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Bush in Pakistan
Chicago Sun Times ^ | Novak | Robert

Posted on 12/30/2007 9:40:54 PM PST by Maynerd

WASHINGTON -- The assassination of Benazir Bhutto followed urgent pleas to the State Department for the last two months by her representatives for better security protection. The U.S. reaction was that she was worried over nothing, expressing assurance that Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf would not let anything happen to her...

The unsuccessful Oct. 18 attempt on Bhutto's life followed the regime's rejection of her requested security protection when she returned from eight years in exile. The Pakistani government vetoed FBI assistance in investigating the attack. On Oct. 26, Bhutto sent an e-mail to Mark Siegel, her friend and Washington spokesman, to be made public only in the event of her death.

"I would hold Musharraf responsible," Bhutto said. "I have been made to feel insecure by his minions." She listed obstruction to her "taking private cars or using tinted windows," using jammers against roadside bombs and being surrounded with police cars. "Without him [Musharraf]," she said, those requests could not have been blocked.

In early December, a former Pakistani government official supporting Bhutto visited a senior U.S. government official to renew her security requests. He got a brush-off, a mindset reflected Dec. 6 in a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing...

A more sinister fallout of a free hand from Washington for Pakistan might be Bhutto's murder. Neither her shooting last Thursday nor the attempt on her life Oct. 18 bore the classic al Qaeda trademark. After the carnage, government trucks used streams of water to clean up the blood and in the process destroy forensic evidence. If not too late, would an offer and acceptance of investigation by the FBI still be in order?

(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: bhutto; bush; musharraf; pakistan
Novak is sounding a bit like Michael Moore. I can hear it now "Bush killed Bhutto."
1 posted on 12/30/2007 9:40:56 PM PST by Maynerd
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To: Maynerd

How is it that th State Department could be reponsible for her safety? She wasn’t American or in America.

Don’t stick your head out the window in a bad neighborhood.


2 posted on 12/30/2007 9:46:05 PM PST by Soliton
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To: Maynerd
And I suppose demanding that Musharif resign from running the military had no affect on his ability to protect the DC Elites Progressive Princess.
3 posted on 12/30/2007 9:49:24 PM PST by justa-hairyape
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To: Maynerd

Yeah, Novak. I’m sure Bhutto would have been the envy of the Muslim world if she had American guards.

You’re such a putz.


4 posted on 12/30/2007 9:49:32 PM PST by VeniVidiVici (No buy China!!)
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To: Soliton

Well put.


5 posted on 12/30/2007 10:03:00 PM PST by RochesterFan
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To: Soliton
How is it that th State Department could be reponsible for her safety? She wasn’t American or in America.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I am shocked, shocked I say , at your lack of appreciation of liberal globalism.(sarc.)

All liberals qualify for US security details if they are liberals, regardless of nationality. Its a UN/Globalist thang!

(Conservatives don't get the same treatment.)

6 posted on 12/30/2007 10:21:24 PM PST by Candor7 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Baghdad_(1258))
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To: Candor7

She wasn’t a liberal, just a pretty tyrant. If we had just protected Princess Diana, she would still be diddling the help too.


7 posted on 12/30/2007 10:28:13 PM PST by Soliton
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To: Soliton
She wasn’t a liberal, just a pretty tyrant.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

LOL, you know she was both. How could she not be a liberal after graduating Harvard and Oxford? She was probably failing to inhale at Oxford right along with BJ! ( LOL)

8 posted on 12/30/2007 10:36:02 PM PST by Candor7 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Baghdad_(1258))
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To: Maynerd
Novak isn't really one of the "America is to blame" crowd, and so we must look elsewhere for the explanation to this strange little piece. I think it might be something like this - people who work inside the Beltway, and I mean nearly all of 'em, tend to develop an overweening sense of institutional importance. The world doesn't really dance to the tune set there, however convenient it is for those who do hate America to pretend so (it makes blame so much easier). But it is a flattering and rather seductive illusion for those who fancy that they have some influence on the affairs within.

The person responsible for the presence of Benazir Bhutto on that street at that time is named Benazir Bhutto. To pretend otherwise is demeaning and disrespectful of her courage. If there is some lever some minion at State could have pulled, some arm that could have been twisted to influence events otherwise, it is irrelevant at this point.

I caution both friend and foe against buying into the fond illusion of America the Omniscient, the Omnipresent, the Omnipotent. It isn't so, and it is a good thing for the world in the long run that it isn't.

9 posted on 12/30/2007 11:01:31 PM PST by Billthedrill
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To: Maynerd; sukhoi-30mki
The U.S. reaction was that she was worried over nothing,...

What? Where did he get this idea?

In early December, a former Pakistani government official supporting Bhutto visited a senior U.S. government official to renew her security requests. He got a brush-off, a mindset reflected Dec. 6 in a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing...

Ohh! Could it be that the Democrats had something to do with denying her better protection?

10 posted on 12/30/2007 11:07:00 PM PST by airborne (Proud to be a conservative! Proud to support Duncan Hunter for President!)
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To: Billthedrill

If I was repeatedly the target of assassination attempts, I think I would have changed a few things. Not stand up in a large crowd of strangers. Things like that.


11 posted on 12/30/2007 11:10:24 PM PST by airborne (Proud to be a conservative! Proud to support Duncan Hunter for President!)
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To: Billthedrill
Excellent post.

Read recently that she was worth $1 Billion dollars....with a "B".

Evidently that's not enough to placate some people.

12 posted on 12/30/2007 11:16:54 PM PST by DCPatriot ("It aint what you don't know that kills you. It's what you know that aint so" Theodore Sturgeon))
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To: Billthedrill
Novak isn't really one of the "America is to blame" crowd, and so we must look elsewhere for the explanation to this strange little piece.

I agree. Novak is not a blame America First type. That's why I found his piece rather odd. He's fanning the flames of Pakistani a conspiracy as well as Bush compacency/incompetency or depending on the mood of the lefties "a diabolical evil Bush conspiracy."

13 posted on 12/30/2007 11:17:56 PM PST by Maynerd (Hillary = amnesty, higher taxes,defeat in the WOT, and socialized medicine)
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To: DCPatriot

With that kind of cash I could buy a nice little protective detail 24/7........... she was stupid for going back there without all the items she asked for being approved PRIOR to her return IMO.

Her father was killed in the same ville.......Duh !

Stupid hurts !

Merry New Year DCP !

Stay safe !


14 posted on 12/30/2007 11:22:28 PM PST by Squantos (Be polite. Be professional. But, have a plan to kill everyone you meet. ©)
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To: Maynerd

Yet another State Dept. clusterfrick.
At best, it’s blatant incompetence.


15 posted on 12/30/2007 11:25:32 PM PST by DGHoodini (The Dems no longer have the humanity to grasp that there are things worth dying for.)
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To: DGHoodini

Look folks, She wasn’t getting protection from Musharraf. She tried to hire private contractors, Musharraf denied them entry. She was working *with* us foe what *she* saw as her country’s best interests. The State Dept could have done better to apply political pressure to get Musharraf to give her competent protection...they didn’t. That said, there are many who work in our State Dept that would love to see anything Prez Bush tries to accomplish...fail. And that is what we see evidenced in that fantabulous IE report they recently popped up with, when the momentum was building against Iran.


16 posted on 12/30/2007 11:36:58 PM PST by DGHoodini (The Dems no longer have the humanity to grasp that there are things worth dying for.)
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To: Squantos

And the very same to you, Squantos.


17 posted on 12/31/2007 12:05:14 AM PST by DCPatriot ("It aint what you don't know that kills you. It's what you know that aint so" Theodore Sturgeon))
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To: DGHoodini
private contractors = Blackwater

Imagine the Libs knowing that an “evil death squad” was sent by the “evil Bush regime” acting as pupet-master to Bhutto! (and still the assassination was successful)

18 posted on 12/31/2007 12:59:46 AM PST by endthematrix (He was shouting 'Allah!' but I didn't hear that. It just sounded like a lot of crap to me.)
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To: Maynerd

what was the nature of the security
that Bhutto DID have?

private?
provided by who?
etc


19 posted on 12/31/2007 1:31:48 AM PST by patch789
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To: Squantos

Her father was hanged by the Pakistani government.


20 posted on 12/31/2007 4:45:36 AM PST by sukhoi-30mki
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