Benazir Bhutto assassinated

[darkhosis]

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/12/2...arif/index.html

 

news flash is she's dead now, not critical.. ooh... just watch pakistan now.

[Dav]

after so many attempts it had to happen eventually.

 

She has now become a martyr to her cause, let us just hope this is not avenged in a violent manor otherwise chaos will descend and the state of emergency will probably be restored undermining the whole democratic process she was trying to restart.

[CRe]

!@#$%^&* you beat me on posting this. Benizar had this coming after the past bombs. We will have to see more when the elections take place jan 9th.

[ThunderJam]

It was gonna happen sometime. She was to obvious and simple of a target for too many people.

[X`terrania]

Reminds me of this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmed_Y!@#$%^&*in

 

Such a stupid !@#$%^&*ing world we live in. The people who are out to change the world change nothing but the amount of bullets in their killer's gun.

[Aileron]

Political !@#$%^&*!@#$%^&*inations have occured throughout history. The difference is before they couldn't be straight-up done like this. Usually such actions would mean severe political reprecussions. Now, however, we have organizations who basically have reached the lowest morality possible under current political correctness standards.

 

Basically, whoever did this is an evil !@#$%^&*, and so much of an evil !@#$%^&* that he is free to do any evil act at will because by Earthly standards he can't possibly sink any lower. They know they will get a certain amout of mercy from the forces of civilization regardless of their actions, so they have no motivation to stop.

[jacob hunter!]

Meh, Pakistan is a weak country who gives a !@#$%^&* about them.. chaos FTW.

[AstroProdigy]

It's funny how Sharif while paying lip service to how terrible he claimed he thought her death was, was quick to play politics by boycotting the elections in order to postpone them. He wants to avoid the rallying call her death would bring to more progressive minded supporters of hers and prevent a progressive government from being elected as opposed to his conservative Islamist party.

 

Also, for Aileron, there's no reason to believe it couldn't also have been an orchestrated assassination by some of the people pretending to still be playing by the rules of political correctness. It's funny how low those people will sink as long as they think they can keep what they do a secret and have the media on their side. Ring a bell, anyone?

 

Attraction: Pakistan is a weak country with nukes. If it weren't for those nukes their influence would be confined to Afghanistan, that is already fighting us, and India, which never lets Pakistan push them around. Unfortunately, the US let Pakistan, an Islamist country with a poor, restless population get nukes simply because they had a history of being an anti-communist American ally and now we're forced to prop up whatever crap they come up with that they call a government because Pakistan could easily "lose a few" to Al Qaeda otherwise. America is the world's hyper power my !@#$%^&* if our politicians can bungle our backs to a corner so easily. The best thing to do would be to go take down and par!@#$%^&*ion Pakistan now before they make more nukes and hope they don't launch them before we get there. India would be ecstatic to help us with an occupation with the 1.1 billion people to draw recruits from and we wouldn't even need to pretend we were trying to help them rebuild. Just do a hit and run and scare the !@#$%^&* out of little Kim in the process.

Edited December 28, 2007 by AstroProdigy

[Aileron]

Astro, we don't know if it was Sharif. It could have been Al Queda, or more likely than both simply some local nut who would benefit from Bhutto's removal.

 

I was speaking widely though. The point being was all three are so disgusting that they don't deserve to be sharing oxygen with the rest of us. The tragedy here is that Sharif is treated as an "upstanding member of the international community", the local thugs who are the heirs to powerfull local families somehow qualify as local governments, and Al Queda, though given a lot of condemnation, still aren't getting everything they deserve. For instance, when he was asked what he thought about the label "Islamic Fascists" applied to Al Queda and other groups, a quoted response from former CIA director James Woolsey: "Well, to call Ahmadinejad and the Wahabists of Saudi Arabia and Al Queda Islamic Fascists is really quite an insult to Mussolini, because the Italian Fascists were not explicitly genocidal..."

 

These people aren't merely totalitarian. They do not simply wish to rule a country or an empire as dictator. They also wish to spread death and hatred.

 

 

Secondly, the US helped arm them for the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, but no nukes were involved with that. The Cold War, while helping to spread a lot of conventional weapons, did little to spread nuclear ones, as both sides quickly realised that lackies with nukes were more of a liability than anything.

 

Going in to Pakistan is inadvisable. Relative to other Muslim countries in the area, Pakistan is stable.

[AstroProdigy]

Pakistan is going to be stable with US support, but we've basically been backed into a wall there. We can't possibly do anything there for fear that a few nukes "disappear". We also can only support the ruling government because they control the nukes no matter how corrupt or dictatorial they are. This is all because Pakistan has nukes.

[Aileron]

That may be true, but it isn't the biggest reason. It is a lesson we learned from history.

 

In Jimmy Carter's presidency, Iran was similar to Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are today. It was a brutal dictatorship, but it kept diplomatic ties open to western nations. Carter decided that because of their poor human rights record, he would withdraw support for Iran. Without US support, the dictatorship soon collapsed and was replaced by the Khomeni revolution. The Khomeni revolution quickly cut all ties with the US, and infact laid siege to the US Emb!@#$%^&*y in Iran. Furthermore, they proceeded to attempt imperialistic expansion by invading Iraq. Iraq in turn resorted to chemical weapons to fight off the Iranians, and after not receiving international outcry over it, felt they had international approval to invade Kuwait. Meanwhile, in Pakistan and Lebanon, groups received funding from the Khomeni for fighting Israel, and every time one of those groups signs a treaty with Israel, that funding is cut and transfered to whichever other movement is willing to continue the fight.

 

I'd say that "No-one can argue that the Khomeni revolution made the world a worse place", but my experience on this forum tells me that there is always an idiot to argue against any statement, no matter how iron-clad, if it is made by a conservative. I'm sure if I said "fire is hot" someone would disagree with me. All I can say is that "If anyone thinks the Khomeni revolution made the world a better place, that person is an idiot."

 

If Carter had supported the Iranian dictatorship however, the Iran-Iraq war would not have happened, Saddam Hussein would not have had reason to develop chemical weapons, Saddam Hussein probably would not have invaded Kuwait, Desert Storm would not have happened, and Israel and Pakistan would have a reasonable chance of writing a treaty worth more than the paper its written on.

 

Certainly Carter has more to do with the current activity in Iraq than Bush does, as the effects of Carter's decision fed many problems, such as Saddam Hussein ever having WMDs (90% of Bush's arguement on that subject was that Hussein used chemical weapons in the Iran-Iraq war), and fed the current hostilities between Shi'ites, Sunnis, and Kurds. Overall, were it not for Carter's bungling, Bush never would have motivation for invading Iraq in the first place, and the three races would not have as much motivation for killing each other now.

 

Granted I'm painting a rosy picture. I highly doubt that it would have made the Middle East a happy land of peace and harmony. However, the point is that in 30-year hindsight, the negatives of that decision are atrocious, and the only positive of that situation was short-term political.

 

Long story short, the reason why the west sometimes supports dictatorships is because their replacements usually are even worse. The US strategy regarding Pakistan was correct. Support the Sharif, but also support Bhutto's replacement of the Sharif. The US strategy regarding Saudi Arabia is also correct. Support the Saudi monarchy, and hope that something better comes around to replace it, and when it does, support that.

 

The nukes Pakistan has are a distraction. We want the next transition to be smooth anyway - nukes or not it would still be a disaster to just drop support. Really, I think that's why the Presidency has an age minimum, as acting rashly based upon what one "feels" is right usually does more harm than good.

[SeVeR]

Furthermore, they proceeded to attempt imperialistic expansion by invading Iraq. Iraq in turn resorted to chemical weapons to fight off the Iranians

Any encyclopedia will tell you that Saddam invaded Iran and not the other way round! I'm quite shocked at your lack of historical knowledge...

 

Without US support, the dictatorship soon collapsed and was replaced by the Khomeni revolution. The Khomeni revolution quickly cut all ties with the US, and infact laid siege to the US Emb!@#$%^&*y in Iran.

Wrong... again. Students took over the US Emb!@#$%^&*y, and probably without the knowledge of Khomenei. Eventually Khomenei endorsed the takeover, but it certainly wasn't his idea.

 

The facts are simple.

 

1. In 1953 the elected Prime Minister of Iran decided to nationalise the oil industry.

2. America and Britain were outraged and decided to depose the the Prime Minister (Mossadegh), to replace him with the brutal dictator you speak off.

3. The CIA encited riots from their base in the US Emb!@#$%^&*y. 300 people were killed and the Prime Minister was imprisoned.

4. The new U.S. supported Shah created a secret police and oppressed his people.

5. Eventually the people rebelled and the Iranian Revolution began.

6. Students took over the U.S. emb!@#$%^&*y, calling their hostages "CIA spies" (hmm i wonder why..)

7. The U.S. eventually made a deal with the hostage takers, a deal that the U.S. didn't honour.

 

You can find this information on any encyclopedia.

 

but my experience on this forum tells me that there is always an idiot to argue against any statement, no matter how iron-clad, if it is made by a conservative.

When you are completely wrong, it isn't idiotic to state the facts and correct your warped view of world history.

 

Where on Earth do you get your information from? I really do hope your post is a joke.

Edited January 4, 2008 by SeVeR

[Aileron]

Don't split hairs. Yes, Iraq started the war, but 90% of it was Iranian offensive. And how does students inspired by the Khomeni cause and endorsed by the Khomeni government not qualify as a Khomeni action?

 

And what do actions taken in 1953 have to do with actions taken by Jimmy Carter close to two decades later? The arguement I am making is that given the choice between the Shah and the Khomenis, that Carter should have actively supported the Shah.

[SeVeR]

Fact is Iraq started the war. You specifically said that Iran invaded Iraq, which is bs. The only reason Iran got onto the offensive (after Saddam's initial !@#$%^&*ualt) is because the Iranians were better tacticians. Iran could have conquered Iraq but instead decided to make peace in 1988. Iraq had used chemical weapons throughout the war, and when the UN Security Council was asked to condemn the actions, guess which country blocked such action? The U.S.A.

 

As for the hostage crisis, it's not a Khomeni action because he didn't order the action himself.

 

And what do actions taken in 1953 have to do with actions taken by Jimmy Carter close to two decades later? The arguement I am making is that given the choice between the Shah and the Khomenis, that Carter should have actively supported the Shah.

And thats precisely what's wrong with America.

 

The U.S. destroyed democracy in Iran by staging a CIA-led coup to take down the elected prime-minister in 1953. They put a ruthless dictator in charge, who they naturally support. Then when the people rebel against the Shah, they get turned away by the U.S. to the extent where the U.S. supports Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war even though Iraq started the war AND used chemical weapons.

 

America is the ultimate hypocrite. Anti-democracy, pro-fascist, pro-WMD, pro-war.

[ThunderJam]

America is the ultimate hypocrite. Anti-democracy, pro-fascist, pro-WMD, pro-war.

I can understand pro-war... but....

[SeVeR]

America supported Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war, even though Iraq had started the war and were using WMDs. America even blocked a UN statement to condemn Iraq's usage of WMDs.

A CIA led coup in 1953 deposed the elected Iranian prime-minister, replacing him with a vicious dictator. When the people finally rebelled, America cut off all ties with the new people's government. America destroyed democracy in Iran, put a dictator in charge, and then isolated Iran once the people got back in control.

 

Imagine what the people of Iran think of America?

[SeVeR]

Edited January 8, 2008 by SeVeR