Comments on: Pakistan: Why Bhutto, and what now for Pakistan?

By: sheila choudhri

sheila choudhri — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 19:38:34 +0000

Benazir’s Freudian slip- Omar Sheikh “Murderer of Osama”
Benazir made an interesting Freudian slip in her Frost interview. She called Omar Sheikh the murderer of Osama rather than Daniel Pearl- the crime for which he is actually, being held in Pakistan. Similarly, Musharaff in his book made a curious faux pas, embarassing his British allies- describing Omar Sheikh as originally an MI6 (British) Agent recruited for the Bosnian imbroglio who later ‘went native’. Now, Benazir was P.M when Omar Sheikh masterminded the kidnapping of Western tourists in India- including Britishers and an American- clearly at the behest or with the co-operation of the Pakistani I.S.I.
These two Freudian slips, taken together, on the part of the two key figures who represent the West’s ‘acceptable face’ of Pakistan give us an insight into the psychology of Pakistan’s rulers as well as showing us the kind of games they play.
Take Mush’s remark first- the Freudian meaning is, yes Omar Sheikh was my agent, it was thru him my General Mahmoud Ahmad wired $100,000 to Mohammed Atta shortly before 9/11/. However I am now your Agent. Answer me then, who does Omar work for? The double has been re-doubled because his control has been doubled. But, when terrorism is the agent, it follows that for the Hegelian Master/Slave struggle referenced by Fukuyama and other neo-cons thru Kojeve’s friendship with Leo Strauss- the polarity has been turned around. So now answer this, which is the agent and which the control?

Now Benazir, in her Frost interview, wanted to point the finger- for the assassination attempt against herself- at people precisely like Gen. Mahmoud Ahmed close to the mighty Mush. But her parapraxis in saying ‘Osama bin Laden’ rather than naming the Jewish journalist Daniel Pearl reveals that Omar Sheikh was her agent and- with hindsight, at least for a Western audience- she wishes she had used that agent against Osama- whose hold on Afghanistan was engineered by her ‘Uncle’ Gen. Babar during her own tenure as P.M.
The point here is that both Benazir and Mush- when presenting themselves for a Western audience- make Freudian slips involving Omar Sheikh- which show that they consider themselves Western agents who have or have not gone native. They themselves don’t know.
In the geneology of Pakistani politics, everybody- including Al-Qaeeda, including the Taliban- has a Western genealogy. All were originally Western agents who doubled or whose control doubled or both. Why? Well, the West had a double policy. That’s why it liked its agents to double. Ian St.John Philby- father of the Soviet double agent Kim Philby- was a member of the Indian Civil Service who became a double agent working for the Saudis. Or was he a quadruple for Aramco? An octuple for the Soviets? Who knows?
The West wants agents- native informers- who are both loyal and ‘authentic’ – this means they want double agents whose agency is caught up in an existential double bind. For Satre, in his ‘Roads to Freedom’- the way out in such situations is ‘Freedom as Terror’ being a sniper in a bell-tower still shooting though yourself under fire.
Add in the doubleness of Western policy objectives and you have agents especially recruited to double so as to seduce their own control into doubling- this is the praxis of a double policy agenda.
Benazir as martyr of democracy, Mush as ‘key ally’ in the war against terror- what madness next in this ‘hairat-e-aainah’- this bewilderment of mirrors?

By: madhava

madhava — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 09:26:11 +0000

Pakistan UNFORTUNATELY WAS CREATED IN THE NAME OF RELIGION. RELIGIONS WHATEVER TYPE HAVE ONLY CAUSED WAR, HATRED, SORROW AND MISERY AND AMONGST BELIEVERS SENSE OF ARROGANCE, VANITY AND WALLS OF SEPERATION. TIME HAS COME WHEN HUMANITY AS A WHOLE MOVE AWAY FROM RELIGION TO SPIRITUALITY WHERE UNIVERSAL HUMAN VALUES OF TRUTH,NONVOILENCE, CONTENTMENT,SELF RESTRAINT (SHARING AND SACRIFICE)WHICH CANNOT BE CORRUPTED ARE EMBRACED. THESE TURBULENT TIMES BE TAKEN AS AN OPPORCHUNITY FOR INTROSPECTION AND LEARN INTERDEPENDENCE AND PEACE.EVERYONE HAVE TO CHANGE THEIR MINDSET AND START THINKING GOOD OF EVEN THE ENEMIES OTHERWISE MORE PAIN IS IN THE OFFING.IT IS TIME PEOPLE BURIED ALL RELIGIONS AND INSTEAD DEPEND ON RATIONALITY AND CONSCIENCE.

By: Ping Pong

Ping Pong — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 23:44:10 +0000

Who can say what really happened,we will never really know.All I can say is that what happened was wrong to any decent minded human being and my heart goes out to her family and to Pakistan,increasingly it seems that evil is stalking our world we must stand firm and not allow these awful acts of violence to alter our thoughts or actions in any way or they win! LOVE TO ALL PING PONG

By: Zeba Chowdhry

Zeba Chowdhry — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 08:51:25 +0000

A strange death. She has made every friend and foe cry for her. Her death is the continuation of the series of killings for TRUTH.A honouable lady who died with honour.

By: sheila choudhri

sheila choudhri — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 21:48:53 +0000

Suicide by grandstanding.
In America, there is an expression ’suicide by cop’- i.e. to recklessly provoke the police and let them gun you down. Benazir Bhutto committed suicide by cop/terrorist or terrorist/soldier or some such combination. Why? Because of a call from Condaleeza. Why did Condaleeza make that call? Because Mush looked weak. Why did Mush look weak? Coz he was stupid enough to neglect to get the Lal Masjid nutters to blow up the Supreme Court Justices or at least make it look that way. Now maybe, the fellow is learning- the deeply distasteful Nawaz Sharif and equally abhorrent Zardari leering at the cameras and shedding crocodile tears is surely more than most stomachs can bear. Sooner or later the Pakistani public is going to connect the dots- the Bhutto family paint themselves into a corner and take refuge in ‘martyrdom’- but the truth to which they are witness (both the words martyr and ’shaheed’ actually mean witness) is that their inner power to discriminate the worse from the better cause is confined to Iranian cavaire as opposed to Russian Beluga, genuine Rolex as opposed to a cheap knock-off.
Fatima Bhutto, who claims to be a poet, is no better than her Aunty dearest. She claims that her father was a martyr. Some martyr! He shaved off half of his brother-in-law’s moustache- that’s why he was killed. While hiding out with the Soviet backed regime in Kabul, he and his younger brother had masterminded the hijacking of a Pakistani plane. They had their father’s former a.d.c- who happened to be on the plane- shot on the tarmac though he had been completely loyal to their father and even played with them as children. The naive young men the Bhutto brothers used to carry out terrorist attacks were then ruthlessly sacrificed and forgotten. No provision was made for their families.
Fatima attacked Benazir for being responsible for the death of 150 people- at the time of the first suicide attack- all so that Aunty could have her moment of grand theatre- but now, according to her, Aunty too is enrolled in the catalogue of martyrs. As for her uncle- surely he either poisoned himself or was bumped off by his wife while living in the French Riviera. How exactly does that make him a martyr? As for Bhutto Senior, he was executed by his Army Chief after trying to turn himself into a dictator with rigged elections and murders & jailings of political opponents. But, Bhutto had himself deliberately appointed Zia because he thought the man would be his poodle. The Bhutto family are martyrs not of democracy but to their own desire to tyranise over the state. Sadly or happily, they simply lack the judgement and self-control necessary to pull it off. It is because no one can trust them-least of all those who had the misfortune to follow them- that in the ultimate analysis the bandwagon can only be kept going by a grinning gargoyle like Mr. 15% Zardari.
However, all this is beside the point. The question that faces us now is whether there is any diffenece between Condy making a phone call and sending poor deluded Benazir out on her suicide mission and Osama bin Shithead.
In both cases the deluded are sent to destroy themselves for no other purpose but to make failed ideologues believe that the strings they are pulling are actually connected to something meaningful- that ‘regime change’ really occurrs because of what- from the point of view of history- amounts to a fart in a crowded lift.
Heigh ho, still maybe it was fun for them while it lasted and no doubt Christina Lamb can write another cringe-worthy book and Tariq Ali- now deep in his anecdotage- can rehash the same self important shite he’s been peddling all these years and become, more than ever, the image of his feudal grand-father.

By: South Asian Writer

South Asian Writer — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 07:53:08 +0000

My heart bleeds tears for the anguish the Pakistanis find themselves in. Benazir’s assassination has shattered the hope that she brought to many. Her passion and her courage were remarkable. Growing up in India we were all dazzled by her beauty and wit. We heard enchanting stories from the silk merchants of how the export of silks and chiffon dupattas to Pakistan had increased twenty fold since Ms. Bhutto became prime minister.
She has been part of our history as much as Pakistan’s. Good luck to her family and especially to young Bilawal who reminds me so much of Rajiv Gandhi when he took over at the helm that his mother was torn from.

By: mildbrew

mildbrew — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 07:21:42 +0000

Benazir was never as important or as smart as many of her western media pundits and savants have suggested, Pakistan has a lot of really capable leaders that will soon ride to the top.

Our problem is in worshipping personalities and parties like cults.

I am against this passing the baton of politics from within a family.

By: Broderick

Broderick — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 15:38:45 +0000

Pakistan’s problems are numerous. Any country that have the worlds two most dangerous persons within their boarder, namely A Q Khan and Osama Bin Ladin, and made a fight against terrorism a money spinning industry, which is their main economy, should not look for the wider world sympathy.

Until when Pakistan can hand in the world’s most dangerous man, A Q Khan, who hawk nuclear arsenal blue prints, to North Korea, Libya, Iran and any other countries or oragnisations that have the Dollars, Pakistan should be classed as a warehouse for terrorists.

Pakistan can help find Osama Bin Ladin, I believe the ISI knows where he is. The world can fence off Pakistan until when they no longer pose the level of security risk they pose to the wider world.

By: amad

amad — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 04:16:18 +0000

I wanted to point to my latest piece, with an entirely different angle on MM: The “Official Narrative” Has Been Laid Down for us- On the Assassination of Benazir Bhutto

By: aysha

aysha — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 22:09:26 +0000

hi
just wanted to correct u that extremists are not muslims so please never call them “islamic extremists”… islam is religon of peace and extremists create violence and hatred. they have no right to call themselves muslims…..

By: Tabish Bhimani

Tabish Bhimani — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 18:50:35 +0000

Hi. Yes, thank you for quoting us.

I would like to add for the knowledge of your readers that I was in discussion with a friend yesterday: He told me that his father has a shop in a place called Empress market and they NEVER close down for whatever reason but yesterday, they closed down in three minutes.

By: Amad

Amad — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 14:00:17 +0000

Thanks Neha for quoting us.

I would like to point out to an interesting fact that I found soothing even in this time of turmoil for Pakistanis.

As I was perusing an Indian online newspaper I was heartened by the feelings of sympathy and support by the vast majority of Indian commentators. There was little or none of the “rubbing it in”. I wish the Pakistanis of all political ideology take this spirit to heart and unite in the face of a common nemesis.

-Amad for MuslimMatters.org