Cernig's Newshog: 12/01/2007

Monday, December 31, 2007

Happy New Year!

by shamanic

Happy New Year everyone. I'm going to take off now to clean up, run some errands, and party like it's 2008 tonight (oh wait, it IS 2008 tonight!), but I want to thank Cernig for putting this blog together this year, Libby and Fester for being such awesome and insightful colleagues, and all of our readers for making this year so successful. We won a MonkeyFister award, were (briefly) nominated for Best Liberal Blog in the Weblog awards (or something similar... there are so many), and are regularly read by some of the most prominent voices in America's public discourse (I'm only slightly exaggerating there).

So to all of you, friends and strangers, commenters and lurkers, linkers and haters, I say thank you for a wonderful 2007 here at The Newshog. I hope we continue to be an informative and entertaining voice for you in the new year.

From Cernig

It's been quite a year for the Newshoggers, what with going group-blog and all. I couldn't hope for a better bunch of partners - Sha, Libby and Fes have all been simply stellar across the board this year and Eric's drop-in posts have been invaluable analysis for anyone serious about FP issues. My thanks to all of them.

I'd like to echo Sha's thanks to you readers out there with a heartfelt "hell, yeah!" Newshoggers readers are some of the smartest movers and shakers of opinion out there. That's not just our opinion - it's the opinion of the folks at Memeorandum, Technorati, BlogBurst and a small host of other aggregators and trackers. This tiny blog continually hits above its weight when it comes to measuring which blogs help shape political discussion and opinion and that's because of you, the readers, who keep us sharp in comments, send us links and spread the discussion. You rock.

And an especial thanks to the bloggers - A-Listers like Kevin, James, Nico and Larisa as well as hundreds of other truly great thinkers and writers from across the consonants of Blogtopia - who have linked to our posts, advised us in emails and sent some eyes our way.

But we aren't done yet. There will be other changes in 2008 to make The Newshoggers smarter, faster, better. Our secret plans are buried deeper than Dick Cheney's oppo files on leading Dem's sexual fetishes and perversions - but we think you'll like them.

Anyways...it's Hogmanay, and I might lose my Scottish citizenship if I don't go and get fall-down drunk. So for now I will say another hearty "thank you all" and go imbibe a dram or two. I'll be back by the second at the latest.

A Guid new Year Tae Yin An' A'

Warmest Regards, C

From Libby: Let me add my thanks to my incredible partners. Hard to believe it's been almost a year. I'm still just as thrilled to be part of this group as I was the first day I stumbled in here. And thanks to our dear readers and our truly awesome linkers and commenters. I think I learn more from all of you, than you learn from me and I cherish you all like family. Best wishes for a peaceful and prosperous New Year to everyone.

Partisanship, marginal members and majority of the whole v. majority of the majority

I have to disagree with Shamanic's earlier argument that Krugman is implicitly and unfairly criticizing Barack Obama's rhetoric of bi-partisanship. I think our difference lies within the nature of the agendas being pursued and the internal and informal House organizing rules that will allow a projected diminished Republican House and Senate caucuses to be very partisan vehicles.

I believe the GOP would hemorrhage voters if Obama faced Mitt Romney or Mike Huckabee (my gut says it's one of the two, but we'll know in a month or so). Obama's coattails could sweep in a dramatic Democratic majority to augment the narrow one getting thrashed between the GOP minority and the 25% man right now.

Bipartisanship is a lot less necessary the closer you get to 60 Senate seats, and while Obama's agenda is hardly revolutionary, I think the general feeling about him is that he will work diligently and -- more importantly -- smartly to implement it, creating stakeholders out of disparate interests.

I'll first disagree on the hemorraging of either registred Republicans or strongly Republican leaning unaffiliated voters from the Republican coalition. Clinton performs the weakest in the head to heads compared to Obama and Edwards, but not by a significant margin against Obama. He does better but not amazingly so.

As Greg Sargant notes at the Horses Mouth, gridlock has a simple explanation:

Partisan gridlock happens because people -- and by extension, political parties -- disagree about stuff. One party wants to do one thing on a particular issue. Another party says No. The first party offers a few concessions. The second party still says No. That's where "partisan gridlock" comes from -- underlying disagreement on issues [my emphasis]

I'll agree with Krugman, and I believe Shamanic will agree with me, that all of the major Democratic candidates are proposing roughly similiar progressive plans in a variety of policy fields. Details definately matter, but the agendas proposed, in broad strokes, are interchangable. Edwards, Obama and Clinton are all broadly proposing carbon dioxide cap and trades/auction/taxes, some form of massively expanded health care payment and access that will eventually lead to some bastard step child of single payer, and about the same Iraq policy and non-comments about residual forces.

And here is the problem with the bipartisanship mien --- addressing CO2 and healthcare are system changing moves that dramatically impact the Republican coalition's ability to restrengthen itself without dramatically recasting itself and rearranging internal power distribution.

Even very optimistically assuming the Democrats pick up a net of seven seats in the Senate and net another twenty in the House, two problems emerge. One is more pronounced in the Senate, as the six potential net pick-up seats have four Republicans (Sununu, Warner, Snow, Smith) who are occassionally willing to defect from the rest of the Republican caucus on their pet issues or to moderate their conservative votes for a swing(ish) state. Other potential Democratic pick-ups will be in New Mexico and Colorado which will lead to net improvements in Democratic margins by almost 2 full votes, and potentially the scandal seat in Alaska. The Democrats will increase the size of their caucus faster than they will increase their vote counts even assuming that no current Democrat defects on any particular vote. Seeing Landrieu lose to a conservative Republican conversely has less impact on any particular vote. The same basic dynamic will play in the House, as Democrats are targetting Republicans who already occassionally defect from the caucus, so a net 1 pick-up is a little less than 1 expected value vote on any given progressive bill.

The second problem is the way that Nancy Pelosi has decided to run her Democratic caucus and the rule sets of the House. She has decided to adapt a "majority of the whole" operation where bills will be scheduled if they have a majority of the entire House behind it. This is in contrast to the Republican rules of 'majority of the majority' where the Republican caucus would have internal whip counts behind legislation which when presented to the entire House would have near unified GOP support even if there was significant internal divisons.

Assuming as I do that carbon dioxide policy and healthcare are coalition rejiggering efforts, they will only pass the House in a majority of a majority rule framework if they are anything that vaguely resembles their campaign intent. In a majority of the whole framework, the Republican Caucus will first have higher degrees of unity due the losses of their marginal and moderate members (see New England in 2006) and the ability to offer Blue Dog/Bush Dog the marginal decision maker value and dictate to their own self-importance. Any GOP+Bush Dog bill on carbon dioxide or healthcare will be a hollow farce in actually achieving its goals beyond shoveling pork to extractive and protected industries. The only way that a good bill gets out of the House and into the Senate where it faces its own concentrated minority opposition, is through majority of the majority rules

Pushing through these two major policy initiatives are coalition cutting efforts that are also good public policy. Even if these are very good first steps and not the entire marathon, the political, and economic pay-offs that should occur will start occurring fairly quickly which means we should expect either hollow shells of bi-partisan bills, or a knock-out, drag down partisan fight as either, and especially both policies, are existential threats to the current Republican Party coalition.

Bhutto - Accused Taliban Leader Backs Independent Enquiry

By Cernig

The militant Taliban leader who has been accused by Pakistan's government of ordering Bhutto's assassination has backed calls for an independent investigation of her death.

The pro-democracy icon, 54, was killed last Thursday in a gun-and- suicide bomb attack that government officials claim was carried out by the followers of Baitullah Mehsud, leader of the newly formed Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) (Taliban Movement Pakistan).

'The government is carrying out a propaganda campaign against Baitullah Mehsud and the Taliban is unfairly being alleged for the attack,' the militant group's spokesman Maulvi Omar told the BBC's Urdu service by telephone from undisclosed location.

Bhutto's murder was a great national tragedy and therefore an independent inquiry should be held, he added.

...The Taliban spokesman said any independent inquiry that was free from US and Britain influence would be acceptable for them.

Quite remarkable, if true. Either Mehsud is playing an astute game of destabilisation or he really didn't order the killing. Which, do you think?

The Newshoggers Whiskey Caucus

by shamanic

Back in 2005, Cernig, Fester, and I wrote for a multi-partisan group blog called The Unpaid Punditry Corps which featured just shy of ten writers of various ideological stripes. It's the truth to say that Hurricane Katrina swept UPC away: the conservatives in the group *freaked* when, a week into the mess in New Orleans, we on the left began noting that what we were really watching was conservatism play out in the devastated streets of an American city.

Anyway, one thing we used to do at UPC was bet a bottle of whiskey on electoral outcomes. These never ended up being paid, but since the Newshoggers crew appears more stable and the Iowa caucuses are just days away, I want to suggest to my partners here that you belly up to the bar and get to betting on the outcome. Losers owe winners a bottle of something. I like Tequila with the 1800 label.

shamanic's Iowa Caucus predictions for Democrats & Republicans:
Dems: Clinton will edge Obama by a point or two, with Edwards coming in a strong third, four or five points behind.
Republicans: Mitt Romney will take it with a pretty clear margin, 5-6 points, over Mike Huckabee, who will immediately blame Pakistani-Americans in Iowa for sabotaging his Jesus-ordained candidacy. Okay, I don't actually predict that last part.

Fester's Take I'll collect my winnings via either a good single malt or Kentucky Bourbon....

Democrats in Iowa

Obama by a point a two

Edwards on the strength of horse trading and 2nd choices will have another two points over Clinton

Clinton does well but her ground game is out-hustled by a tacit Obama-Edwards alliance and smart shifting of caucus goers to maximize the anti-Clinton votes.

Republicans in Iowa

Romney

McCain by a whisker

Huckabee

Thompson

And now where is Condoleeza Rice as she was supposed to be the GOP's savior candidate and the reason why I should have a couple very nice bottles of Scotch in my liquor cabinet from the UPC days.....

Libby's picks: I got bored with the horserace stuff quite some time ago and haven't been following the polls closely but I'll play. Edwards will ride his recent 'mo to a narrow win, followed hard by Clinton in second and Obama in a close third.

On the GOP side, Huckabee will squeak in barely ahead of Romney. McCain at third. Surprise here will be a strong showing for Ron Paul who will come out with low double digits.

Oops! Empty reminds me in comments that I forgot to pick my prize. I'm not a big drinker anymore. The only thing I generally drink besides beer is champagne and I only like Moet White Star. But if I must pick a hard liquor, I'd go with a good Irish single malt, so make mine Bushmills.

Cernig's Picks The reason I don't blog about the races much is because I really don't have a clue about the U.S. system and I'm not a member or even supporter of any US party. That means I don't follow the polls and stories. For me as for much of the rest of the world, it's the eventual candidates for each party, and then the elected President, that really count. But I'll make some wild guesses based on gut instinct rather than polls and reports.

Edwards will be the "Tony Blair" for the Dems in Iowa as elsewhere, with Obama and Clinton running neck and neck just behind him. He'll promise inclusion of all wings of the party and all parts of society, he'll promise to listen, and he'll promise to stay true to the party's ideals - and it will all be cover.

For the Republicans, Huckabee by a nose over Romney, with McCain emerging in third as the candidate for conservatives who aren't either insane fundies or insane warmongers.

If I win (LOL) it has to be best Scotch single malt all the way. Isle of Jura for preference.

Krugman's sense of partisanship

by shamanic

Paul Krugman takes a look at the different universes that Republican and Democratic candidates live in -- there's an amazing chasm there, truly -- but continues his attacks on Barack Obama with this opening line:

Yesterday The Times published a highly informative chart laying out the positions of the presidential candidates on major issues. It was, I’d argue, a useful reality check for those who believe that the next president can somehow usher in a new era of bipartisan cooperation.

Krugman previously turned his guns full bore on Obama here, but with such sharp elbows coming out at the NYT, I think it's useful to consider what "bipartisan" might mean in the context of an Obama nomination.

I believe the GOP would hemorrhage voters if Obama faced Mitt Romney or Mike Huckabee (my gut says it's one of the two, but we'll know in a month or so). Obama's coattails could sweep in a dramatic Democratic majority to augment the narrow one getting thrashed between the GOP minority and the 25% man right now.

Bipartisanship is a lot less necessary the closer you get to 60 Senate seats, and while Obama's agenda is hardly revolutionary, I think the general feeling about him is that he will work diligently and -- more importantly -- smartly to implement it, creating stakeholders out of disparate interests.

The GOP, in its current unusable form, could very well find itself finished. A new current of moderate Republican thinking would inevitably begin to rise, starting in the northeast where the GOP is all but dead and radiating out from there. The deathgrip that southern conservatives have on the party would eventually be supplanted. If the last decade has shown us anything, it's that America needs at least two strong parties, and what we have right now is a strengthening Democratic party and a mortally wounded GOP. It's not workable.

Contrast this with a Hillary Clinton candidacy and presidency. Republicans would rally against her, possibly losing the election, but they would take their seething anger with them and spill that familiar anti-Clinton bile for the years of her administration. Republicans could again feel that they're victims of some strange Arkansas-based conspiracy, and those in congress would throw roadblocks at every substantive piece of legislation they could find.

I'm not saying that congressional Republicans will come to heel if Obama is elected. I'm just saying that there will ultimately be fewer of them to resist. Hillary would help to keep the current ossified GOP strong for another four or eight years. Let's let it die its phoenix's death, and be reborn as a better party with workable ideas that can contribute again to the dialogue of the American polity.

That's the bipartisanship I'm looking for, and I know that Hillary Clinton can't deliver.

New Tape Seems To Show Bhutto WAS Shot

By Cernig

CNN today has a video of the death of Benazir Bhutto which shows her scarf tugged, as if by an invisible hand, as shots rang out just before a suicide bomb detonated. The video suggests that at least one bullet passed very close or struck her a glancing blow.

Meanwhile, the NY Times confirms reports in the Indian Press two days ago ( which we blogged here) which said that the hospital report did not make any mention of the already-infamous Sunroof Lever of Doom.

Athar Minallah, a board member of the hospital where Ms. Bhutto was treated, released her medical report along with an open letter showing that her doctors wanted to distance themselves from the government theory that Ms. Bhutto had died by hitting her head on a lever of her car’s sunroof during the attack.

In his letter, Mr. Minallah, who is also a prominent lawyer, said the doctors believed that an autopsy was needed to provide the answers to how she actually died. Their request for one last Thursday was denied by the local police chief.

Pakistani and Western security experts said the government’s insistence that Ms. Bhutto, a former prime minister, was not killed by a bullet was intended to deflect attention from the lack of government security around her.

...Mr. Minallah distributed the medical report with his open letter to the Pakistani news media and The New York Times. He said the doctor who wrote the report, Mohammad Mussadiq Khan, the principal professor of surgery at the Rawalpindi General Hospital, told him on the night of Ms. Bhutto’s death that she had died of a bullet wound.

Dr. Khan declined through Mr. Minallah to speak with a reporter on the grounds that he was an employee of a government hospital and was fearful of government reprisals if he did not support its version of events.

The medical report, prepared with six other doctors, does not specifically mention a bullet because the actual cause of the head wound was to be left to an autopsy, Mr. Minallah said. The doctors had stressed to him that “without an autopsy it is not at all possible to determine as to what had caused the injury,” he wrote.

It was Bhutto's husband, Asif Ali Zardari, who refused an autopsy, citing mistrust of whether any government findings would be truthful. He certainly seems to have had good reason for that, given the way the government have spun everything surrounding the incident down to even the cause of death and, more importantly, who was responsible.

Sunday, December 30, 2007

Another reason why Huckabee will never be prez

by shamanic

Believes that adults should be celibate. Okay, apparently just the gay ones, to which I state clearly and for the record: I hope that Mike Huckabee never has an orgasm again!

Ohio cops pull down and dirty sting

By Libby

The police say this isn't entrapment and the courts may bear them out, but I call it creating a crime.

Robin Garrison, an off-duty 42-year-old firefighter, was walking in Berliner Park in Columbus, Ohio, in May when he saw a woman sunbathing topless under a tree.

He approached her and they started talking and getting comfortable, the woman smiling and resting her foot on his shoulder at one point.

Eventually, she asked to see Garrison's penis; he unzipped his pants and complied.

Seconds later, undercover police officers pulled up in a van and arrested Garrison; he was later charged with public indecency, a misdemeanor, based on video footage taken by cops who were targeting men having sex or masturbating in the park. While topless sunbathing is legal in the city's parks, exposing more than that is against the law.

Talk about a setup. Is there anyone who would expect a man to say no to that request under those circumstances? Anyone think he would normally sit around the park showing off his erect penis? Me neither. Yet, if he's convicted he'll end up on a sexual offenders list when the real predator here was the cop.

Meanwhile, am I the only one who is astounded to find out that you can legally sunbathe topless in Ohio? I'm pretty sure you would get arrested for that on the Boston Commons.

Bhutto's Bloodstained Car

By Cernig

Have a look at this:

Inside Bhutto's car shows bloody end

Do you really think a fracture from a sunroof lever also broke the skin enough and caused all that blood to be shed?

Instahoglets 30th December 2007

By Cernig

Is it that time already?

Think Progress - another JAG resigns rather than enable Bush's torturing, and pens a scathing letter explaining his resignation.

Steve Benen guesting at Political Animal notes that the reasoning behind the CIA's decision to record interrogations on video, stop recording interrogations on video, and destroy the interrogation videos was all exactly the same. Can you guess? It had nothing to do with good interrogation techniques or legal niceties.

Slate - The Bush Administration's Top 10 Stupidest Legal Arguments of 2007. But the author missed the over-arching dumbest of all "if the President says it's legal then it is."

Ali Eteraz says the GOP has a problem with Muslims. No Duh! But Ali goes on to give the institutional bigots of the Right a lesson in nomenclature they will doubtless ignore. Cowboys know the only good Injun is a dead Injun.

The Crone Speaks about picking electability over issues.

The Ultimate List, from BuffaloBeast via Blah3 - The 50 Most Loathsome People in America, 2007

When bi-partisan becomes a dirty word

By Libby

Having scrunitized the field of candidates, the Village Elders are about to assemble. They will hold their high counsel and render their wisdom unto the masses, complete with stern admonitions to stop all our bickering and play nice with each other.

New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, a potential independent candidate for president, has scheduled a meeting next week with a dozen leading Democrats and Republicans, who will join him in challenging the major-party contenders to spell out their plans for forming a "government of national unity" to end the gridlock in Washington.

Those who will be at the Jan. 7 session at the University of Oklahoma say that if the likely nominees of the two parties do not pledge to "go beyond tokenism" in building an administration that seeks national consensus, they will be prepared to back Bloomberg or someone else in a third-party campaign for president.

I'd agree this appears to be just another Broderistic call for false comity, but I was rather surprised at the ferocity of the responses. Sure this is likely a scam to preserve the status quo but I'm not so certain we should be offended by the concept of bi-partisanship. I think perhaps, the problem is the term has lost its original meaning and has been redefined over the last seven years to mean caving into the GOP agenda. However, it wasn't always so and consensus is worth striving for.

So while I think Matthew is right that polarization is a necessary component of the struggle, I don't think it's a desirable end goal and all too often it seems to me that it leaves us defining the battle on party lines. But we're a huge population with diverse needs and it should be clear by now that neither party offers a panacea for the common good.

That's not to say we shouldn't fight tooth and nail for what we believe in, but at the end of the day, polarization is just a tactic that defines the battle. Real progress, by definition, can only be reached by consensus. That requires a willingness by all sides to compromise, which is not to be confused with capitulation.

The establishment Democrats seem to have forgotten the difference, to the detriment of our constitution, but I don't think that should prevent progressives from seeking some common ground with our political opponents. Democracy demands that we do so.

Bhutto's Teen Son Is New Party Leader

By Cernig

The very fact that Bhutto's will names her 19 year old son Bilawal as her "heir" as leader of the PPP and hands the co-chairmanship to her astonishigly corrupt husband speaks volumes about Bhutto's own preference for oligarchy over democracy. It speaks volumes for the PPP that it rubber-stamped her wishes.

Bilawal Bhutto may not have finished his academic studies at Oxford yet, but he's been groomed well by his family for his new-found power. "Democracy is the best revenge," he told reporters with a straight face. His party will now contest the elections, forcing other frontrunner Nawaz Sharif to reconsider his boycott announced after Bhutto's assassination. There's no doubt in my mind that Bhutto's PPP aren't the best hope for Pakistan - they're simply the most electable. In that, they hold something very much in common with America's Democrats and Republicans, who are also enamoured of rich oligarchies.

But as Bhutto's supporters clash with security troops (what else do you call a paramilitary with a Kalashnikov? A policeman?) and Pakistan comes to a standstill; it seems that the elections will be used to paper over massive cracks in Pakistani society and that the various oligarchical factions will go on as normal in their aftermath. I smell a "soft totalitarian" quid pro quo.

Update The Bush administration, according to the WaPo today, has no Plan B for Pakistan and will stay the course(TM) with pushing Musharraf as the leader of a "moderate space" in Pakistani politics - a notion so wrong-headed and so inspired by a perfect snowstorm of Pakistani spin that it would be hilarious if it wasn't deathly depressing.

Oh, you EuroLeaders, you must choose!

by shamanic

Here's a crazy dude: Scott Ott, who seems to want to mask his lunacy by using a very tiny font, warns the leaders of Europe that after Benazir Bhutto, the caliphate is coming for them!

Interestingly (and for no apparent reason), he reels off a short list of European countries, but fails to mention the one where a leader actually was killed for his views on limiting Muslim immigration: Holland, where in 2002, Pim Fortuyn was assassinated by -- well, here's where the narrative caves a bit -- a Dutchman who didn't want to see the "weak parts" of society demonized for political points.

It probably also doesn't help the TownHall.com narrative that Fortuyn was openly and proudly gay.

And that Holland ended up adopting most of his immigration policy proposals after his death.

Ah, but you EuroLeaders, your democracy will not stand! The rising tide of Muslim bullets to the necks of blah blah blah. Whatever. This guy's way off his rocker.

McClatchy polls Iowa

by shamanic

We are mere days away from the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucus everybody!

After a marathon three year primary race, a handful of battered, bitter Republicans and most of an exuberant Democratic Party are sprinting to the finish line as Iowans prepare to enter oracle mode on Thursday.

According to McClatchy, the top three Democrats are effectively tied, with John Edwards experiencing the magical "mo" in these final days. The +-5% breakdown is John Edwards with 24%, Hillary Clinton with 23%, and Barack Obama with 22%. That's a pretty amazing amount of neck-in-neckery.

Things are more clear on the GOP side, as the party has spent the past year racing from one shining savior to the next: Mitt Romney to Rudy Giuliani to Fred Thompson to Mike Huckabee, and unsurprisingly, having exhausted all avenues of escape from its fate, the Iowa party has resettled on plan A, Multiple Choice Mitt, to lead it in the general.

(Moment of Commerce Moment: I have a selection of attractive "Multiple Choice Mitt" t-shirts for sale at Cafe Press (link fixed. Appears I was logged into Cafe Press when I copied the link), in which a candidate who faces many directions at once asks, "What do you want me to believe today?" I really hope he's the nominee. I can make a killing!)

Anyway, he's leading last week's GOP savior Mike Huckabee 27% to 22%, the religious right having realized that, "oh God, what if we get the nomination and lose???" and perhaps more troublingly, "oh God, what if we get the nomination and WIN???"

I worry about that too, so I appreciate the solidarity of the fringiest Americans in choosing to go with a hollow ambition machine rather than someone who, you know, actually believes all that crap.

(And no, I don't mean that Christianity is crap. That would be ungenerous and unfair. I mean that today's Republican Party is crap, which while also being ungenerous and unfair, does have the unavoidable merit of being The Truth.)

Moment of Disclaimer Moment: Who the hell is home to answer the phone between Dec. 26-28? I'll tell you who: the people whose lifestyles don't let them be anywhere other than Iowa. Also, people with landlines. Who uses landlines? Oh, and it's the Iowa caucus, so it's really anybody's guess in the end. THURSDAY PEOPLE. This thing could be all sewn up in like five weeks.

Kristol's Times

by shamanic

Just to pile on further, since I didn't yesterday: the problem with Bill Kristol isn't that he's a conservative. The problem is that he's consistently and unwaveringly wrong.

In a lot of arenas in life, if you're wrong all the time, you are considered a failure. In the media, if you're wrong all the time but really, really proud of your bad ideas, you get high-profile job offers. I'm filing this under "Things that are bad for America", because I don't know what else to say about letting the incomparably incorrect onto the op-ed pages.

Oh, and in case you're wondering what kind of dumb ass old-school liberals are running the Times these days, check out this awesome quote from Times editorial page editor Andy Rosenthal: “The idea that The New York Times is giving voice to a guy who is a serious, respected conservative intellectual — and somehow that’s a bad thing, how intolerant is that?”

Tolerance for the stupid, a cherished value of a certain kind of liberalism. Enjoy your new columnist, guys. He'd prosecute the entire organization if he could, but it's important to show tolerance and practice diversity in hiring privileged white dudes who can't make good decisions. Maybe after he leaves office, George Bush can fill the op-ed void as Kristol's one year contract expires.

Bhutto Catalogue

by shamanic

When Cernig first asked me to come and write for a new group blog version of his always insightful Newshog, almost a year ago now, I have to admit I felt a little intimidated. The dude is able to pull together information from a truly global assortment of news and opinion sources day in and day out, and he pursues stories from a clear point of view and interesting angle and with the intensity of a furious pit bull.

Right now, he is creating a catalogue of stories about a crime and its cover up. With the diligence of a sought-after trial attorney, Cernig is casting reasonable doubt on every new story that the Pakistani government pushes about the killing of Benazir Bhutto, and shedding light on the connections between the players, the pawns, and the kings.

It is unlikely that the true story of this attack and the parties involved will ever be known to the public. There are vested interests who will protect each other in whatever passes for an investigation in Pakistan, and western governments won't push Musharraf too hard anyway. The information Cernig is compiling is a series of important pieces of the historical record that will be whitewashed in the official versions, which is all the more reason to maintain them.

Monday December 31: New Tape Seems to Show Bhutto Was Shot. As the title suggests, plus statements from doctors at the hospital denying the "sunroof lever" theory.

Sunday December 30: Bhutto's Bloodstained Car. A video shows the quantity of blood in the car after her arrival at the hospital.

Sunday December 30: Bhutto's Teen Son Is New Party Leader. In which the quote "Democracy is the best revenge" joins the lexicon of paternalistic aristocrats.

Saturday December 29: The Man Who Shot Bhutto. Contains quotes from Safdar Abbassi, Bhutto political advisor who was in the car when she fell into it. He insists that she was shot in the neck -- his wife tried to stanch the wound with her headscarf -- contrary to official Pakistani reports. In updates to the post, The Daily Mail declines to name names in the Pakistani political establishment, and The Daily Express reports that photographs show there were two attackers and a lot of excess explosives after the attack.

Saturday December 29: Pakistan's Hope Still Under House Arrest. Short piece about Iftikhar Chaudhry, chief justice of Pakistan's Supreme Court and a potential leader for a now-leaderless democracy movement in Pakistan.

Saturday December 29: Islamist Group Denies Killing Bhutto. Detailed piece exploring the role of Baitullah Mehsud, who I guess is who we would call a "person of interest". Also: an overview of the Pakistani government's shifting explanation of how Bhutto died, and the fact that police were known to have abandoned checkpoints around the rally after an early security presence there.

Friday December 28: More Questions than Answers. In which Pakistan first utters the multi-billion dollar phrase, "Al-Qaeda did it!"

Friday December 28: Bhutto Avalanche Round-Up & Us. This piece is by me, but contains a worthwhile link to the Washington Post's coverage of the US government's role and motivation in putting Bhutto back in Pakistan to begin with.

Thursday December 27: Breaking News in Pakistan. This post was updated throughout the day as more information (and speculation) became available. Contains the original back-and-forth about whether Musharraf would be the primary beneficiary of Benazir Bhutto's death (I say it hurts Mushie more than it helps, Cernig says he needed someone to rid him of a "turbulent priest", a phrase I'm so grateful he used. Google it for its amazing applicability.).

Saturday, December 29, 2007

The Man Who Shot Bhutto (Updated)

By Cernig

The above amateur picture is of a man aiming a handgun towards Benazir Bhutto's vehicle. The Daily Telegraph spoke to Safdar Abbassi, her chief political adviser, who was sitting behind her.

"All of a sudden there was the sound of firing. I heard the sound of a bullet."I saw her: she looked as though she ducked in when she heard the firing. We did not realise that she had been hit by a bullet."

He had looked up to see Ms Bhutto sliding back through the aperture in the roof of the white Land Cruiser. Moments later, the car was rocked by a huge explosion.

There was no sound from the fallen leader.

...Dr Abbassi leant forward to see what was wrong. At first glance, she appeared to have escaped injury. Then he noticed the blood. It was seeping from a deep wound on the left side of her neck.

His account is confirmed by photos that have surfaced in Pakistan showing a man in dark glasses aiming a handgun and standing only few feet from Ms Bhutto, moments before she died.

Naheeb Khan, his wife, cradled the injured woman's head in her lap, reaching up for her own headscarf, pulling it from her head, pressing it into the wound, trying to stem the flow. But the wound was deep and the blood seeped out, spreading down her neck and across her blue tunic.

The official Pakistani government line is that Ms Bhutto caught her head on the sunroof's catch as she ducked inside, fracturing her skull. "Absolute facts - nothing but facts," it said of its account. But Dr Abbassi leaves little room for doubt. There was too much blood, he said, and a gaping wound in her neck. She had been shot.

..."We thought she had ducked in but she had not, she had fallen down," said Dr Abbassi. "She did not say a single word. For a few seconds we thought she was confused by the firing and that is why she was not talking. We did not realise…"

Before anyone had a chance to speak, the attacker detonated his explosives, peppering the vehicle with ball bearings.

"There was a big bang. Some of the shrapnel hit the car and then the driver sped away." In the following car, Farhad Ullah Babar, Ms Bhutto's chief spokesman, saw his leader disappear back inside her car. "There was a huge bang and everyone was running from one place to the other but the vehicle was still moving," he said. "She disappeared. So we thought, because she had gone inside, that she was safe."

But inside the car in front, realisation was dawning. "We saw the blood: the blood was everywhere, on her neck and on her clothes and we realised she was hit. She could not say anything," Dr Abbassi said, his shirt still stained with Ms Bhutto's blood.

Able to do nothing more than stanch some of the bleeding, they made for the nearest hospital. Ms Bhutto was still alive when she was carried into the intensive care unit, but her injuries were so severe that she stood no chance.

"The doctors really tried their best but it was too late," Dr Abbassi said, amid tears. "I was so optimistic: I thought nothing would happen to her. I still feel she is alive. I cannot believe she is with us no more."

And the Daily Mail reports that, weeks before she died, Bhutto sent an email to UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband in which she named three Musharraf allies who she said were out to kill her. The Mail says it knows the names but has decided not to publish them.

One is a senior intelligence officer and retired army officer who worked for Pakistan's sinister Inter Services Intelligence spy agency, which has close links to the Taliban and has been involved in drug smuggling and political assassinations. He allegedly directed two Islamic terrorist groups and reportedly once boasted that he could pay money to hired killers to assassinate anyone who posed a threat to Musharraf's regime.

He was given another senior intelligence post by Musharraf after his bid to become a senior overseas diplomat for Pakistan failed when the host country refused to let him in because of his past activities.

He was also linked to Omar Sheikh, the former British public schoolboy convicted of kidnapping US journalist Daniel Pearl, who was murdered in 2002 by having his throat cut and being decapitated by Islamic terrorists.

The second individual named by Miss Bhutto is well known in Pakistani political circles and has been involved in a vicious family feud with her for decades.

One of his relatives was said to have been murdered by the militant Al Zulfiqar group run by Miss Bhutto's brother, Murtaza. The organisation was set up to avenge the execution of Miss Bhutto's father Zulfiqar Bhutto by ex-Pakistan dictator Zia ul Haq.

The third individual is a chief minister who has repeatedly denounced Miss Bhutto - and faced political annihilation if she won the elections scheduled for next week. He made an outspoken attack on her only hours before her death.

Update the UK's Daily Express adds:

Grainy images of a balding man firing two shots at Miss Bhutto before detonating an explosion are now being enhanced by security agencies investigating whether the plot was the work of a rogue terror outfit or was masterminded by either Al Qaeda affiliates or renegade elements within President Musharraf's government.

Meanwhile, last night an English-language Pakistan TV channel broadcast pictures taken by an amateur photographer which, it said, showed that two assassins took part in the attack.

One photo shows a man in a dark suit and wearing sunglasses within 12 yards of Miss Bhutto and pointing what appears to be a gun at her. Just behind him is another man, dressed all in white, who the Dawn News channel said was an associate of the gunman and who activated the bomb. Another picture shows Mrs Bhutto falling back into her car and disappearing from view before the explosives are triggered.

Security sources have revealed that 11 lb of explosives and two pistols found near the body of the assassin are being looked at by forensic experts and fingerprints taken from the killer's corpse are being checked against the records of the ISI, Pakistan's military intelligence arm.

Why wasn't that 11 pounds of explosive detonated by the massive explosion too, I wonder? And note that Bhutto fell back inside the car before the bomb went off.

A bi-partisan blogging project

By Libby

Captain Ed is looking for recruits from the left to wage war on pork and offers up a tempting target for mutual disgust with a Republican earmark.

The development, named the Tawawa/Dave Hobson Plaza at a 1 p.m. ribbon-cutting, is joint project between Speedway SuperAmerica, which has its corporate headquarters in Enon, and the Tawawa Community Business Development Center.

In addition to the 2,500 sq. ft., 24-7 gas station and convenience store, the plaza contains 500 sq. ft. of retail space that is expected to be leased to a pizza parlor or other take-out restaurant. Officials at CSU and at Wilberforce University believe that’s something vitally important in a community with hundreds of college students and no pizza delivery or nearby fast food options.

As Ed points out, "Washington has no business building gas stations and pizza parlors and using our money to score points with the hometown folks." I often disagree with Ed, but he's on the money here. Surely oil companies and national fast food chains can afford to bankroll their own plazas. And you can be certain that with the tens of thousands of earmarks that lard our legislation that there are many more incumbency protection projects just like this.

Ed wants to know if we can "all agree that earmarking should get banned altogether now?" I suppose he's looking to hook bigger fish than me with this post, but for the record Ed, I've been on board since the day they started Porkbusters. I've long believed eliminating earmarks would remove a myriad of roadblocks that impede an efficient and responsive government.

I'd love to see something like a co-ordinated listserv that does two posts a week on pointless pork, alternating equally between Democrats and Republicans. Not only would it serve the common good, it would be a way to restore the function of Blogtopia as a citizen watchdog, instead of a battleground for partisan sniping.

The day the NYT died

By Libby

I had to look twice to make sure that it wasn't a New Year's joke by The Onion, but no, the NYT really gave Krazy Kristol a gig as a regular columnist. Billy Kristol, a pundit so pointlessly ponderous and profoundly wrong about everything, and whose inane bleatings are so poorly written, if we didn't already have the word banal in the dictionary, we would have had to invent it to describe his diatribes, has just been given the deed to a prime piece of media real estate.

Kristol!?! A pundit so embarrassing that Time magazine, who continues to keep clueless Joe Klein on the roster, fired him, and he gets his own soapbox at the former newspaper of record? If the NYT's goal was to destroy their credibility and become the laughingstock of the media industry, they've succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.

Pakistan's Hope Still Under House Arrest

By Cernig

Mona Eltahawy writes at the Washington Post's "Post Global" today, in a "warts and all" personal recollection of Benazir Bhutto, that the real alternative to military rule or Islamist unrest may be:

Iftikhar Chaudhry, chief justice of Pakistan’s Supreme Court, who has been under house arrest since November 3rd. Musharraf imprisoned dozens of judges and lawyers when he declared Emergency Law in late October because they represent a potent liberal opposition that is not tainted by corruption charges and do not have an Islamist bogeyman among them to obligingly frighten his western allies, who seem to believe he really is leading the War on Terror.

Chaudhry and the lawyers are Pakistan’s best hope. Pakistan needs them, as does a Muslim world hungry for a different kind of leadership – one that Bhutto seemed to represent in those early days of promise.

As the Pakistani government tries to spin the narrative from "who killed Bhutto" into "how did Bhutto die" with some muddying of the evidentiary waters - with a high pressure hose - it's worth trying to keep our eyes on the actual problem.

Islamist Group Denies Killing Bhutto (Updated)

By Cernig

Curiouser and curiouser, as Alice might say. It was obvious from word one that the Pakistani government's blaming Baitullah Mehsud for Bhutto's death while calling him an Al Qaeda leader was problemmatic. For one thing, Mehsud's always been more of a Taliban type than an AQ honcho - which is why Musharraf pardoned him in a deal with the Taliban back in 2005. The Interior Ministry's claim yesterday that Mehsud's group is "behind most of the recent terrorist attacks that have taken place in Pakistan," is also patently ludicrous given relatively humble Mehsud's status as one of several local Taliban affiliated commanders in South Waziristan and the plethora of terrorist groups Pakistan finds itself host to.

Then there's the alleged telephone intercept released to bolster the government's claim. In it, they say, Mehsud talks to one of his henchmen about the attack. The problem is the henchman's name - Maulvi Sahib - isn't even a real name. The last part is just an honorific and the first refers to someone who leads Friday prayers. The house where Mehsud supposedly is staying is that of someone called Anwar Shah - which has to be one of the most common names in Pakistan. Even Mushie's own Assistant Political Agent for South Waziristan is called that! And "Maulvi Sahib" nowhere actually refers to Baitullah Mehsud by name - he calls the person he is talking to "Emir" (Chief) throughout. Pretty damn flimsy proof.

Unsurprisingly, Mehsud has denied responsibility, just as he did when blame was pinned on him for the last attempt on Bhutto's life back in October.

Alleged Al-Qaeda leader Baitullah Mehsud denied any involvement in Benazir Bhutto's death after the Pakistan government blamed him for the killing, his spokesman told AFP on Saturday.

"He had no involvement in this attack," spokesman Maulana Omar said in a telephone call. "This is a conspiracy of the government, army and intelligence agencies."

The spokesman said he was calling from Pakistan's Waziristan area, a lawless tribal region where Pakistani government forces have been battling Islamist militants. "It is against tribal tradition and custom to attack a woman," Omar said.

He said the transcript released by the government, allegedly of a phone call between Mehsud and a militant discussing Bhutto's death after the fact, was a "drama" and expressed sadness over her assassination on Thursday.

He said it would have been "impossible" for militants to get through the security cordon around the campaign rally where she was killed.

"Benazir was not only a leader of Pakistan but also a leader of international fame. We express our deep grief and shock over her death," Omar said.

FOXNews adds that Mehsud had contact with Bhutto through intermediaries:

"We strongly deny it. Baitullah Mehsud is not involved in the killing of Benazir Bhutto," he said in a telephone call he made to The Associated Press from the tribal region of South Waziristan.

"The fact is that we are only against America, and we don't consider political leaders of Pakistan our enemy," he said, adding that he was speaking on instructions from Mehsud.

Mehsud heads Tehrik-i-Taliban, a newly formed coalition of Islamic militants committed to waging holy war against the government, which is a key U.S. ally in its war on terror.

Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party accused the government of trying to frame Mehsud, saying the militant — through emissaries — had previously told Bhutto he was not involved in the Karachi bombing.

"The story that al-Qaida or Baitullah Mehsud did it appears to us to be a planted story, an incorrect story, because they want to divert the attention," said Farhatullah Babar, a spokesman for Bhutto's party.

After the Karachi attack, Bhutto accused elements in the ruling pro-Musharraf party of plotting to kill her. The government denied the claims. Babar said Bhutto's allegations were never investigated.

When asked about Mehsud's denial, goverment spokesman Brigadier Cheema said: "We have the evidence that he is involved. Why should he accept that he has done it? It does not suit him. I don't think anybody has the capability to carry out such suicide attacks except for those people." If he truly thinks that, he must be the only one. There are plenty of other possible suspects.

But if the government's finger of blame is suspect, then so too is its account of how Bhutto died.

On Thursday, hours after Bhutto's death, the Pakistani Interior Ministry said she died from a gunshot wound to the neck, with the gunman firing as Bhutto stood through the open sunroof of her vehicle while leaving a rally in Rawalpindi. The gunman then blew himself up, killing 23 others as well, officials said.

Video of the incident shows a man shooting a handgun three times toward Bhutto's car before the blast. The account was consistent with statements to The Associated Press from doctors who pronounced Bhutto dead at a hospital. Watch three shots and a blast

But on Friday, the Interior Ministry said Bhutto was killed by shrapnel from the explosion. Then, hours later, the ministry said she died from a skull fracture suffered when she either fell or ducked into the car as a result of the shots or the explosion and crashed her head into a sunroof latch. Watch the government account of how Bhutto died

"The government comes up with the most bizarre, dangerous nonsense and it indicates that they are abdicating themselves of all responsibility by saying that she may have knocked her head or concussed her head against one of the levers on the sunroof," [Sherry Rehman, Pakistan People's Party information secretary said.

Reham recounted her own eyewitness version:

Rehman -- who had been riding in the car behind Bhutto's when it was attacked -- called the government's conclusion that Bhutto was not shot "the most bizarre, dangerous nonsense."

"It's beginning to look like a cover-up to me," Rehman said in a CNN interview.

Rehman said Bhutto was hemorrhaging on the way to the hospital and that the two cars used to get her there were blood-soaked.

"There were clear bullet injuries to her head," said Rehman. "When we bathed her we saw that."

One McClatchy journalist who was an eyewitness backed up the PPP's account and also reported police officers leaving their posts just before shots rang out.

Three to five shots were fired at her, witnesses said. She was hit in the neck and slumped back in the vehicle. Blood poured from her head, and she never regained consciousness. Moments after the shooting, there was a huge explosion to the left of the vehicle.

Witnesses said that Bhutto's bodyguards pounced on the assassin, who then blew himself up, shredding those around him. Ambulance crews collected pieces of flesh from the scene. The road turned red with pools of blood.

I was standing near the rally stage, about 30 to 40 yards away from the scene of the shooting. There was pandemonium. On hearing the shots, I started running toward the scene. Then came the explosion. I ran back a bit. I didn't see the killer, and by the time I got to the gates, Bhutto's SUV was driving to a Rawalpindi hospital. She didn't have a chance.

...Police officers had frisked the 3,000 to 4,000 people attending Thursday's rally when they entered the park, but as the speakers from Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party droned on, the police abandoned many of their posts. As she drove out through the gate, her main protection appeared to be her own bodyguards, who wore their usual white T-shirts inscribed: "Willing to die for Benazir."

That's just one of the security lapses the PPP are pointing to - along with government refusal to provide escort cars or bomb jamming equipment and refusal to allow international investigators to look into the last attempt on Bhutto's life. The Pakistani government has denied all charges of negligence or complicity and said the PPP can dig up Bhutto's body if it wants a postmortem (something the government expects ignorant Westerners not to know is haraam or "forbidden by God").

So what are we to believe? That the government is right and that Mehsud, the PPP, Bhutto herself - she wrote well prior to her death that she feared Musharraf's henchmen - and eyewitnesses are all wrong? Or that the government of pakistan is lying through it's teeth?

I'm not sure that Musharraf personally said "someone kill her" although that's still a strong possibility. I think it was more along the lines of "will no-one rid me of this turbulent priest?" But the sponsorship links between the ISI and the various AQ/Taliban franchises and copycats are so numerous and well documented I find it difficult to believe Musharraf couldn't control the ISI and thus the various groups if he wanted to. The idea that he's the puppet of the military/ISI in the shadows is nonsense. He's always been the ringleader of the military coup since he arranged to depose Sharif. I'm reminded of the Bush spin on Iran and the "special forces" in Iraq - which is worse, that the leadership is controlling it's agents actions or that it isn't?

But the Pakistani authorities have again refused to allow international experts anywhere near the site of Bhutto's death or any of the evidence associated with their claims and satements.

Update Pakistan's Daily Times has a headline and a half: Report silent on what hit Benazir’s head.

The seven-member medical team that examined former premier Benazir Bhutto at Rawalpindi General Hospital on December 27, submitted its report to the Interior Ministry, making no mention of what exactly hit the head of the former prime minister.

A 3-page medical report, a copy of which is available with Daily Times, stated that an open-head injury with depressed skull fracture caused a cardiopulmonary arrest. The Interior Ministry had claimed that Benazir suffered a head injury after hitting the lever of her vehicle’s sunroof. The report read, “Benazir was pulse-less and was not breathing when she was brought to the hospital. Her pupils were fixed dilated and non-reacting to light. A wound was present on the right temporo-parietal region through which blood was trickling down and a whitish material, which looked like brain matter was visible in the wound.”It said that cardiopulmonary resuscitation was given as soon as Benazir was brought to the hospital.

So wtf? Did the Interior Ministry just make up the bit about the sunroof lever? If so, as several people have already pointed out, it was to try to make Bhutto's death look more accidental and thus reduce the chances of this flawed women in life becoming a faultless martyr in death.

Moreover, amateur photographs and video shot at the scene clearly show an identifiable gunman aiming at Bhutto and firing, while witness statements are extremely consistent in saying she was shot.

What Bhutto's assassination means domestically

by shamanic

On Thursday, all the US political campaigns were quick to start elbowing each other about how the assassination of Benazir Bhutto highlighted their candidate's credentials for dealing with the blah blah of it all, and it was sick and disgusting and opportunistic.

My guess is that it will have only this effect on the US presidential race: Mike Huckabee will suffer for his incredible ignorance. It's astonishing that a man who is considered by many to be a front runner in the party that says it has the strongest foreign policy should be so devoid of a basic understanding of the situation here on planet Earth.

Joe Lieberman says we've made mistakes in Iraq

by shamanic

How come when he says it, he's not a treasonous troop-hating blame America first terrorist sympathizing anti-American old European cowardly traitor out to undermine our glorious war effort?

(We're saving money on commas today at Newshoggers.)

Friday, December 28, 2007

Peggy's prose for the proles

By Libby

I just got back from a couple of days at my sister's house and I'm catching on the news, looking for something to write about. I just can't wrap my head around the Bhutto assassination. It's too dark and complicated a story. I'm not ready to harsh my mellow with heavy thinking.

No, I was looking for something timely but insipid. Maybe even vacuous. Ah, Peggy Noonan. Perfect.

This is my 2008 slogan: Reasonable Person for President. That is my hope, what I ask Iowa to produce, and I claim here to speak for thousands, millions. We are grown-ups, we know our country needs greatness, but we do not expect it and will settle at the moment for good. We just want a reasonable person. We would like a candidate who does not appear to be obviously insane. We'd like knowledge, judgment, a prudent understanding of the world and of the ways and histories of the men and women in it.

I'll spare you the rest of her inane mumblings and tell you everyone made the cut except Clinton, Edwards and Huckabee. Edwards being disqualified solely on his hair. Giuliani qualified as reasonable but she doesn't like him anyway and she'll tell you why some day -- if she feels like it. Kucinich, Gravel and Paul don't even exist in her little netherworld.

She inspired me to invent my own slogan for 2008. Reasonably Intelligent and Honestly Thoughtful Political Commentary from our Over-Glorified Professional Pundits. I'm sick to death of overpaid, blithering mouthpieces of conventional Beltway blather who do more to poison our politics with their pointless pontificating, than all the partisan politicking in the world.

What a joke to see Noonan claiming to speak for the grown-ups of America when she in fact belongs to the elite cadre of arrested adolescents that dominate the major media. She's the voice of those favored few who have reduced the public dialogue to the level of teenage girls trading childish barbs over boyfriends. That they get to drive the political discourse is not funny at all.

We Won A 'Fister!

By Cernig

We are greatly pleased and humbled to have won the 2007 "Mighty Quill" Monkeyfister Award. Thanks MF.

Check out the other award winners, all hugely deserving blogs.

Instahoglets 28th December 2007

By Cernig

The assassination of Pakistan's Benazir Bhutto continues to dominate the headlines and op-eds today - as it rightly should. But there's other stuff out there worthy of attention too. So today's Instahoglets comes in two chunks:

Bhutto Discussion and Reports

Yesterday, National Review got a bunch of their usual suspects to pontificate on the impact of the assassination. Lord help me, I found myself agreeing in large part with Victor David Hanson!

Steve Benen, guesting for Kevin Drum, scathingly points out the stupidity of every candidate in the US '08 race claiming this bolsters their campaign.

This really has the Islamophobes climbing out of their closets, though. One Rudy campaigner is claiming Guilliani is the only one who can chase "the Muslims" back "into their caves". Niiice. But I suspect we'll hear lots more of the same.

Andrew Sullivan points out that Al Qaeda being to blame is actually the most optimistic assessment.

But there's a report that another Taliban-linked group, the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, may be responsible. Backgrounder on the group here and here you'll find the links between that group and Pakistan's ISI intelligence agency.

Non-Bhutto Related Stuff

When warhawks lose their faith, they do so in a hawkish way. John Derbyshire at NRO contemplates living with an Iranian mid-East hegemon and concludes: "Given the rivalries and hatreds of the ME, I doubt a stable Iranian hegemony is possible. If it is possible, it's something we'll learn to live with, and no direct threat to the U.S.A. that I can see."

NY Times: "Top editors at the military newspaper Stars and Stripes are asking for full disclosure of the paper's relationship with a Department of Defense publicity program, called America Supports You, after disclosures that money for the program was funneled through the newspaper." The Bushies politicising supposedly independent chunks of the federal infrastructure? Who'd a thunk it!

So obsessed with secrecy! - the CIA refuses to declassify the size and budget of the Agency....fifty years ago.

The Iraqi government announcement that monthly food rations will be cut by half has left many Iraqis asking how they can survive. They say they've run out of money despite having several billion dollars to do what Saddam managed with one billion. That'll be your Bushivick-advised government, then.

Iraqi reconcilliation update: the Kirkuk referendum has been postponed because the various players can't agree on how to run the census needed before the vote. And the much-promised rewriting of the Iraqi Constitution to address Sunni misgivings has been postponed for the fourth time.

War on the Real Terrorist or dangerous superstition? Pope Benedict XVI plans to tackle the rise of Satanism by setting up specialist exorcism squads in every diocese.

Bhutto Avalanche Round-Up & Us

by shamanic

So much information and analysis this morning, so I'll see if I can't summarize the best of what's out there.

First, you should read the entirety of the Washington Post's piece on how (and why) the US brokered Bhutto's return to Pakistan. Choice cuts:

As President Pervez Musharraf's political future began to unravel this year, Bhutto became the only politician who might help keep him in power.
"The U.S. came to understand that Bhutto was not a threat to stability, but was instead the only possible way that we could guarantee stability and keep the presidency of Musharraf intact," said Mark Siegel, who lobbied for Bhutto in Washington and witnessed much of the behind-the-scenes diplomacy.

Another expert, somewhat prematurely I think, says:

Bhutto's assassination leaves Pakistan's future -- and Musharraf's -- in doubt, some experts said. "U.S. policy is in tatters. The administration was relying on Benazir Bhutto's participation in elections to legitimate Musharraf's continued power as president," said Barnett R. Rubin of New York University. "Now Musharraf is finished."

Musharraf is certainly a guy with nine lives, and I'm not sure he doesn't have a couple left. But certainly his time seems much more limited than it was before. Pakistanis are clearly finished with his dictatorship, and the swirling emotions of an election hot on the heels of a political assassination make the situation there unpredictable at best.

Scarecrow at Firedoglake drops the hammer on the US policy in the region, saying in effect that we sacrificed Benazir Bhutto to save Pervez Musharraf. That's certainly one interpretation of events, and it is worth noting that this is an administration that constantly makes big gambles, often losing spectacularly. Had the election happened and Bhutto's party won a landslide, perhaps Pakistan could have transitioned away from military rule. But, you know, the moderate choice for democracy could also be shot a few times and then blown to bits by the very radicals we're trying to contain. (Or whoever. As demonstrated in the multiple-update thread, a lot of groups stand to gain from her death, including the Pakistani military, the security service, and Pervez Musharraf himself, not to mention the many extremist groups that call Pakistan home.)

Al-Qaeda is trying to claim responsibility for the attack, but it's apparently not a very credible claim, at least at this point. My strictly uneducated guess is that the attack included help from several quarters, including extremist sympathizers in the military.

So where does this leave Musharraf? And where does this leave US policy in the region, and the Great & Glorious Generational Struggle/War Against Terror and Violent Jihad? Your guess is as good as mine. Here's what I know: Americans continue to be saddled with abysmally bad leadership that can't make a decent policy decision to save anybody's life. That situation will continue for another year yet, and in the meantime, the world will continue going to hell in the absence of that leadership. Perhaps I overstate our influence. But Pakistan now appears on the brink of rapid, jarring change in a region where that rarely plays out well, Afghanistan (next door) isn't exactly the paradise I had hoped for in 2002, Iran (next door) isn't exactly the WOT ally it was attempting to be in 2003, and Iraq (next door to Iran) continues to be a quagmire from which we cannot extricate the great bulk of America's combat-ready troops.

All in all, it sure seems like something just slammed hard into a fan somewhere.

Bhutto's media legacy

by shamanic

Ordinarily, I get up in the morning, take the doggies out, make some coffee, and then check out Memeorandum to get some story ideas for ye olde blogge.

I'm not sure I've ever seen the site so dominated by one story as it is this morning with analysis of Benazir Bhutto's assassination. I have nothing to add since my snark last night (that would be Update 9 in the post below).

One of the problems with being a blogger rather than a journalist is that you almost always have to wait until the next day for the avalanche of information you want instantly. The avalanche has hit. More later.

Thursday, December 27, 2007

Breaking News in Pakistan (Update - 9)

CNN is reporting that Benazir Bhutto has been assassinated in a complex attack including gunfire and a suicide bomber against her and her entourage. Political violence has been a constant in Pakistan, including the massive suicide bomber attack against a Bhutto rally in October; also today political violence occurred in the capital:

The attack came just hours after four supporters of Pakistan's former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif died when members of another political party opened fire on them at a rally near the Islamabad airport Thursday, Pakistan police said.

I am not a Pakistani political expert, I'll pass commentary off to more knowledgable people other than saying that this is not good.

Update by shamanic: This story is likely to be the most pressing news today, and we'll be updating this post as more information becomes available.

The Washington Post is reporting that another attack in Rawalpindi preceded the Bhutto assassination:

Also Thursday, a rooftop sniper opened fire on supporters of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif at a different pre-election rally in Rawalpindi, leaving four dead and at least five injured.

If these were coordinated attacks, this is an extremely muscular terrorist attack.

Update 2 Pakistani Spectator is reporting rioting is occuring by the PPP supporters

In Rawalpindi, right in front of Rawalpindi General Hospital where Late Benazir Bhutto died and her dead body is present right now, workers of People's Party are sitting and weeping loudly. In other areas of Rawalpindi like Faizabad, Saddar and Murree Road, angry crowd is burning shops and vehicles and shouting slogans against the terorists.

On Dusht Road, Peshawar, angry crowd has blocked the main road.

All the roads leading to capital Islamabad have been barricaded and blocked and there are reports of collision of police with protesters.

Update 3 By Cernig This is going to be the main story of the day so we'll be updateing this post and bumping it to the top of the page regularly.

Memeorandum has a lot of reaction to the news right now and a lot of speculation. In comments here, "the BHC" is stating the obvious - there has to be a lot of suspicion about possible Musharraf complicity or even direction in this attack. Tas explains why - Rawalpindi is the most militarized town in Pakistan.

Being located less than ten miles to the south of Islamabad, the city is home to a Pakistan Army corps that can hold sway in any potential coup, so leaders of Pakistan always appoint a general they can trust to run the Rawalpindi Corps (also known as "10 Corps" and "X Corps"). Case in point, one of the last commanders of the Rawalpindi Corps was General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani –- the man President Musharraf just picked to replace himself as the Chief of Staff for Pakistan's Army.

Many observers will note, as they did when two spectactularly failed attempts on Musharraf's life occurred in Rawalpindi which gave him an excuse to round up some dissenters, that this act could not have been launched, nevermind come close to being successful, without help from members of Pakistan's military and intelligence apparatuses. As Ali Eteraz notes: "Its very important to see what Musharraf does. If he does not arrest any terrorist sympathizers in the military, that’s a problem."

Steve Benen notes:

Widespread unrest in Pakistan is practically inevitable, and Bhutto supporters outside the hospital where she was treated began chanting “Dog, Musharraf, dog,” in reference to Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf.

Musharraf, of course, had promised free parliamentary elections next month, coinciding with the end of his “emergency rule,” though, given Bhutto’s reported assassination, the country may be poised to endure additional turmoil.

And quotes Spencer Ackerman in conversations with analyst Barnett Rubin:

Bhutto's assassination presents an opportunity for Musharraf. "It's very possible Musharraf will declare [another] state of emergency and postpone the elections," Rubin continues. "That will confirm in many people's minds the idea that the military is behind" the assassination. For it's part, the U.S. will likely "be scrambling to say the election either needs to be held as planned or postponed rather than canceled, but Musharraf is in a position to preempt that."

As a result, Rubin says, U.S. strategy is "in tatters."

However (via Hot Air), AKI news service says Al Qaeda is claiming responsibility.

A spokesperson for the al-Qaeda terrorist network has claimed responsibility for the death on Thursday of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

“We terminated the most precious American asset which vowed to defeat [the] mujahadeen,” Al-Qaeda’s commander and main spokesperson Mustafa Abu Al-Yazid told Adnkronos International (AKI) in a phone call from an unknown location, speaking in faltering English. Al-Yazid is the main al-Qaeda commander in Afghanistan.

However, given that the Pakistani intelligence agency, the ISI, is alleged to have consistently sheltered and directed both Al Qaeda and the Taliban as proxies in much the same way as the Iranian Quods Force is reputed to have done with Iraqi Shiite groups and Hizboullah, that claim of responsibility may just be the first link in a chain.

Update 4 By Cernig The Times of India reports that all the heightened security was in Islamabad after a warning from the Pakistani Interior Ministry that assassination attempts would be made there. Significant? Quite possibly. The Guardian's Jason Burke runs through the various suspects - including AQ, the Taliban and Kashmiri extremists, but notes:

Bhutto herself, talking to me two weeks ago, spoke of the hardcore of senior military officers, spies, retired generals and others who she believed ran a shadow state in Pakistan with strong Islamic militant sympathies and who wanted to destroy her. She constantly made such claims that were often exaggerated, but they did contain a kernel of truth.

There are many within the Pakistani establishment who would have wanted her dead. Is President Musharaf among them? I think not. He is a soldier, a nationalist, a pragmatic and far from a convinced democrat, but I do not think he is a closet Islamist. He does not benefit from her murder as it undermines his sole justification for being in power: that he is the only person around capable of maintaining order - with the army as well. Yet there are others within the military, and especially the sprawling intelligence services, who do not necessarily follow his orders.

Opposition groups are already warning of civil war:

Riaz Malik of the opposition party Pakistan Movement for Justice (Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf) warned: "The impact will be that Pakistan is in more turmoil - it will be the start of civil war in Pakistan. There is a very real danger of civil war in Pakistan."
He said while suspicion was likely to fall on insurgent groups based in the northern tribal areas near the Afghan border, the killing was bound to increase dissatisfaction with the regime of the president, Pervez Musharraf.

"There will be a lot of fingers pointed at the government," he said.

Former Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif sat with Bhutto's body at the hospital before describing the death as "a tragedy for the entire nation".

He told the BBC's News 24: "There has been a serious lapse in security. The government should have ensured the protection of Benazir Bhutto."

...Hamid Khan, a spokesman from the Pakistan embassy, said it was too early to comment on whether there was a need to impose a state of emergency or reschedule the election to protect the public.

"It is too early to make any assumptions, but obviously this is a major development and the president and the government will be looking at every dimension," he said.

The London Times speculates that if the elections go ahead, the PPP will coalesce around another leader - probably Ameen Fahim, the party vice-president who ran the party during Bhutto's years of exile - and go on to a landslide victory.

Update 5 by shamanic

There seems to be a lot of feeling that Musharaf himself would be the primary beneficiary of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, but I think that's false. His country stands a real chance of falling apart today, a not-unpredictable outcome from this, and the key beneficiaries would be the tribal zones and their Taliban and AQ inhabitants. Bhutto, meaningfully or not, had announced a hard line policy approach to these regions.

That this may have included Islamist elements within the military is a straightforward enough assertion, and may well be true. That those groups are tied to Musharaf or his coterie of generals is -- at least based on my limited understanding of Pakistan's internal workings -- unlikely. These are the groups that Musharaf is warring against internally, and the groups his generals most fear. The generals will be the first to lose their heads if the Islamist elements beneath them take over.

Update 6 By Cernig I'm going to disagree with Shamanic on this one. Musharraf has already proven he and his military could hold the line against massive civil unrest in the areas he controls. As for the area he doesn't control - well, no-one does. He has everything to gain from having a proxy group bump off bhutto. TPM reports:

After an October attack on Bhutto's life in Karachi, the ex-prime minister warned "certain individuals in the security establishment [about the threat] and nothing was done," says Husain Haqqani, a confidante of Bhutto's for decades. "There is only one possibility: the security establishment and Musharraf are complicit, either by negligence or design. That is the most important thing. She's not the first political leader killed, since Musharraf took power, by the security forces."

Haqqani notes that Bhutto died of a gunshot wound to the neck. "It's like a hit, not a regular suicide bombing," he says. "It's quite clear that someone who considers himself Pakistan's Godfather has a very different attitude toward human life than you and I do."

As for what comes next: Haqqani doubts that Musharraf will go forward with scheduled elections. "The greatest likelihood is that this was aimed not just aimed at Benazir Bhutto but at weakening Pakistan's push for democracy," he says.

It may well be that some Islamist extremist group will eventually get the blame for assassinating Bhutto, but no Islamist group in Pakistan is free of the Pakistani intelligence agency's influence. All, from AQ and the Taliban on down, have been used as proxies by the ISI. According to some reports, British intelligence even gave the US Mullah Omar's telephone number - at his ISI safe house in Quetta, Pakistan. The current head of the Pakistani military, a long-time Musharraf loyalist, was promoted to that post from his previous position as head of the ISI. Politically, the main islamist party backs Musharraf in the Pakistani parliament. The notion that Musharraf is battling or fears his own supporters or proxies is simply spin promulgated by Musharraf and his ISI themselves.

Update 7 by shamanic

While Musharaf is certainly an extremely powerful figure in Pakistan, I don't think he's the master player you give him credit for being. He has stumbled badly from time to time, and several times this year. Western diplomats reported that he was shocked by the intensity of western disapproval of the state of emergency, and he was likely pretty panicked when western papers began to focus on strategies for a post-Musharaf Pakistan.

Also worth noting, Musharaf has also been the target of several assassination attempts by some of the groups you refer to as "his own supporters or proxies." The situation is obviously more complicated than every group in Pakistan being pawns or proxies for Musharaf or an unfailingly loyal (a highly suspect proposition) ISI.

None of this is to say that Musharaf couldn't have been involved, but I was surprised by comments here and elsewhere issuing very black-and-white, knee jerk reactions about Musharaf's windfall in this situation. If anything, his future becomes less certain as a result.

Update 8 By Cernig Sha should have written "Musharaf has also been the target of several spectacularily unsuccessful and cack-handed assassination attempts" - as when two "assassins" went to the trouble of hauling a heavy machinegun and it's anti-aircraft mount up a few flights of stairs before shooting at Musharraf's helicopter with an AK-47, then running away leaving the machinegun behind as evidence of "seriousness' and escaping through the heavy security cordon set up for Musharraf's visit that day. It's also difficult to imagine that the ISI could have an agent who acted as a key link with al-Qaeda leaders, including escorting Osama Bin Laden, without the dictator's knowledge.

Bhutto's own words from her CNN op-ed in November look increasingly prescient to me:

I have long claimed that the rise of extremism and militancy in Pakistan could not happen without support from elements within the current administration. My return to my country poses a threat to the forces of extremism that have thrived under a dictatorship. They want to stop the restoration of democracy at any price. They have exploited a poor, desperate, and powerless people and allowed extremists the right environment in which to flourish.

The ruling party is an artificial, political party created in the headquarters of the Inter-Services Intelligence (Pakistan's equivalent of the CIA) during the General Elections of 2002. Its core support comes from the political partners of the military dictator of the '80s, General Zia al-Haq, who empowered the most radical elements within the Afghan Mujahedeen who went on to morph into al-Qaeda, Taliban and the Pakistani militants of today.

Bhutto went on to say that nothing in the October attack on her proved Musharraf's involvement, but hinted that his state apparatus and political proxies moving so swiftly to capitalise on it was certainly suspicious.

Update Too Many by shamanic

Okay, color me bored. Could Musharaf have orchestrated the assassination of his political rival? Absolutely. Could his state security apparatus have acted on its own to assassinate Bhutto? Sho nuf. Could a rogue element of the military have killed Benazir Bhutto? Yup. Could any of dozens of big or little extremist groups, including al Qaeda, have coordinated this attack? Indeedly-do.

Readers should feel free to stick any other possible scenarios in comments. Surely there's no end to the sources of potential assassins, so jump on in! Bonus points for indicting George Bush for supporting Pervez Musharaf who promoted the general who instituted the policy that caused the assassin to be hired/recruited/manipulated into shooting a woman and then detonating himself with explosives! C'mon, everybody play!