with speeches and documents from the ’60s and ’70s, written by former Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, Benazir and Murtaza’s father.

Over the years, Benazir Bhutto has filed property cases against Fatima and her mother. The former prime minister believes that the house is rightfully hers and has made several attempts to evict the current occupants.

Fatima Bhutto (center) visiting her father’s grave.

Without hesitation, Fatima tells me that politics is not a birth right. Sitting next to a life-size portrait of her father, she discusses the issues plaguing Pakistan.

“Part of the problem with Pakistani politics is that an entire nation has been held hostage to a very few, who treat politics like it’s a family business. We need the field to open up so that is why I am not running.”

But in the run up to the January elections, Fatima is busy campaigning for others in her family in Larkana, the Bhutto ancestral village in the province of Sindh. Her father founded an offshoot of the Pakistan People’s Party in the early ’90s, and her mother now is running for a place in the parliament against Benazir. “These elections are going to be tough,” Fatima tells me. “But I am determined to keep my father’s legacy alive.”

It has been more than 10 years since Fatima last spoke to her aunt. She feels that Benazir was complicit in the murder of her father. The proof, she says, lies in the report issued by a tribunal convened after her father’s death, which concluded that the assassination could not have taken place without approval from a “much higher” political authority.

Fatima’s statements are starting to affect Benazir. Local Pakistani newspapers published a story last month in which sources close to Benazir revealed that they were trying to patch things up between the two women.

Fatima’s statements and campaigning are starting to affect Benazir. Local Pakistani newspapers published a story last month in which sources close to the former prime minister revealed that they were trying to patch things up between the two women and to convince Fatima not to make statements against her aunt. Anwar Bhutto, who spoke on behalf of the Pakistan People’s Party, told journalists, “Benazir really wants Fatima to join active politics and she never considers her a rival. She will be an asset for Benazir and the PPP if she enters politics.”

The questions and accusations grow as elections draw closer. Before I leave she tells me that she is worried about what Benazir’s return means for the country. “Her legacy as a two-time prime minister is a legacy of gross corruption. She is estimated to have stolen $1.5 to $3 billion from the Pakistani treasury. It’s one of state violence…”

When I ask Fatima if a reconciliation is in the cards, her response is a vehement, “No.”

“Benazir needs to be tried in court for the crimes that she has committed. We do not see eye to eye on anything and we do not subscribe to her distorted version of democracy.”

Video Credits:
Camera: Mahera Omar, Sohail Ahmed

The full story in
http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/blog/2007/12/pakistan_the_ot.html#

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Aunt Benazir’s false promises – Bhutto’s return bodes poorly for Pakistan — and for democracy there

bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful

=== News Update ===

Aunt Benazir’s false promises

Bhutto’s return bodes poorly for Pakistan — and for democracy there.

By Fatima Bhutto

November 14, 2007

KARACHI — We Pakistanis live in uncertain times. Emergency rule has been imposed for the 13th time in our short 60-year history. Thousands of lawyers have been arrested, some charged with sedition and treason; the chief justice has been deposed; and a draconian media law — shutting down all private news channels — has been drafted.

Perhaps the most bizarre part of this circus has been the hijacking of the democratic cause by my aunt, the twice-disgraced former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto. While she was hashing out a deal to share power with Gen. Pervez Musharraf last month, she repeatedly insisted that without her, democracy in Pakistan would be a lost cause. Now that the situation has changed, she’s saying that she wants Musharraf to step down and that she’d like to make a deal with his opponents — but still, she says, she’s the savior of democracy.

The reality, however, is that there is no one better placed to benefit from emergency rule than she is. Along with the leaders of prominent Islamic parties, she has been spared the violent retributions of emergency law. Yes, she now appears to be facing seven days of house arrest, but what does that really mean? While she was supposedly under house arrest at her Islamabad residence last week, 50 or so of her party members were comfortably allowed to join her. She addressed the media twice from her garden, protected by police given to her by the state, and was not reprimanded for holding a news conference. (By contrast, the very suggestion that they might hold a news conference has placed hundreds of other political activists under real arrest, in real jails.)

Ms. Bhutto’s political posturing is sheer pantomime. Her negotiations with the military and her unseemly willingness until just a few days ago to take part in Musharraf’s regime have signaled once and for all to the growing legions of fundamentalists across South Asia that democracy is just a guise for dictatorship.

It is widely believed that Ms. Bhutto lost both her governments on grounds of massive corruption. She and her husband, a man who came to be known in Pakistan as “Mr. 10%,” have been accused of stealing more than $1 billion from Pakistan’s treasury. She is appealing a money-laundering conviction by the Swiss courts involving about $11 million. Corruption cases in Britain and Spain are ongoing.

It was particularly unappealing of Ms. Bhutto to ask Musharraf to bypass the courts and drop the many corruption cases that still face her in Pakistan. He agreed, creating the odiously titled National Reconciliation Ordinance in order to do so. Her collaboration with him was so unsubtle that people on the streets are now calling her party, the Pakistan People’s Party, the Pervez People’s Party. Now she might like to distance herself, but it’s too late.

Why did Ms. Bhutto and her party cronies demand that her corruption cases be dropped, but not demand that the cases of activists jailed during the brutal regime of dictator Zia ul-Haq (from 1977 to 1988) not be quashed? What about the sanctity of the law? When her brother Mir Murtaza Bhutto — my father — returned to Pakistan in 1993, he faced 99 cases against him that had been brought by Zia’s military government. The cases all carried the death penalty. Yet even though his sister was serving as prime minister, he did not ask her to drop the cases. He returned, was arrested at the airport and spent the remaining years of his life clearing his name, legally and with confidence, in the courts of Pakistan.

Ms. Bhutto’s repeated promises to end fundamentalism and terrorism in Pakistan strain credulity because, after all, the Taliban government that ran Afghanistan was recognized by Pakistan under her last government — making Pakistan one of only three governments in the world to do so.

And I am suspicious of her talk of ensuring peace. My father was a member of Parliament and a vocal critic of his sister’s politics. He was killed outside our home in 1996 in a carefully planned police assassination while she was prime minister. There were 70 to 100 policemen at the scene, all the streetlights had been shut off and the roads were cordoned off. Six men were killed with my father. They were shot at point-blank range, suffered multiple bullet wounds and were left to bleed on the streets.

My father was Benazir’s younger brother. To this day, her role in his assassination has never been adequately answered, although the tribunal convened after his death under the leadership of three respected judges concluded that it could not have taken place without approval from a “much higher” political authority.

I have personal reasons to fear the danger that Ms. Bhutto’s presence in Pakistan brings, but I am not alone. The Islamists are waiting at the gate. They have been waiting for confirmation that the reforms for which the Pakistani people have been struggling have been a farce, propped up by the White House. Since Musharraf seized power in 1999, there has been an earnest grass-roots movement for democratic reform. The last thing we need is to be tied to a neocon agenda through a puppet “democrat” like Ms. Bhutto.

By supporting Ms. Bhutto, who talks of democracy while asking to be brought to power by a military dictator, the only thing that will be accomplished is the death of the nascent secular democratic movement in my country. Democratization will forever be de-legitimized, and our progress in enacting true reforms will be quashed. We Pakistanis are certain of this.

Fatima Bhutto is a Pakistani poet and writer. She is the daughter of Mir Murtaza Bhutto, who was killed in 1996 in Karachi when his sister, Benazir, was prime minister.

The story in
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-bhutto14nov14,0,2482408.story?coll=la-opinion-center

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Pak govt reveals how Benazir was killed

bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful

=== News Update ===

Mystery shrouds the death of former Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto. In an explosive revelation, Pakistan’s Interior Minister Hamid Nawaz on Friday said that Bhutto did not die of bullet wounds

By IBNlive.com

Enlarge Photo

Friday December 28, 08:26 PM New Delhi: Mystery shrouds the death of former Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto. In an explosive revelation, Pakistan’s Interior Minister Hamid Nawaz on Friday said that Bhutto did not die of bullet wounds.Nawaz said that Bhutto died from a head injury. At least seven doctors from the Rawalpindi General Hospital – where the leader was rushed immediately after the attack – say there were no bullet marks on Bhutto’s body.The doctors have submitted a report to the Pakistan government in which they say that no post-mortem was performed on Bhutto’s body and they had not received any instructions to perform one.

“The report says she had head injuries – an irregular patch – and the X-ray doesn’t show any bullet in the head. So it was probably the shrapnel or any other thing has struck her in her said. That damaged her brain, causing it to ooze and her death. The report categorically ssyas there’s no wound other than that,” Nawaz told a Pakistani news channel.

Government sources say there will be an investigation to determine why no autopsy was conducted.

According to agency reports doctors at the Rawalpindi General Hospital tried desperately for 41 minutes to revive former prime minister Bhutto after she was shot but failed in their efforts.

Bhutto was declared dead 41 minutes after she was brought the hospital’s emergency department at 1735 hrs (local time) (1805 hrs IST) with open wounds on her left temporal bone from which “brain matter was exuding”, the report said.

It said Bhutto was not breathing at the time and her pulse and blood pressure “were not recordable”.

IANS adds: According to the report, “immediate resuscitation (process) was started” and she was taken to the operation theatre where she was attended by a team of doctors headed by Musaddiq Khan, principal of the Rawalpindi Medical College, Dawn reported Friday.

“Left antrolateral thoracotomy for open cardiac massage was performed,” the hospital report said, adding: “In spite of all the possible measures she could not be revived and (was) declared dead at 1816 hrs IST (6.16 p.m.).”

An autopsy was not carried out at the hospital “because the district administration and police had not requested the hospital authorities (for this)”, the report said.

Bhutto was shot not far from where Pakistan’s first prime minister Liaquat Ali Khan was killed by an assassin’s bullet on Oct 16, 1951.

The full story in
http://in.news.yahoo.com/071228/211/6oyrl.html

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FLASHBACK: To Saddam Hussein

bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful

=== News Update ===

Layla Anwar, An Arab Woman Blues

Thursday, December 28, 2006 When I hear a piece of news , a verdict, or a story that touches me deeply , I freeze. I usually can’t comment on it straight away nor gather my thoughts and feelings in any coherent form. It takes me time to distill , digest and absorb. I am not a journalist , I cannot report “things”. Reporting takes a certain detachment and when it comes to Iraq , am not detached . I am very attached. Terribly attached. Such piece of news reached me yesterday . That of your Execution. I will address you as Saddam Hussein, Sir. Even though I still consider you to be the legitimate President of Iraq, allow me not to use any formalities here. Let us forget titles , ranks and the rest . When it comes to Death , all protocols fall. Death has this even power – We are all equal in the face of it. Death knows no kings, no heads of state, no generals. It strikes and it leaves. And you know that too. What remains though is the Legacy left behind. A Legacy made of words and acts. When I compare for instance Your Legacy to that of george bush the american , I see that: You have remained true to your word until your last breath. I don’t care what they say about You . The misuses and abuses of power, the Dujails, the Anfals and the rest of the well knitted pieces of grossly exaggerated melodramas. I know one Truth Sir,You stayed in Iraq and did not run away like the rest. You did not seek asylum in the USA , Egypt or Jordan like others. You did not pack your bags nor your millions. You stayed and that is what matters to me. Forgive me Sir, I am not a very sophisticated woman. I speak a simple language , the language of the heart. No one hardly ever recognizes this dialect these days. But I have a feeling, that despite all your alleged hardness, You would. You know, my Dad before passing away said to me a few sentences that have remained with me since. He said : My Daughter, many things will come to pass in this life. You will face many trials and many errors. One thing you need to be certain of though, don’t ever loose your integrity nor your dignity. The day you SELL those, you would have sold your soul. And all is downhill from there. Sir, I am proud that you have not sold neither. In that you have helped us preserve our “own” intact. As for the rest , don’t worry about them. They will end up in the dustbins of history. They will end up cited as thugs, profiteering, sectarian, opportunistic, hypocrites. I feel sorry to say that about the people you believe in . But that is the Truth. Sir, take an example . Even your so called tribunal is made of an ex accountant, turned waiter turned thief. This is no verdict , this is a circus, a zoo. And they are the animals. What pains me most is that they succeeded in massacring yet another TRUE IRAQI. A true Iraqi amongst many thousands. And this is what You are . Granted, you had your downsides , your shadow. But it pales in comparison to what the “Land of the Free ” is doing to us. Your shadow is like a ray of sunlight, Sir. A friend who is not an Iraqi, nor an Arab , nor a Muslim wrote to me . She said : ” I feel a pit in my stomach that will not go away. My sister cried upon hearing the verdict. How dare they ? What is this collective punishment by the White Man? I will not stay quiet…” Another wrote a poem in your honor and she is from England . And others wrote some more . Even Iraqis who left the country and had known the coldness of exile , wrote denouncing … I am aware that words serve nothing now. But just to let you know that you are not alone. Sir, If you allow me, try to imagine this. Try to imagine barbaric hordes coming from across oceans . Try to imagine herds of indoctrinated sheep from across borders dressed in black . Try to imagine every single scum bag in the land that you so eloquently praise, rising up and ganging up against you. What does that make You? It makes you a Hero Sir. Yes it does. If all those armies , sectarians and sellout vermins conspired against You it is because You have stayed True to something. And darkness hates the Truth. They say you were authoritarian and totalitarian. Come and see them now. See their Fascism infesting the streets. See it in every neighborhood, see it in every corner . You said Women are the Pioneers of this Arab Ummah , come and look at us now. Rape has replaced sexual intercourse, censorship replaced education and forced domestication has replaced public life. You said Education is the sign of a Progressive Ummah. Our schools and universities are empty.And our Brains drained and killed. You said Health is Free for all. Our hospitals are dilapidated and our doctors in exode. You said Kurds are our brothers, they are now being trained as snipers by Israel. You said Christians and Muslims are part of this mosaic called Iraq. The Christians are fleeing by thousands and the churches are deserted. Look at me Sir. I am a product of this wonderful mosaic called Iraq. I am half Muslim and half Christian. And the Muslim half has Shi’as and if you dig hard enough you will find Kurdish, Armenian, Turkish, Chaldean, Arabic roots all the way back… Where is my place now Sir ? You are about to find your place soon. Like a bird flying to nest into the arms of the Sky. Whilst, I am left behind waiting for my turn. And in the meantime, searching , desperately searching for a place to rest my tired head and finding none. Sir, I heard they will execute You within 36 hours. In time for the Eid. Our sacrificial feast. You did say you are willing to be sacrificed for Iraq . You still believe they are worth it . I envy your Faith. May you go in Peace now, my True Iraqi… Painting :Iraqi Artist, Dr Ala’a Al Bashir. The full story in http://uruknet.info/?p=m39620&hd=&size=1&l=e

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The Israeli army attack school boys near Hebron

bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful

=== News Update ===

Ghassan Bannoura – IMEMC

Thursday December 27, 2007

The Israeli army invaded the village of Sourif located near the southern West Bank city of Hebron on Thursday midday and clashed with local school boys.

Local sources said that several military jeeps stormed the village and started to provoke the local school boys as they were leaving their school. Soldiers detained some of the children and beat them up.

Witnesses said that in response to the soldiers’ actions the children threw stones and empty glass bottles at the invading troops, soldiers in their turn opened fire using live rounds and tear gas, medical sources reported no injures.

Soldiers left the village shortly after.

The full story in
http://uruknet.info/?p=m39610&hd=&size=1&l=e

Israeli soldiers in action – File 2007

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Navy JAG Resigns Over Torture Issue : “There was a time when I served with pride … Sadly, no more.”

bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful

=== News Update ===

Navy JAG Resigns Over Torture Issue

“There was a time when I served with pride … Sadly, no more.”

Knight Ridder | December 27, 2007

“It was with sadness that I signed my name this grey morning to a letter resigning my commission in the U.S. Navy,” wrote Gig Harbor, Wash., resident and attorney-at-law Andrew Williams in a letter to The Peninsula Gateway last week. “There was a time when I served with pride … Sadly, no more.”Williams’ sadness stems from the recent CIA videotape scandal in which tapes showing secret interrogations of two Al Qaeda operatives were destroyed.

The tapes may have contained evidence that the U.S. government used a type of torture known as waterboarding to obtain information from suspected terrorists.

Torture, including water-boarding, is prohibited under the treaties of the Geneva Convention.

It was in the much-publicized interview two weeks ago between Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) and Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann, who is the chief legal adviser at the Pentagon’s Office of Military Commissions, that led Williams to resign.

In the interview, Graham asked Hartmann how the uniformed legal community should respond if the Iranian government used waterboarding to torture a U.S. solider into disclosing when the next U.S. military operation would occur.

Hartmann responded: “I am not prepared to answer that question.”

For Williams, a former naval Lieutenant Commander and member of the Judge Advocate General’s Corps (JAG), this answer went against “every training I had as an attorney” and as a member of the military.

Williams enlisted in the Navy in 1991 after completing law school at Santa Clara University. He was a legal officer and defense counsel in the U.S. Navy, meaning he both prosecuted and defended people in military courts.

He served on the USS Nimitz CVN-68, based in Bremerton, before becoming a member of the Naval reserves in 1995.

Williams, 43, felt that Hartmann was admitting torture is now an acceptable interrogation technique in the United States — an admission that did not sit well with him.

“There was this saying in the Marines: ‘We don’t lie, cheat or steal, or tolerate people who do,’ ” Williams said. “And that sort of echoed through the Navy.”

Williams felt that resigning from the reserves was not enough to demonstrate his dissatisfaction. He wrote to the Gateway hoping to set an example, echoing his same reason for joining the Navy two decades ago: “It was my way of serving the public,” he said.

In his letter, Williams likened the use of torture by the United States to techniques used by the Spanish Inquisition, Nazi Germany and the Khmer Rouge. He also wrote that he hopes “the truth about torture, illegal spying on Americans and secret renditions is coming out.”

Williams doubts that much will come of his letter of resignation and acknowledges that his life in Gig Harbor — which consists of practicing personal injury law and spending time with wife and young son — will not change much.

“I suspect (the Navy is) probably going to be fine with it,” he said. “I doubt they would keep me in voluntarily.”

He also states that, although reserve officers only perform military service once a year, he “probably would have stayed on if this hadn’t happened, both for sentimental value and if something big happened where I was needed.”

Outrage over CIA scandal

Below is an excerpt from the letter Andrew Williams submitted to The Peninsula Gateway. For the entire letter, see Letters to the Editor 16A.

“Thank you General Hartmann for finally admitting the United States is now part of a long tradition of torturers going back to the Inquisition. In the middle ages the Inquisition called waterboarding “toca” and used it with great success. In colonial times, it was used by the Dutch East India Company during the Amboyna Massacre of 1623.

“Waterboarding was used by the Nazi Gestapo and the feared Japanese Kempeitai. In World War II, our grandfathers had the wisdom to convict Japanese Officer Yukio Asano of waterboarding and other torture practices in 1947 giving him 15 years hard labor. Waterboarding was practiced by the Khmer Rouge at the infamous Tuol Sleng prison. Most recently, the United States Army court martialed a soldier for the practice in 1968 during the Vietnam conflict.”

Sound Off…What do you think?

The full story in
http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,158983,00.html

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9/11 : Exactly how, in detail CIA and Media worked together to start the War in Iraq.

bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful

=== News Update ===

9/11 : Exactly how, in detail CIA and Media worked together to start the War in Iraq.

Scott Ritter, former weapons inspector lets loose a barrage on Adnan al Haideri the so called engineer that says he built all the chemical bunkers that we never found. The Bush administration used out right lies and propaganda to fight a war that never needed to be fought.

If below video doesn’t load, try This Link instead…

The full story in
http://polidics.com/cia/exactly-how-in-detail-cia-and-media-worked-together-to-start-the-war-in-iraq.html

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