I am appalled by the rightwing US pundits who are taking advantage of Bhutto's assassination to blam

[rodeodance]

.....Mobs Rampage through Pakistani Cities;
Cars, Banks, Gas Stations Torched
Sharif's Party will Boycott Elections

http://www.juancole.com/

My column, "With Bhutto gone, does Bush have a Plan B?" is online at Salon.com. Excerpt:


' Pakistan's future is now murky, and to the extent that this nation of 160 million buttresses the eastern flank of American security in the greater Middle East, its fate is profoundly intertwined with America's own. The money for the Sept. 11 attacks was wired to Florida from banks in Pakistan, and al-Qaida used the country for transit to Afghanistan. Instability in Pakistan may well spill over into Afghanistan, as well, endangering the some 26,000 U.S. troops and a similar number of NATO troops in that country. And it is not as if Afghanistan were stable to begin with. If Pakistani politics finds its footing, if a successor to Benazir Bhutto is elected in short order by the PPP and the party can remain united, and if elections are held soon, the crisis could pass. If there is substantial and ongoing turmoil, however, Muslim radicals will certainly take advantage of it.

In order to get through this crisis, Bush must insist that the Pakistani Supreme Court, summarily dismissed and placed under house arrest by Musharraf, be reinstated. The PPP must be allowed to elect a successor to Ms. Bhutto without the interference of the military. Early elections must be held, and the country must return to civilian rule. Pakistan's population is, contrary to the impression of many pundits in the United States, mostly moderate and uninterested in the Taliban form of Islam. But if the United States and "democracy" become associated in their minds with military dictatorship, arbitrary dismissal of judges, and political instability, they may turn to other kinds of politics, far less favorable to the United States. Musharraf may hope that the Pakistani military will stand with him even if the vast majority of people turn against him. It is a forlorn hope, and a dangerous one, as the shah of Iran discovered in 1978-79. '


I am appalled by the rightwing US pundits who are taking advantage of Bhutto's assassination to blame "the people of Pakistan" for "extremism." Benazir's party would have won at least a plurality in parliament. The PPP is a moderate, middle class party, and it has done well in unrigged elections during the past 20 years. She was killed by an extremist of some sort. The Muslim fundamentalist parties usually only get 3 percent of the vote in national elections, and they got 11.3 percent of the popular vote in 2002 only because Musharraf interfered with the PPP and Muslim League campaigns.

Former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, a lifelong rival of Benazir Bhutto, claimed that he, too, had been targeted for assassination on Thursday, but had escaped it. He said his party would boycott the January 8 elections called by President Pervez Musharraf, to protest Bhutto's death, and he called on other parties to boycott, as well. Sharif intimated that the Pakistani military was behind Ms. Bhutto's assassination........

[flordehinojos]

1. O, wow! doesn't BUSHIT BOY love the military. He is now proba bly hailing the pakistani military

as the heroes who removed the obstacle to his vision of dem-oh-crazy...i mean, democracy.

the above is my reaction to these lines in cole's article: "Sharif intimated that the Pakistani military was behind Ms. Bhutto's assassination........"