What are the standard procedures for such a political event? Ms.Bhutto’s security chief has complained bitterly that the cell phone jammers provided by the police on three previous occasions did not work. What are they for, and would they have helped to prevent Bhutto’s assassination?

Also, Rawalpindi, Pakistan, is considered a Garrison City and is the headquarters of the Army. How significant is this in the assassination?

She was a face who could speak english well enough to shape PR, and she had ties to Western interests, and she was corrupt enough to let everyone profit off her rise to power once more.

Win-win for Musharraf.

This was a major loss for someone, unless the General had some kind of assurance he’d have our full force behind him. He’s been trying to tightrope and act in that regard and distance self from the West domestically and still come into the view of internationalists. Bombing his countryside and the border along Afghanistan didn’t seem to help this process…

To the extent this was retaliation for an opposition attack of recent, it looks like both are the result instead of intercine sabotage by any one of a swath of radicals who vary their fealthy to any cause or groups not their own.

To the extent this had any dealings with the Mid East Peace Conference remains to be seen. SEATO perhaps should have a greater role, but it’s clear that the non-secular model of cultures within the Crescent is a major problem. Trying to develop any kind of working consensus between other states hits a roadblock. The background religious fervor seems to amplify ethnic underpinnings of discord and this carries across local borders in regional models.

Biden is smart to offer our assistance in the bombing investigation, our FBI is marvelous at collecting evidence and we need that just to get the right take on how close to the existing leadership structure this hit piece actually was.

You have the right to remain Silent;

Please try to muster the ability to so remain.

Anything you say can and will bite you in the ass long before the the Primaries.

Save the hagiography for the State Funeral.

(This advice is offered gratis, but, should you find it useful, please remit 2 hours’ Consulting fee in the usual billing period. All instruments payable to The April Glaspie Institute for International Understanding.)

Were it not for the Bhutto assassination, I think this hit piece on Mike Huckabee would have been a pretty big story, and it still might be. The fact that the Huck is still giving paid speeches for up to $25,000 while running for President is at the least unseemly. What’s more, his reply that “unlike people who are independently wealthy, if I don’t work, I don’t eat,” when he’s getting $25 grand per speech, and after a litany of stories about loads of gifts and perks he took while Governor of Arkansas, is just out of touch.

for reference purposes.
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/12/double-bind-by-dday-were-it-not-for.html

From an Anthony Bruno report I read:

Baitullah instructed Al Qaeda militants in Karachi to kill her for “three major offenses against Islamists.”

First, she supported the Pakistani military attack on Lal Masjid (the Red Mosque) in Islamabad on July 10, 2007—Lal Masjid was considered a hotbed of Islamist radicalism; one hundred and sixty-four Pakistani special-forces commandos stormed the mosque and madrassah, killing at least 20 and injuring over 100.

Second, Bhutto has made it clear that if she takes power in Pakistan, she will allow American forces to search for Osama bin Laden inside Pakistan’s borders.

Third, she has said that if elected, she would allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to question A. Q. Khan

.

Baitullah has sworn allegience to Mullah Omar, and has an established financial/working arrangment with OBL/Zawahiri’s AQ umbrella organization.

Indicative of the fragile relationships, Mullah Omar’s Taliban was created by Bhutto with her friend, Maulana Fazlur Rahman, back in the 1990s as a protection force for Pakistan’s imports against Hekmaytar. Tho the Taliban turned far more radical than she liked, she and her ministers continued financial support for the Taliban… who then harbored OBL.

Shirin is correct. She is not the freedom saint the media portrays, but a corrupt opportunist that is pro western… and, in some ways, the “mother of the Taliban”. However, despite her failings, she was another voice who’s loss is to be lamented.

(susan, larry & leslie, this might be worthy of a separate post by y’all.)

he goes pheasant hunting yesterday. put 3 dead pheasants at the feet of the press. then says.

“These three birds all said they would not vote for me on 
caucus night. You see what happened to ‘em. Now that one that flew away? We saw a Huckabee button on his rear-end, and so we knew not to take him.”

also, i’ve seen reported on the inner tubes that huck said (ron) “paul is dead.” haven’t investigated it, but i don’t like it. this following tim-meh russert’s press the meat interview with ron paul. ge’s lackey concludes by saying something like “be safe out there on the campaign trail.” what i want to know is this: has russert EVER said this to any pres. candidate on his program this election season? threat delivered timmeh?

oh, AND huck’s hunting party circled back and shot in the direction of where the press was. a camera man said, “oh, that’s too close.” huckabee and cheney, poster boys for hunter safety.

Ina Jaffe: “What does hunting pheasants have to do with running for President?”

Huckabee: “It has everything to do with running for President. Because that way you prove that you can shoot and if somebody really messes with you with negative campaign ads, they just need to be prepared…I have mentioned nobody’s name. I’m just talking about, you know, taking care of business.”

“You like to speak in metaphors, governor,” one reporter asked. “What’s the metaphor for this?”

“Don’t get in my way,” Huckabee said. “This is what happens.” He looked down at the three lifeless birds, now laid out in the snow. Someone asked which bird was named Romney. “Each of these three birds made a sacrifice for the campaign,” Huckabee said. “We’re just asking Iowans to make much less of a sacrifice on caucus night.”

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/12/27/21731/147/415/426743

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/12/27/huckabee-this-is-what-happens%e2%80%a6you-vote-for-me-you-live-you-dont%e2%80%a6there-you-go/

““We terminated the most precious American asset which vowed to defeat [the] mujahadeen,” Al-Qaeda’s commander and main spokesperson Mustafa Abu Al-Yazid told Adnkronos International (AKI) in a phone call from an unknown location, speaking in faltering English. Al-Yazid is the main al-Qaeda commander in Afghanistan.

However I consider it entirely possible the “we” used in the statement could just refer to the jihad movement brothers in arms mentality, and not necessarily implicate Zawahiri specifically, as the AKI article suggests.

Were I a betting girl, I’d place my money on newly appointed Taliban/Pakistan leader, Baitullah Mehsud… all with a wink and a nod of approval from Zawahiri and all the AQ umbrella/associated terror groups, of course

The End of the Primary’s Holiday From History
John Podhoretz – 12.27.2007 – 10:27

The horrifying assassination of Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan this morning comes only one week before the Iowa caucuses and 12 days before New Hampshire. It is a sobering and frightening reminder of the challenges and threats and dangers posed to the United States by radical Islam, the nature of the struggle being waged against the effort to extend democratic freedoms in the Muslim world, and the awful possibility of a nuclear Pakistan overrun by Islamofascists. This is what the next president will be compelled by circumstance to spend a plurality of his or her time on.http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/jpodhoretz/1684

Romney however, taking the hint from Podhoretz, straps on his six-shooter.

Pakistan has long been a key part in the war against extremism and radical jihadists. For those who think Iraq is the sole front in the War on Terror, one must look no further than what has happened today. America must show its commitment to stand with all moderate forces across the Islamic world and together face the defining challenge of our generation – the struggle against violent, radical jihadists.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/12/27/132526/61/269/426889