Murder without Mystery

Whoever pulled the grenade pin or fired the gun that killed Benazir Bhutto, it’s now pretty obvious that the Pakistani state was at least a half-partner in the assassination. That was unintentionally confirmed by the bizarre explanation of the interior ministry spokesman who cobbled together the completely incredible official account of her death in 48 hours without the benefit of an autopsy. So we’re to swallow the absurd tale that Bhutto hit her head on a metal bar and died of a concussion while people standing around her were splattered with her blood and immediately reported that she had been shot through the neck.

The Independent of London notes that the entire area around the assassination point was promptly washed down with high-powered hoses, which conveniently removes key evidence and is also par for the course in Pakistani political hits, including that of Bhutto’s own brother while she was prime minister. The mounting evidence that Musharraf and his secret police are complicit makes even more repugnant the facile crap mouthed by our own presidential candidates about the need for Pakistan to ‘continue on the path to democratization’ (Edwards, who should know better).

The reality-based candidates (i.e. not including McCain who thinks Musharraf has done a heckuva job) are now recognizing that the credibility of the Pakistani regime is approaching absolute zero. But their policy suggestions don’t rise to the occasion.

We should be hearing much more about restoring the independent judiciary recently trashed by Musharraf as a minimum first step both toward finding out the truth about the Bhutto assassination and any chance of building a system based on the rule of law. Instead, the candidates are far too focused on U.S. security needs to be distracted by anything as dull as the well-being of Pakistanis.

It’s the same exact error committed 30 years ago with the bitter-end support for the Shah of Iran, and the consequences were and are neither security nor well-being for anyone. I will be dumbfounded if the endgame in Pakistan leads in any other direction.