Friday, January 4, 2008

Bhutto's Death

I don't think the image will ever leave my head but whenever I read that Scotland Yard is on the case I picture a bunch of Sherlock Holmes types carrying magnifying glasses rushing to the scene of the crime. Much too little too late for Benazir Bhutto.


It's clear now that she was shot, at least that's what the footage appears to reveal, and that this is what is likely to have killed her. What's hard to understand is how they came to announce that she'd died from her head impacting on the car, and that she in fact WASN'T hit by a bullet. How could such a "blunder" be made? The bodies got holes or it doesn't.

If the outraged crowds of PPP supporters needed any more reason to feel suspicious about the government's involvement in the killing they need not have looked for long. Unfortunately it's most likely to have been al-Qa'ida and such "mistakes" only serve to distract anger from the likely killers:

Mr Zardari has rejected officials' assertions that al-Qa'ida was behind the assassination.

"I dismiss the Government's claims of al-Qa'ida involvement," he reportedly said.

"The officials are trying to cover up and compare it to the death of John F.Kennedy. I think soon the chickens are going to lay their eggs and we will blame them on al-Qa'ida. Al-Qa'ida has nothing to fear; why would they fear us? Are they our political opponents?"

This statement from Bhutto's widow strikes me as the height of naivety. The very fact that Benazir Bhutto was an educated women with power was cause enough for al-Qa'ida to kill her. It seems that some are still not listening to what these extremists are saying.