For the most part, we in the U.S. do not really understand how violent the world can be. In the U.S., murders are attention grabbing news stories, which show us a voyeuristic glimpse into the brutality that we are all capable of. To be sure, violence occurs here as it does everywhere else, leaving the bereaved families and bewildered eyewitnesses in the aftermath of such outbursts. Luckily, this violence is not widespread, but it still happens far too often.
But for a fair portion of the world, violence is the norm. Pakistan is such a region, ruled by a man that seized power in a coup, toppling the Sharif government in 1999. Even though we knew how Musharraf had seized power, after 9/11, the U.S. was desperate for any type of ally, even a thug. But Pakistan was known to have done so much work with al-queda, and other terrorist groups that it is difficult to imagine that our administration could not have known this information. In fact, back when the Soviet Union was occupying Afghanistan, the U.S. shipped arms through Pakistan, so it was not exactly a big secret that Pakistan harbored many that were not just pro-Muslim, but violently anti-western terror groups. But at the time, the Soviet Union was the aggressor, and Muslim groups that would have nothing to do with us today were only too glad to accept out help to expel the Soviets from Afghanistan. Amazing how all of our efforts to arm and help the mujaheddin seem to have been forgotten, but after all, we are just infidels.
In theory, Pakistan is one of the few allies we have in the region. And with all of the money we are shipping to them, you’d think they would be our best friend. But money seems to only buy so much loyalty, if you can call Musharraf loyal to anyone besides himself. Musharraf declared that he needed to have emergency powers, to help battle the terrorists. Of course the terrorists are still there, but Musharraf got what he wanted, himself appointed president for another 5 years. With the supreme court of Pakistan out of the way, no one was able to legally oppose his move to declare himself president for another “term”.
Benazir Bhutto would have been a thorn in his side, a semi-secular former prime minister of Pakistan that enjoyed wide support, who had not too long ago decided to go back to Pakistan to try to run for election. During her initial return, she was attacked by suicide bombers, but they failed on that attempt to kill her, but many others were killed. Bhutto had asked for additional security, but Musharraf declined to even respond to that request. Additionally, in both the initial attack and the last attack the succeeded in killing Bhutto, many calls were made for an international team of investigators to look at the attacks, but Musharraf has said that these investigations would be handled internally. Of course, no one ever investigated the original attack, and I doubt there will be any serious effort to figure out the second attack. Al-queda has been blamed, and while they are most probably the ones who carried the attack out, deciding who the guilty party is before investigating seems odd.
Who knows, maybe Musharraf’s friends in al-queda called him and told him they did it. It is no secret that the Pakistani secret police(ISI) has many members within it’s ranks that are loyal to radical Muslim sects. Musharraf had no wish to have Bhutto elected to any office, and al-queda certainly wasn’t happy that a woman had managed to find her way out of the kitchen, so it is no real surprise what has happened here.
Former prime minister Sharif is in a bit of a pickle, because while he is a friend to the Saudi royal family, many terrorist groups oppose the house of Al-Saud. But on the plus side, he’s a man, and the terrorists seem to have less hatred of men. It’s like all terrorists had over-bearing mothers or something, couple that with the religion of Islam, and presto, instant terrorist. Only time will tell if Sharif will survive the run up to the elections in Pakistan, and who knows how he will vote if elected. I certainly don’t.
There has been widespread violence in Pakistan since Bhutto’s assassination, which should tell us just how much she was loved be the people there, and why she was such a threat to Musharraf. Bhutto’s family is apparently trying to carry on, but with Benazir’s husband having been imprisoned for many years for corruption(he was known as “Mr. 10%”), and with her son being only 19, I doubt the family will have the support that Benazir would have had.
Terrorists are still known to be living and operating in Pakistan, yet Musharraf is unwilling to allow U.S. forces to help with this. At least our money is good enough for him, no doubt our money is good enough for the terrorists as well. Not that there is much of a difference.
