Pakistan, Benazir and the Bomb attack
The attack on Benazir is shocking. Here is a comment in the Guardian
After last night's suicide bombing in Karachi come the same questions that always follow an attack. Who was behind it? What will its effects be, in the short and the long term?
As for who was behind it, it is fair to say that there are a large range of people who stand to benefit from Benazir Bhutto's death or serious discouragement. Yet, before plunging wildly off into conspiracy theories about spooks and so forth, let's stick with the obvious suspects: the various militants based in the lawless Tribal Agencies on the Afghan-Pakistani border.
Whether local or international (ie al-Qaida or its various offshoots and affiliated elements), they have the motives and the means and have loudly trumpeted their intention to strike. That they have penetrated the Pakistani security service's "ring of steel" should not be surprising. Even the most competent of policing operations would find it difficult to protect a world figure, surrounded by 200,000 excited followers as she crosses a fairly anarchic city of 14 million people along a route that has been known for days if not weeks. And the Pakistani police, like their army, is not actually very competent.
And the effects of the bombing? In the short term, Bhutto will emerge strengthened, even if no doubt profoundly shaken. Campaigning for the legislative elections to be held before mid-January will clearly present serious security problems but it was ever going to be thus. Her stance internationally has always been that of the moderate democrat courageously returning to rescue her country from the mullahs and that is now even more convincing in Washington, London and elsewhere. It may now be more convincing in Pakistan too - though few Pakistanis actually vote according to how they personally feel. Some fence-sittters may now fall her way.
But the most significant effect of the carnage in Karachi may be on support for the militants. Here, as events in the 90s in Algeria showed, the exact responsibility for any given atrocity is not necessarily important. When I lived in Pakistan, in the late 90s, few supported such acts, at home or abroad. In the aftermath of 2001, the war on terror and the invasion of Iraq, support soared. In recent years, it has been dropping again. A recent poll, the Pew Global Attitudes Survey, found that whereas in 2004, 41% of Pakistanis said that suicide bombing and other violence against civilians were "often" or "sometimes justified" to defend Islam from its enemies, that proportion has now dropped to 9%. That drop came when bombings started in Pakistan itself.
Why? Because no one likes to live in fear and very few find the sight of their country's pavements strewn with body parts and corpses acceptable. In Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Indonesia and elsewhere in recent years, it has become clear that militants have seriously damaged their chances of gaining a broader support in society at large because of the very natural reaction most reasonable people have when presented with the reality of "collateral damage".
In Afghanistan, the Taliban have, despite the equal casualties caused by criminally clumsy Nato and US airstrikes, not done their cause any good with bombs that kill large numbers of civilians. In Peshawar, the Pakistani city close to the Afghan frontier last week, I visited the site of a bombing of a CD market where dozens had been injured in a blast the day before. There was precious little support for militants among those who had seen what their bomb had actually done.
This is hardly a cause for celebration. There are clearly better ways to defeat militants than letting them alienate their support base by killing lots of people. But it is a phenomenon worth noting none the less.
Sepia Mutiny has complete coverage, as well as discussion on Benazir's fresh, young and new plastic surgery improved face.
And here is the ever articulate Sin, on the Sepia Mutiny site.
Bull. As one of my friends put it "Oh great, the botoxed bitch is coming back, time to get fucked over again". Benazir and Nawaz Sharif are both incredibly corrupt and shouldn't be allowed within five hundred miles of the country. Actually, none of the politicians should. Pakistan isn't ready for/doesn't need a democracy, it needs a benevolent dictatorship that can educate people, get rid of the fucking feudal system, and stop racking up howlingly large amounts of foreign debt. Democracy is a lovely theory for us, but the practicability of the idea is far from realisation.
Adrian Levy is also about three-odd decades behind in his "news". The situation with the military snapping up wealth and increasing its asset base has been old hat since the 1960s; the only difference is that the generals etc., have tended to be marginally more discreet about their pillaging. It should say something when the ritziest housing neighbourhoods tend to be named "Defence Housing Authority", "Cantonement", "Cavalry" and the like (except for Islamabad, which one could argue is even more regimented with its F-1, E-8, G-11/3 sectors). Personally, I don't see Benazir doing anything particularly differently, unless she's somehow checked by the somewhat-revitalised Supreme Court and/or the Army, but I doubt that substantially. For both her and Nawaz Sharif, this is less about coming back to serve their country, and far more about looting it as rapidly as possible while still basking in the "adulation" of millions.
I really hate our politicians.
After last night's suicide bombing in Karachi come the same questions that always follow an attack. Who was behind it? What will its effects be, in the short and the long term?
As for who was behind it, it is fair to say that there are a large range of people who stand to benefit from Benazir Bhutto's death or serious discouragement. Yet, before plunging wildly off into conspiracy theories about spooks and so forth, let's stick with the obvious suspects: the various militants based in the lawless Tribal Agencies on the Afghan-Pakistani border.
Whether local or international (ie al-Qaida or its various offshoots and affiliated elements), they have the motives and the means and have loudly trumpeted their intention to strike. That they have penetrated the Pakistani security service's "ring of steel" should not be surprising. Even the most competent of policing operations would find it difficult to protect a world figure, surrounded by 200,000 excited followers as she crosses a fairly anarchic city of 14 million people along a route that has been known for days if not weeks. And the Pakistani police, like their army, is not actually very competent.
And the effects of the bombing? In the short term, Bhutto will emerge strengthened, even if no doubt profoundly shaken. Campaigning for the legislative elections to be held before mid-January will clearly present serious security problems but it was ever going to be thus. Her stance internationally has always been that of the moderate democrat courageously returning to rescue her country from the mullahs and that is now even more convincing in Washington, London and elsewhere. It may now be more convincing in Pakistan too - though few Pakistanis actually vote according to how they personally feel. Some fence-sittters may now fall her way.
But the most significant effect of the carnage in Karachi may be on support for the militants. Here, as events in the 90s in Algeria showed, the exact responsibility for any given atrocity is not necessarily important. When I lived in Pakistan, in the late 90s, few supported such acts, at home or abroad. In the aftermath of 2001, the war on terror and the invasion of Iraq, support soared. In recent years, it has been dropping again. A recent poll, the Pew Global Attitudes Survey, found that whereas in 2004, 41% of Pakistanis said that suicide bombing and other violence against civilians were "often" or "sometimes justified" to defend Islam from its enemies, that proportion has now dropped to 9%. That drop came when bombings started in Pakistan itself.
Why? Because no one likes to live in fear and very few find the sight of their country's pavements strewn with body parts and corpses acceptable. In Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Indonesia and elsewhere in recent years, it has become clear that militants have seriously damaged their chances of gaining a broader support in society at large because of the very natural reaction most reasonable people have when presented with the reality of "collateral damage".
In Afghanistan, the Taliban have, despite the equal casualties caused by criminally clumsy Nato and US airstrikes, not done their cause any good with bombs that kill large numbers of civilians. In Peshawar, the Pakistani city close to the Afghan frontier last week, I visited the site of a bombing of a CD market where dozens had been injured in a blast the day before. There was precious little support for militants among those who had seen what their bomb had actually done.
This is hardly a cause for celebration. There are clearly better ways to defeat militants than letting them alienate their support base by killing lots of people. But it is a phenomenon worth noting none the less.
Sepia Mutiny has complete coverage, as well as discussion on Benazir's fresh, young and new plastic surgery improved face.
And here is the ever articulate Sin, on the Sepia Mutiny site.
Bull. As one of my friends put it "Oh great, the botoxed bitch is coming back, time to get fucked over again". Benazir and Nawaz Sharif are both incredibly corrupt and shouldn't be allowed within five hundred miles of the country. Actually, none of the politicians should. Pakistan isn't ready for/doesn't need a democracy, it needs a benevolent dictatorship that can educate people, get rid of the fucking feudal system, and stop racking up howlingly large amounts of foreign debt. Democracy is a lovely theory for us, but the practicability of the idea is far from realisation.
Adrian Levy is also about three-odd decades behind in his "news". The situation with the military snapping up wealth and increasing its asset base has been old hat since the 1960s; the only difference is that the generals etc., have tended to be marginally more discreet about their pillaging. It should say something when the ritziest housing neighbourhoods tend to be named "Defence Housing Authority", "Cantonement", "Cavalry" and the like (except for Islamabad, which one could argue is even more regimented with its F-1, E-8, G-11/3 sectors). Personally, I don't see Benazir doing anything particularly differently, unless she's somehow checked by the somewhat-revitalised Supreme Court and/or the Army, but I doubt that substantially. For both her and Nawaz Sharif, this is less about coming back to serve their country, and far more about looting it as rapidly as possible while still basking in the "adulation" of millions.
I really hate our politicians.
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