“Benazir Bhutto’s Assassination: The CIA and Musharraf, Who is Guilty?

Benazir Bhutto’s Assassination: The CIA and Musharraf, Who is Guilty?

By Fahim A. Knight

The assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto represents and is indicative of everything that is wrong with United States Foreign Policy and it relationship with Pakistan. President George Bush solicited the ruthless Pakistani dictator President Pervez Musharraf assistance in 2001 in his so-called war on terrorism. The war on terrorism has blinded the United States in its ability to make reasonable and competent foreign policy decisions. Bush rounded up a bunch of third world nations promising them International Monetary Fund and World Bank loans; if they signed and committed their irrelevant military forces to Iraq and Afghanistan as show of solidarity in his war on terrorism. Some Islamic countries sided with Bush against their Muslim brothers, but it only deepened the hatred for the West and has fueled so-called Islamic militants to declare Jihad (holy war), which is war that has no boundaries.

The backing of Musharraf was a case of choosing the lesser of three evils; behind door number one stood Osama bin Laden, a former United States operative who was the CIA top front man in Afghanistan during the Soviet conflict, behind door number two stood General Musharraf, a dictator and an the only Islamic nation with nuclear technology and behind door number three stood Benazir Bhutto another Central Intelligence Agent provocateur; thus, Bush chose the strongman Musharraf who came into power via a military coup d'état in 1999. The CIA is only interested in what you can do for me today and right now Musharraf is their man; he even traded in his military dictator general uniform for western tailored made suits in order to look more presidential and less as an undemocratic dictator having ruthless political tendencies.

The assassination of the former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto as stated above represents everything that is wrong with the United States relationship with Pakistan. President George Bush implored Pakistan and General Musharraf assistance in 2001 in Bush’s so-called war on terrorism. The United States Government was bent on deceiving the American people that Osama bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda movement was enemy number one and was a threat to world security. Musharraf gave his support to Bush who in turn legitimized a rogue nation such as Pakistan for geographic, political, and strategic positioning. Bush wanted to use the nation of Pakistan in order to control the movement of Al Qaeda militants and Islamic fundamentalist from being able to freely cross the boarders of Afghanistan and Pakistan and assimilating into Pakistan, which to build external foreign support bases for Al Qaeda recruitment.

The author Andy Stern in his book titled, “Oil From Rockefeller to Iraq and Beyond” stated, “The CIA, working with the Pakistani intelligence services (ISI), is widely believed to have encouraged some 35, 000 Muslim radicals form more than 40 countries to come to Afghanistan and join the fight against the Soviet army. CIA strategist also flooded into the country to help plan the Mujahideen’s military operations and train its soldiers. Mujahideen and volunteers-‘Arab Afghans’-were fed a mixture of American military knowledge and Islamic law. The U.S. however, did not divulge that its real objective was the overthrow of the USSR, not just the liberation of Afghanistan from the Soviet army. Among the recipients of US arms and training was Osama Bin Laden, the ‘black sheep’ of one of Saudi Arabia’s wealthiest families, who came to Afghanistan in 1979. By 1984 Bin Laden was the head of the Maktab al-Khidamar (MAK), an organization channeling money, arms and soldiers from outside Afghanistan into the war. The MAK received substantial help from the Pakistani ISI, through which the CIA carried out most of its covert operations in the country.”

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) knew that Musharraf was an international gangster and an international political crook who would sell his soul to the highest bidder. There is little doubt in this writer’s mind that Bhutto’s assassination was sanctioned and orchestrated from the highest level of the Pakistani Government—General Musharraf was either directly and/or indirectly involved in Bhutto’s assassination and as a puppet he takes his orders from Bush and the United States White House, which makes both governments culprits.

Musharraf is a criminal of the worst kind and there are perhaps two smoking guns either the United States Government—CIA., State Department and U.S. Intelligence apparatus were directly in complicit of giving the order to Musharraf and/or was Bhutto’s assassination just another indication of how lawless the state of Pakistan is, where the rules are made up by the various secular and sacred tribal and warlords factions. Did the CIA assassinate Bhutto in order to derail Pakistan’s elections process and/or did the potential, as well as the possibility exist as far as Bhutto unseating Masharraf as the new president of this volatile nation that was scheduled for democratic elections on January 8, 2008. Perhaps Musharraf had some unfinished business with the CIA and in lieu of the business Bhutto’s life became expendable.

Musharraf and the CIA had two viable culprits and star perpetrators which to point blame in the assassination—Al Qaeda and the Taliban, both organizations had the resources and expertise which to carryout such a well planned assassination attempt and the international community wouldn’t need much evidence or convincing based on the Western media portrayal and perception of these two so-called violent Islamic led and Jihad inspired organizations. Thus even, if the slightest notion of capitulation was implied relative to these two groups involvement in the assassination of Bhutto; very few from the West would question or doubt culpability and participation of these two so-called “radical” Islamic Muslim organizations and their ability to carryout an act of violence of this magnitude. They would be considered guilty by media deception.

But also those that have this type power to influence world thinking would find it equally and politically convenient to lay Bhutto’s death at the door step of Osama bin Laden because of above said sentiments and the real guilty parties and perpetrators are allowed to hide behind layers of deceptions. They then use the media (their propaganda machines) to reincarnate the likes of a Bhutto’s into innocent sainthood and at same time elevate her to martyrdom status with an objective of attracting an international following at death that she did not enjoy in life, which to further isolate Osama bin Laden, in particular and fundamentalist Islam in general, as culprits in this heinous crime. President Richard Nixon is book titled, “Seize The Moment: America’s Challenge in a One-Superpower World” has an interesting chapter titled, “The Muslim World”

Tricky Dick stated, “Only two common elements exist in the Muslim world: the faith of Islam and the problems of political turbulence. Islam is not on a religion but also the foundation of a major civilization. We speak of the ‘Muslim world’ as a single entity not because of any Islamic politburo guiding its policies but because individual nations share common political and cultural currents with the entire Muslim civilization. The same political rhythms are played throughout the Muslim world, regardless of the differences between the individual countries. Just as all Western countries have parties that advocate the free market, the welfare state, socialism, the Islamic countries have groups that subscribe to the main political currents of the Muslim world—fundamentalism, radicalism, and modernism. This commonality of faith and politics breeds a loose but real solidarity: when a major event occurs in one part of the Muslim world, it inevitability reverberates in the others”

This writer wholeheartedly agree with President Nixon in one sense; no one on the Islamic side had to issue the order to kill Bhutto her visible Islamic contradictions and western modernity ideology as a Muslim woman that alone could have been enough to seal Bhutto’s fate because of a religion that is steeped in assigned cultural ranking for women and the antagonistic relationship between Islam and the West.

This writer has always believed that Islam is a very complex religion and the leaders of this faith, the—Mullahs, Sheiks, Imams, Emirs, Ayatollahs, etc., are fully aware that the theology of Islam can be perceived as having a duality interpretation to the Muslim, in which two believers can hear the very same khutba (Friday Sermon) at Jummah Prayer coming from the Holy Qur’an, but depart the Masjid as a fundamentalist with radical and political inspired objectives and/or as a Muslim who believes in the common interest that Allah (God) has bestowed for all humanity and seek to live in peace with Muslims, Christians and Jews.

The long and short of this discussion is that in reality no one had to issue the assassination of Bhutto, the Islamic zealots could have just perceived her as an United States agent bent on corrupting the traditional Islamic role of women in their Islamic society, which this alone would have been enough to get her killed by an Islamic zealot(s) acting independently of and without sanction of a visible political entity. Bhutto was also seen in the Islamic world of being a bit too cozy to the Zionist State of Israel and its leaders; thus, any number of these variables and factors could have been considered a powder keg and a time bomb ready to explode. But this writer smells smoke and where there is smoke, there is fire.

However, its is going to be difficult for the international community to accept what ever explanation Musharraf gives because of his conditional ties to George Bush and the United States Government (CIA). Bhutto’s assassination is another U.S. Foreign Policy blunder for the Bush administration and its allegiance to reactionary despots like Musharraf and Pakistani Government; there is no doubt that President Musharraf is a valuable international asset and a key player in that region of the world, where the United States have few friends.

Nixon goes on to state, “Pakistan—the only major U.S. strategic partner situated between Turkey and Japan—has cooperated with the United States in recent decades to support the Afghan resistance, as well as to facilitate the rapprochement with China in 1972. Though Islamabad’s policies sometime clash with ours—especially regarding nuclear proliferation—no other country has shown comparable courage I serving as a frontline state against Soviet aggression.” Musharraf had also aided the Taliban and the Mujahideen in Afghanistan who had fought the Russians gallantly in a ten year (1979-1989) war and defeated one of the most technological war machines in the 20th Century in guerilla war tactics used in the mountainous terrain. Thus, make no mistake Afghan fighters were no match for the Russians because the Soviets had the ability to wipe Afghanistan off the map, but in a low level intensive conflict the rag tag Afghans were superior.

George Tenet, the former ex-CIA Director in his book titled, “At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA” stated, “The relationship was complicated further by mistrust and resentment. The dominant thinking within the Pakistani officer corps was that the United States had unstated ulterior motives in Afghanistan, specifically the desire to keep the nation unstable and chaotic to discourage construction of oil and gas pipelines through both Afghanistan and Pakistan. The goodwill we had won in Pakistan by helping to drive the Russians out of neighboring Afghanistan had also been evaporated over the last dozen years. The Pakistani leadership for the most part felt that the United States had abandoned them, especially when we imposed economic sanctions on both Pakistan and India in the wake of nuclear tests. Simultaneously, the military-to-military relationship that had once been so strong between our two nations had been allowed to wane over the years. Once senior Pakistani officers had been trained almost exclusively in the United States.”

The United States and Russia both desired to control the opium (heroin) trade coming out of South East Asia. Yes, the war between Afghanistan and Russia was over dope—drugs (the poppy seed plantations), as well as strategic and logistical tapping into oil in the Caspian and Siberian region that needed to run oil pipelines through Afghanistan and Pakistan. The United States backed the Afghan rebels in this conflict (used Pakistan sovereignty to transport weapons to the Afghan Rebels), but the United States ultimate interest was not its loyalty to the so-called Afghan Islamic freedom fighters, but their objective was of vital national security, which was to secure the financial interest of the seven oil sisters—Exxon, Mobile, Chevron, Royal, Dutch Shell, Gulf, and Texaco. These Seven Oil Sisters have merged in names and in corporate interest; THEY ARE THE SOVEREIGN DICTATORS OVER HUMANITY.

But in 2001 after the 911 hoax Bush promised Musharraf and the Pakistani Government more of the United States tax dollars in the form of international financial aid packages, if they would sign on to help the United States and the Western Governments fight so-called international terrorism. Musharraf signed his nation on to bring Bin Laden to justice who had set-up his militant infrastructure in the rugged mountainous regions of Afghanistan. Musharraf at that moment appeared to have betrayed his long standing allegiance to the Taliban and the Al-Qaeda freedom fighters, the soldiers he once supported against Russia in the name of a Pan-Islamic theocracy similar to Sharia Law and Wahabism found in Saudi Arabia.

But this writer believes that Musharraf is a double agent who enjoys the perks of being a United States puppet and at same time has taken a very passive position against Al Qaeda and the Taliban to the detriment of U.S. interest; thus, because many of his own Pakistani countrymen agrees with Bin Laden’s radical Islamic politics, and to oppose the Islamic Jihadist would possibly exacerbate a radical Islamic fervor in his own nation, which could compromise the stability of Pakistan. Musharraf in reality has no intentions of truly apprehending Bin Laden and he has to be very careful of the type of internal logistics he is providing to the West. He has already survived the Islamic bounty hunters in three prior assassination attempts.
Wikipedia on-line resource stated, “Bhutto was sworn in for the first time in 1988 at the age of 35, but was removed from office 20 months later under the order of then- president Ghulam Ishaq Khan on grounds of alleged corruption. In 1993 Bhutto was re-elected but was again removed in 1996 on similar charges, this time by President Farooq Leghari Bhutto went into self-imposed exile in Dubai in 1998.

Bhutto returned to Pakistan on October 18, 2007, after reaching an understanding with President Pervez Musharraf by which she was granted amnesty and all corruption charges were withdrawn. She was assassinated on December 27, 2007, after departing a PPP rally in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi, two weeks before the scheduled Pakistani general election of 2008 where she was a leading opposition candidate”.

Bhutto returned to her native Pakistan after a nine year self-imposed exile in Dubai and the United Kingdom, but what information was she working with that assured her that she could come back to this violable nation without any political consequences? How were the conditions any different prior to her leaving and had she resolved the political conflicts that sent her into exile? These are the pressing questions that need to be assessed and evaluated in this Benazir Bhutto’s dilemma because most past political leaders from around world that were sent into exile voluntarily or involuntarily and had received political asylum, just did not walk back into their home country and resume normalcy. Thus, for the most part the players and the game were same and she had no new found powers to alter the eventual outcome, which was her untimely assassination.

Bhutto’s may have been a charming, charismatic and likable woman, but she had internal enemies that had not forgotten her corrupt and reactionary politics when she served as Prime Minister. This writer knows that her death is complex, but in many ways she sealed her own fate by trusting her security to the other CIA Agent—Musharraf and also her death can be seen as an act of betrayal by the United States Government and the Pakistani Government.

The Pakistani Government initially reported that Bhutto’s was shot in the head area, but for some strange reason they later recanted and reported that it were not the assassin bullets that killed Bhutto’, but she cracked her skull on the vehicle during the assassination commotion trying to escape the violence, as to minimize the role of the assassins and subconsciously imply that Bhutto’s cause of death was more self-inflicted. Moreover, in some delusional type reasoning this would absolve and exonerate the Pakistani Government of any official wrongdoing. But in accordance with Islamic burial and funeral customs only women are permitted to wash the body of a decease Muslim woman. It was reported by one of Bhutto’s closest companions that there were gun shot wounds to her head. This type conduct on behalf of the Pakistani Government clearly leads toward being suspicious of Musharraf’s behavior and the conflicting death reports.

According to Jeremy Page, South Asia Correspondent “TIMESONLINE” December 28, 2007 he stated, “Earlier that month two Pakistani militant warlords based in the country’s northwestern areas had threatened to kill her. One was Baitullah Mehsud, a top militant commander fighting the Pakistani Army in South Waziristan, who has ties to al-Qaeda and the Afghan Taleban. The other was Haji Omar, the leader of the Pakistani Taleban, who is also from South Waziristan and fought with the Afghan Mujahidin against the Soviets in Afghanistan. Ms Bhutto said after the attack that she had received a letter, signed by someone claiming to be a friend of al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, threatening to slaughter her like a goat. But she also accused Pakistani authorities of not providing her with sufficient security, and hinted that they may have been complicit in the Karachi attack. She indicated that she had more to fear from unidentified members of a power structure that she described as allies of the ‘forces of militancy’.”

The United Nations is spearheading a so-called independent investigation into the murder of Bhutto, but to start at the premise that so-called Islamic extremist and terrorist were the villains in this assassination has already compromised the integrity of getting to the truth. The United Nations since September 11, 2001 has become a political arm of the United States and has lost its credibility to function as a neutral and sovereign non-aligned international body that works in the interest of all international governments.

The U.N. investigation will not be an objective criminal inquiry, but it will seek to cover-up both CIA and the Pakistani Government roles in Bhutto’s assassination. How can the Musharraf and CIA investigate themselves?—they both have the same alibi, it was Al Qaeda and the ignorant masses will not question the UN findings because we have been conditioned to believe that the so-called terrorist are the “Axil of Evil” and we have already presumed them guilty based on our ill informed perception of Islam.

Bhutto miscalculated the ingenuity of her enemies and their resolve to see her dead, she was betting on the religion of Islam’s moral and ethical teachings serving as restraints on Muslim men who would dare kill a so-called innocent Muslim woman. But supposed the HIT MEN were hired for murder and the sanctity of the teachings of Islam would be a non-factor in the assassination decision making process.

There is talk that Bhutto’s nineteen year old son Bilawal Bhutto Zardari will succeed his mother and represent the Pakistan People’s Party when elections are resumed. In an online article titled, “Bhutto’s Son will Succeed Her as Head of PPP” hosted on a Internet website Patterico’s Pontifications stated, “Bilawal, who enrolled as a student at Oxford University only this year, is scheduled to read the will himself at a party gathering on Sunday. There is little doubt that he will be accepted by the party rank and file; the PPP has been an all-family affair in Pakistan’s dynastic politics since Benazir Bhutto’s father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, founded it 40 years ago. Bhutto had given herself the title of “chairperson for life” and her only previous public signal as to who she wanted her political heir to be occurred when she sent Bilawal to register to vote for the first time earlier this year.”

This writer wonders has this young man already been recruited by the CIA and will he follow the footsteps of his mother who was nothing but a political prostitute who sold her sold to the devil. How will the various radical Islamic antagonists view this inexperience sheltered petit-bourgeoisie want-to-be Pakistani leader? Will they set a bounty on his head due to the sins of his mother.

Fahim A. Knight Chief Researcher for KEEPING IT REAL THINK TANK located in Durham, NC; our mission is to inform African Americans and all people of good will of the pending dangers that lie ahead; as well as decode the symbolisms and reinterpret the hidden meanings behind those who operate as invisible forces, but covertly rules the world. We are of the belief that an enlighten world will be better prepared to throw off the shackles of ignorance and not be willing participants for the slaughter. Our MOTTO is speaking truth to power. Fahim A. Knight can be reached at fahimknight@yahoo.com.
STAY AWAKE UNTIL WE MEET AGAIN,Fahim A. Knight