The Bhutto Assassination
Just the time to be without internet access for a couple of days. I'm still catching up and for coverage, I'd suggest going to the Newshoggers where I'll be spending the next couple of hours reading up myself.
There are a lot of questions about who was really responsible for the attack, and it seems unlikely to me that there is really any hope of ever determining the truth. Too many competing political interests are involved, which will ensure that any conclusions or claims put out by any of them will be highly suspect. To some degree, it really doesn't matter. It has been done, and it is the consequences that will have to be dealt with, since the perpatrators are unlikely to ever see justice.
My only real thought at this point comes as a follow-up to something I posted last month.
Reading the Pakistani authorities reaction to the planned protest,
He told the Associated Press there was a "strong threat" of another suicide bomb attack against Ms Bhutto, who survived an assassination attempt in Karachi on 18 October that killed more than 140 people.
almost makes you wonder where the threat is coming from.
It also got me thinking. The situation in Pakistan is clearly tense, passions are on the rise, and a quite popular figure is about to take to the streets with, if the crowds greeting her return are any indication, possibly hundreds of thousands of supporters. Any crackdown is likely to be quite nasty and bloody.
Musharraf is desperate, and its very hard to predict what a desperate man will do. But as ugly as a heavy-handed crackdown would be, what if the "strong threat" is real? And what if it succeeds?
With all the pent-up rage and frustration there right now, what happens if Bhutto becomes a martyr?
Sadly, it appears that I am going to learn the answer to that question, and by all accounts it isn't going to be pretty. John Robb sees things much as I do:
The assassination of Bhutto (a critical social systempunkt that rose in importance due to the evaporation of the Pakistani government's legitimacy) has plunge the country into chaos. Ethnic tensions are on the rise and critical infrastructure has been been sabotaged. The train system has been particularly hard hit -- trains burned, track destroyed, bridges burned -- such that major sections of it will be closed for a month (once repairs begin). 200 bank branches were looted and factories were torched. There are widespread shortages of gasoline, water, and food mostly due to a nationwide shutdown (a combo of strikes, fear, and a three days of mourning). Road transportation is very dangerous due to local rioters (mostly in Karachi). Paramilitary Sindh Rangers have been given "shoot to kill" orders against protesters in Karachi.
This may be the straw that causes Pakistan to disintegrate.
