Musharraf Prepared to Rig Elections? and Video
McClatchy reports that “Benazir Bhutto had planned to reveal new evidence alleging the involvement of Pakistan’s intelligence agencies in rigging the country’s upcoming elections” on the day she was assassinated.
In fact, she “had been due to meet U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., and Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., to hand over a report charging that the military Inter-Services Intelligence agency was planning to fix the polls in the favor of President Pervez Musharraf.”
Why did she want to meet with these two individuals, and not with representatives of the White House or even with Rice and Bush themselves? According to Safraz Khan Lashari, a member of the Pakistan People’s Party election monitoring unit, they didn’t trust Bush because he’s backing Musharraf.
And if that’s not enough: Lashari said that the report “names as the head of the unit a brigadier general recently retired from the ISI, who was secretly assigned to run the rigging operation, Lashari said. It charges that he was working in tandem with the head of a civilian intelligence agency. Before her return to Pakistan, Bhutto, in a letter to Musharraf, had named the intelligence official as one of the men she accused of plotting to kill her.”
O, and guess who, according to Bhutto and her former crew, are paying for the operation? That’s right, the US (aid money was being used to fix the elections).
Frankly, there’s so much information out there about what’s going on and what could’ve happened, etc. that it’s difficult to say what’s true and what isn’t. Bhutto’s supporters believe there was a major conspiracy going on, and the more information comes out, the more the impression one gets that they’re right.
Lastly, here’s a video from British Channel 4 News (via The Galloping Beaver):
If you watch the video, there’s little doubt left in your mind that she died before the explosion, and not because she hit her head against the car, but because a bullet hit her fatally. As the reporters remark, there seem to be two possible explanation for the lies of the Pakistani government.
1. The government tried (and still tries) to cover up its own failings
2. Security (government) officials were involved, those involved want to cover that up and Musharraf doesn’t want it to be known because it means that he no longer controls his country’s intelligence, national security, etc. organizations
The hit was very professional. We all know how Al Qaeda operates these days, this seems to be more of a CIA-type of hit (not implying the CIA is involved, but perhaps the Pakistani equivalent the ISI).
If you watch the video, there’s little doubt left in your mind that she died before the explosion, and not because she hit her head against the car, but because a bullet hit her fatally
Sorry, I watched the video, and it just isn’t there. The only thing I have "little doubt" about is that the video is lousy, and that when someone is turning and dropping rapidly through a sunroof into an armored vehicle (as people are inclined to do when other people are shooting guns at them) their clothing and hair don’t stay glued to them as if sculpted. There are a lot of claims being tossed around and fingers pointed, but to reach the conclusion of a cover-up on the actual evidence available isn’t just a stretch, it’s a Grand Canyon leap. It’s also highly improbable for a number of reasons.
While it’s certainly physically possible she was shot by the gunman and then that covered up, it would require believing at minimum that the seven doctors who examined the body were lying when they all stated that the only wound she had was a sharply depressed open head wound roughly 3*5 cm extending into the brain (that’s a "puncture" to us laypeople–something poked a hole in her head) above her right ear. X-rays showed no bullet fragments in the skull.
The only ways for that to occur as the result of a shot from that gun, given the locations shown for the gunman and Bhutto and the respective angles (the gunman was on Bhutto’s left) is for that wound to be an exit wound, and for that to be true, either all seven doctors are lying, or all seven managed to examine the body and miss an entrance wound, even with Xrays. And while it’s conceivable that all seven could be inexperienced enough not to spot the differences between a depressed skull fracture (puncture wound) and a bullet exit wound, it’s not likely.
There also isn’t any real reason to conceal a gunshot injury as the COD, not that I can see. It matters little whether she was shot a second before the bomb went off, or if the gunman missed and the bomb killed her. That a gunman fired right before the bomb went off was known from the start and in all the reports from the first, so there is no reason I can see that if she took a bullet right before the bomb, that fact should be concealed by actions taken well after the reports of a gunman were already out. Why bother?
It could be cleared up quickly if an autopsy were done. But Bhutto’s family continues to refuse permission for an exhumation and autopsy, which doesn’t raise confidence in the claims. They can offer all the rationales they wish for refusing, but when you won’t allow the very thing that could prove your claims, what are your claims really worth?