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hiredgun · 12-30-2007, 11:04 AM

Ho ho ho, now this is interesting.

Benazir's son Bilawal (19) takes over leadership of PPP along with her husband Asif Ali Zardari. (http://uk.reuters.com/article/oilRpt...29995920071230)

Sigh. They're going for the name thing. To be honest, as much as I dislike the PPP, they had a half dozen other candidates who might really have been useful people to have on the political stage in Pakistan. Aitzaz Ahsan comes to mind - he was a key figure in the judiciary revolt earlier this year, and is at least motivated by a keen understanding of checks on executive power.

Elphaba:
What I find confusing about this line of thinking is that I don't see how oddities in the tactics used in an assassination are connected to oddities of motive or guilt. Why does a small degree of confusion over the cause of death imply a conspiracy? I don't see that an assassination sponsored by the government, army, a rival, or any other political player would somehow be more likely to result in novel tactics or an ambiguous cause of death.

My take on the matter is this: initial changes in the cause of death, and in reported tactics (how far away the shooter was, etc) are simply a product of the honest confusion that immediately follows an incident such as this one, in which scattered and conflicting reporting creates a distorted picture of the event, which is eventually corrected and narrowed down as the facts come in. The politicization is something being added on after the fact by a number of parties desperate to ensure that Pakistan moves in a certain direction from this key juncture.

Who had the most to gain?
* Not anyone in the party. Her husband knows he is a political dead fish with or without her (corruption and graft have earned him the nickname Mr 10 Percent), and in any case he has been quite obviously distraught in television appearances over the last few days. No one in the party has emerged boldly to take her leadership position - it seems that instead, the party has urged 19-year-old Bilawal to step forward, and I think it vanishingly unlikely that he was involved.

* Not Musharraf. This is important: while painful, Bhutto's presence actually held the key to legitimating the current regime. Remember, she was not running directly against him - she was aiming for the premiership, while he had already safely been elected to the Presidency, a position that he himself had (extra-?)constitutionally strengthened. An eventual power-sharing agreement would have been difficult but would have greatly stabilized the power configuration by expanding the ruling coalition and giving it a much larger popular base. His real battle was with the judiciary, and it's not at all clear that Bhutto would have sided in the end with irreconcilably anti-Musharraf forces; I think the opposite is more likely the case.

Nawaz? I guess it's a theoretical possibility. By eliminating Bhutto, he now forces Musharraf to deal directly with him - and while the general dislikes Bhutto, he loathes Nawaz Sharif (and the feeling is quite mutual, I'm sure). But I don't see Nawaz doing any of the posturing that would allow him to actually gain from the event. All he has done is announce an ineffectual boycott of the upcoming elections, throwing a wrench into the government's plans but doing little else to help himself.

In terms of exploiting existing political cleavages and bringing wrenching instability to the country, I still think that extreme anti-government forces - rather than establishment forces - are the most likely culprits. Al Qaeda and/or Pakistani Taliban sympathizers seem to me the prime candidates here.

12-30-2007, 11:04 AM	#60 (permalink)
hiredgun Addict	Ho ho ho, now this is interesting. Benazir's son Bilawal (19) takes over leadership of PPP along with her husband Asif Ali Zardari. (http://uk.reuters.com/article/oilRpt...29995920071230) Sigh. They're going for the name thing. To be honest, as much as I dislike the PPP, they had a half dozen other candidates who might really have been useful people to have on the political stage in Pakistan. Aitzaz Ahsan comes to mind - he was a key figure in the judiciary revolt earlier this year, and is at least motivated by a keen understanding of checks on executive power. Elphaba: What I find confusing about this line of thinking is that I don't see how oddities in the tactics used in an assassination are connected to oddities of motive or guilt. Why does a small degree of confusion over the cause of death imply a conspiracy? I don't see that an assassination sponsored by the government, army, a rival, or any other political player would somehow be more likely to result in novel tactics or an ambiguous cause of death. My take on the matter is this: initial changes in the cause of death, and in reported tactics (how far away the shooter was, etc) are simply a product of the honest confusion that immediately follows an incident such as this one, in which scattered and conflicting reporting creates a distorted picture of the event, which is eventually corrected and narrowed down as the facts come in. The politicization is something being added on after the fact by a number of parties desperate to ensure that Pakistan moves in a certain direction from this key juncture. Who had the most to gain? * Not anyone in the party. Her husband knows he is a political dead fish with or without her (corruption and graft have earned him the nickname Mr 10 Percent), and in any case he has been quite obviously distraught in television appearances over the last few days. No one in the party has emerged boldly to take her leadership position - it seems that instead, the party has urged 19-year-old Bilawal to step forward, and I think it vanishingly unlikely that he was involved. * Not Musharraf. This is important: while painful, Bhutto's presence actually held the key to legitimating the current regime. Remember, she was not running directly against him - she was aiming for the premiership, while he had already safely been elected to the Presidency, a position that he himself had (extra-?)constitutionally strengthened. An eventual power-sharing agreement would have been difficult but would have greatly stabilized the power configuration by expanding the ruling coalition and giving it a much larger popular base. His real battle was with the judiciary, and it's not at all clear that Bhutto would have sided in the end with irreconcilably anti-Musharraf forces; I think the opposite is more likely the case. Nawaz? I guess it's a theoretical possibility. By eliminating Bhutto, he now forces Musharraf to deal directly with him - and while the general dislikes Bhutto, he loathes Nawaz Sharif (and the feeling is quite mutual, I'm sure). But I don't see Nawaz doing any of the posturing that would allow him to actually gain from the event. All he has done is announce an ineffectual boycott of the upcoming elections, throwing a wrench into the government's plans but doing little else to help himself. In terms of exploiting existing political cleavages and bringing wrenching instability to the country, I still think that extreme anti-government forces - rather than establishment forces - are the most likely culprits. Al Qaeda and/or Pakistani Taliban sympathizers seem to me the prime candidates here.