Pakistan's Bhutto Killed in Attack
POSTED BY: deadlockvictim
UPDATED: Tuesday, April 14, 2026 16:40
VIEWED: 12906
PAGE 5 of 16
Quote:
Originally posted by deadlockvictim:
there will never be peace on earth
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20071227/pakistan/
That all depends on how you define 'peace'.
It is not those who use the term "Islamo-Fascism" who are sullying the name of Islam; it is the Islamo-Fascists. - Dennis Prager
" They don't like it when you shoot at 'em. I worked that out myself. "
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I second the Oh Shit comment.
Casual?
"What's wrong with us?"
To borrow a line from Con-Air, my first thought would be... a lot.
Blame enough to go around, but imma lay it 60/40 cause when one party seems to be actively seeking the absolute destruction of the other, in spite of the fact that they're both servants of the status quo - it's kind of unsurprising when they adapt the same scorched earth tactics.
For mine own rabidity, the explaination is even more simple, I feel that my freedom, personhood, and even very life are greviously and imminently endangered by both sets of these maniacs and will go to any length short of knuckling under to preserve em.
It's fear... and human response to fear is often an aggressive assault on it's source in hopes of crippling it's ability to harm us.
We live, currently, in an atmosphere positively reeking of it, but what scares me the worst is the folks who *want* us to be scared witless, and why.
"How exciting if a Muslim country threw off both theocracy and autocracy on its own!"
Oh how I wish.. and that'd be the ONLY way to sink it good and proper too, internally from the people within it, whom most partisans instantly dismiss without a thought, or suggest forcing at gunpoint - neither of which will, or ever has, historically, worked very well.
My suggestion would be helping more moderate folks trapped in that mess sabotage it internally, I posted a long and involved tactical outline for how that could be done in a previous discussion with Jong, who really didn't wanna hear it one bit... it's HERE in this thread if you've the interest.
http://www.fireflyfans.net/thread.asp?b=18&t=31642
All we really gotta do down at the root of it is three things, to flush these goons forever.
1. Remove the threat of our meddling.
That stupdity is what kept Castro in power so long, the more we push, the tighter they cling to their established order, even if they despise it.
2. Stop dismissing them wholesale.
There's a lot of folk caught up in this who don't even like these assholes, but with no dialogue, no support, nothing but the threat of torture and slaughter from us, they have no interest in throwing them out only to be mowed down by us - and now we have a credibility problem on top of it, thanks to the current administration.
We *NEED* these guys, if you ever wanna break the back of Theological Autocracy over there, and we keep makin enemies of em instead of friends.
3. Let them DO it.
If it ever comes, hell yes it's gonna be a bloodbath, but the worst thing we could do at that point is send in peacekeepers, or try to stop it, besides the fact that it's impossible and over time such protracted stalemates cause more death and destruction, we have a nasty history of taking sides for our own advantage, which'll just start the cycle all over again.
The SMARTEST thing we could do is quietly support the folk who want these bastards gone, and leave well the hell enough ALONE.
And no sending support and weapons to the guys in power to make a quick buck neither, that's bitten us on the ass here too.
There's a merit to not pickin at a problem that's likely to solve itself if we see to our own defenses and allow it to do so without meddling in such a fashion that it delays or prolongs it while giving both sides someone to hate worse than each other.
See also: Point 1. above.
This meddling has cost us so horribly, so deeply, that I fail to see how anyone could possibly support it anymore, especially in light of the fact that we are in part responsible for OBL, Saddam, The Shah, and by that action, Khomeni.. do we never learn ANYTHING about propping these maroons up ?
Bout time we learned the wisdom of knowing when to leave well the hell enough alone outside our borders, and see to our own affairs instead of pissing away our resources needlessly like this.
And yes, I too am deeply suspicious of what happened to Bhutto and am watching intently to see who benefits and how.
But it's not OUR country, which is MY primar
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Quote:
Originally posted by Causal:
No, I think that you'd have to practice "harsh interrogation" on basically anyone who you suspect of having even a moderate degree of involvement. Obviously, that's going to be one hell of a lot of people.
Setting aside the morality of 'harsh interrogation' for the moment, how do you arrive at the conclusion that there are 'Obviously...one hell of a lot of people' at least moderately involved in radical Islamic terrorism at the suicide bomber level? What do you consider 'a lot'? 1% of the population? 10%? .01%?
"Keep the Shiny side up"
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Quote:
Originally posted by Causal:
Here's my trouble with that line of thinking. In order to prevent these sorts of incidents, you'd have to cast a pretty broad net.
Yeah. Thats kinda the point. "In order to prevent" pretty much sums up the Republican position. "No big nets" sums up the Democratic position. One position is about preventing terrorist acts, the other isn't. Now me, I'm in favor of prevention...I suspect Miss Bhutto would agree.
Democrats, on the other hand, would be sad, but hold their heads high (not too high, snipers...) knowing that they kept Bush from abusing our rights. They'd lament that its America's fault (check Kucinich's statement on that one). After all the Middle East was a place of peace and harmony until January 20th, 2001. What's the needless death of one or thousands, they'd ask, next to a political victory that could last up to two years (although, to be fair, two years of congressional control means a lot of money in their pockets)?
Quote:
No, I think that you'd have to practice "harsh interrogation" on basically anyone who you suspect of having even a moderate degree of involvement.
There's what, just a comparative handful down in Gitmo. And we'd have other intellegence to help weed out the good leads from bad, but yes, we'd have to "talk" to a fair number of folks.
I note for the record that all US Special Forces troops are subject to waterboarding during their training process and that captured military personel are lucky if waterboarding is the least they get. In the words of a Special Ops guy I know...waterboarding isnt something worth losing your head over...especially when the alternative is losing your head.
H
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Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:Quote:
Originally posted by Causal:
No, I think that you'd have to practice "harsh interrogation" on basically anyone who you suspect of having even a moderate degree of involvement. Obviously, that's going to be one hell of a lot of people.
Setting aside the morality of 'harsh interrogation' for the moment, how do you arrive at the conclusion that there are 'Obviously...one hell of a lot of people' at least moderately involved in radical Islamic terrorism at the suicide bomber level? What do you consider 'a lot'? 1% of the population? 10%? .01%?
I think what I was getting at is the notion of waterboarding every single individual detained on suspicion of having some link to terrorism. The thought of using "harsh interrogation"/torture on all of them just makes my skin crawl.
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I'm liking the "leave well enough alone" idea pretty good these days.
On a second note, I'll try and cruise over to the other thread and see what I think (I'll post any comments here if I can).
Finally, a note from the vanity/spell-check police: the "u" in my nick goes in front of the "s". 
________________________________________________________________________
- Grand High Poobah of the Mythical Land of Iowa, and Keeper of State Secrets
- Captain, FFF.net Grammar Police
- Vote JonnyQuest/Causal, for Benevolent Co-Dictator of Earth; together, toward a brighter tomorrow!
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Quote:
Originally posted by Causal:
I think what I was getting at is the notion of waterboarding every single individual detained on suspicion of having some link to terrorism. The thought of using "harsh interrogation"/torture on all of them just makes my skin crawl.
Seems you're making some pretty broad assumptions. First, that we have a big bunch of folk detained on suspicion of terrorism links. Second, that we're performing 'harsh interrogation/torture' on all or even most of them.
Gitmo is down to 400 folk now, and there'd be less if we could find somewhere to send them. Hard to find figures on detainees elsewhere, but I would guess that there aren't too many who aren't just obvious rifle-toters with no valuable info.
Despite all you hear about waterboarding, etc., I'd guess such stuff is rarely used. I suspect that just the rumor of such 'aggressive' methods, along with normal interrogation techniques, nearly always works. I wouldn't expect that our intelligence agencies would give away the methods which succeed, so they're not going to say yea or nay on the ratio of 'torture' to psychology.
As Hero noted, most of the useful info we get will probably be communication intercepts, bank transactions, weapons sales tracking, etc. And a lot of chaff will have to be winnowed to find the grains of wheat. Does a computer checking millions of anonymous emails, phone calls, etc. for keywords and kicking out the matches for research bother you as much as waterboarding? 'Cause that's a good part of how the conflict is gonna be won.
"Keep the Shiny side up"
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Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
3. Let them DO it.
If it ever comes, hell yes it's gonna be a bloodbath, but the worst thing we could do at that point is send in peacekeepers, or try to stop it,
The only problem with letting things go crazy in Pakistan is that they have nuclear weapons. Someone has to secure their nuclear weapons. The same people who killed Bhutto would love to have a little chaos to cover their takeover of the Pakistani arsenal.
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Quote:Whu.... whAAA? Those folks in Gitmo were picked up at least four years ago and have been held incommunicado ever since!!! And that was long before Benazir Bhutto even thought of returning to Pakistan! Wow. I mean wow. You'd waterboard people who have a snowball's chance of knowing anything about anything? Heck, they';ve been out of the loop for years! How in hell do you rationalize that?
What? You don't think a couple of those folks we picked up in Afganistan who are now sunning themselves down in Gitmo just might know somebody who knows somebody who had a little bit to do with this business.
---------------------------------
Always look upstream.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Hero:Quote:
Originally posted by NewOldBrownCoat:
here's a question I haven"t seen addressed either here, or in the national media, tho' it's early yet: Who was behind this? Who benefits?
“I am what the terrorists most fear,” she tells me, “a female political leader fighting to bring modernity to Pakistan. Now they’re trying to kill me."- Benazir Bhutto, November, 2007.
H
10 hours later , for me, since I asked the question anyway-- I've been at work.
ON CNN , they're leading a story that Bhutto told an American advisor that if she was killed, Musharrif world bear at least some responsibility.
Didn't copy it, or the link, so that ain't an exact quote, but that's the gist.
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