On November 2nd during an interview with David Frost, which can be seen on YouTube (start watching at about 6 minutes into the interview)l Benazir Bhutto mentions, very casually, a man who "murdered" Osama bin Laden. David Frost seems to not catch this at all and the interview goes on.
Not only that, but it seems most the Web has missed this. Still little mention of it.
It certainly is odd that 6 weeks after she mentions this she's dead under suspicious circumstances with all sorts of speculation and accusations flying around.
Just what the hell is going on?
This morning, Saturday, 6AM (PST) the news coming out of Pakistan is that the government is blaming a local al-Qaeda leader for the killing - claiming they have a recording off (perhaps?) a wire tap of him planning it. This leader, Baitullah Mehsud is denying this claim.
It's no secret that al-Qaeda, stuck as it is in the 10th century, hates the idea of any woman leading an Islamic country - especially Bhutto who was definitely a West leaning "progressive". Yet they're claiming they didn't do it.
Why?
Two possible reasons spring to this dangerously under-caffeinated mind. Either a.) they are telling the truth or b.) they did do it to further destabilize Pakistan and will deny it vehemently in order to undermine Musharraf. Indeed, something other than a knee-jerk response by al-Qaeda may have worked to their advantage anyway. With Bhutto in power they would have had a perfect recruiting poster child. Much the way the NRA in America tends to pray that we have a Democrat majority in Congress—because they always see a HUGE jump in contributions when this happens.
But let's go back to the stunning statement by Bhutto that everyone seems to be ignoring in the mainstream media.
She was a consummate politician. She had people right there no doubt. The show was not live. Yet NO ONE caught her statement. Writing this off as a misstatement doesn't quite wash.
It's one thing to say "Fred" when you meant "Frank". But OSAMA bin LADEN is a long name. There was the shortest of pauses. Yet SHE didn't stop to correct herself, no one in her entourage stopped her, Frost either didn't catch it or decided to let it go. The director and editor apparently saw no reason to say or do anything to remove it.
That's just too many people involved for it to just be an accident..
So again... What the hell is going on?
You can see the video from Frost Over the World on YouTube.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - riunite
Michael Scheuer: The fundamental flaw in our thinking about Bin Laden is that "Muslims hate and attack us for what we are and think, rather than what we do." Muslims are bothered by our modernity, democracy, and sexuality, but they are rarely spurred to action unless American forces encroach on their lands. It's AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY that enrages Osama and al-Qaeda, not American culture and society.
New leadership, new foreign policy.. Google Ron Paul..
2 - Max
of course Al-qaeda was involved... but they cant clam it because she had alot of supporters. Al-qaeda wouldnt meet their recruitment quoda in pakistain for a long time.
3 - troll
riunite - I find it hard to reconcile Muslim outrage at Western incursion with the outright filibuster of Europe that's going on...
4 - Silver Surfer
Yes fantastic idea riunite, return to the isolationist policies of the early Great War and the period in between, thus creating even more conditions for American bloodshed.
Imagine Hitler's reticence to declare war in Europe if he knew he was fighting three of the world's great powers at the same time, two faded and one almost at its peak.
Besides, Ron Paul wants to leave the UN, where the US as a permanent member of the security council, has the right of veto over any sanctioned UN military action.
Thus to leave the UN would be far more dangerous than to stay in it.
That's the problem with Ron Paul supporters - they haven't thought any of this stuff through.
It's not American policy that al-Qaeda hates. It's the whole of the western, non-muslim world.
After the Great War, a well-meaning Woodrow Wilson insisted on the break-up of the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires, which had been a force for stability in Europe and the bridge with Asia.
Not long after, the Caliph of Islam, the spirtual ruler of the entire sunni umma, or all sunni muslims across the world, was sent into exile by the new secular government of Turkey created by conditions insisted upon by Wilson (and it must haveseemed like a good idea to all at the time). The caliphate had ensured stability among the world's muslims almost since the time of the crusades. That's a bit like banishing the pope and the archbishop of canterbury at the same time, and telling all Christians throughout the world - sort out your own problems.
The result: a conglomeration of basket-case states and bastard children of the British and French empires newly mandated in the middle-east - the main basket case, of course, being Iraq, where the British fought a very similar war in the 20s and 30s in Iraq to that now being fought by the US coalition today. The reason, of course, was the British got most of the oil.
It also meant there was no caliph able to stand up and tell groups like al-Qaeda that what they were doing was unislamic. That is part of the problem with today's Islam - it has no real spirtual hierarchy. Anyone can stand up and declare themselves a spiritual leader or sheik, no matter how corrupted their version of that religion.
Al-Qaeda has constantly stated that it's goal is the restoration of the caliphate worldwide. That includes stable islamic democracies like Malaysia and to a lesser extent, Indonesia. You can see the results in Benazir Bhutto's killing. The prospect of a crackdown on extremism in a newly democratic Pakistan is too much for groups like al-Qaeda to bear.
Even Bin Laden has publicly said to America and the west in the wake of terror attacks: "Now you know how our people have felt for the past 80 years."
America putting its head in the sand won't change a thing - except to make the world a much more dangerous place, especially for America.
If we collectively (the West) lose our will, America is doomed.
There's the real problem with Paul's philosophy, and most people with half a brain understand it.
5 - Dave Nalle
In the quote in #1 Schuer is, of course, dead wrong.
It is neither western decadence OR western incursion into the middle east which motivates al Qaeda and other extremists. It is a desire for power which drives them, and they can advance their power most effectively by targeting the west and making them the scapegoats for their efforts to terrorize their own people into going along with them. We're just a convenient boogeyman, just like the jews were for the nazis.
Dave
6 - Clavos
"We're just a convenient boogeyman, just like the jews were for the nazis."
And, unless we start paying attention to that point, and SOON, we could end up with a similar dilemma to that of the Jews in Europe.
7 - Baritone
Dave,
But why do you believe they seek that power? Do you believe it has nothing to do with Islam? It is Islam which teaches that all others are infidels - in effect sub-human. It is their belief that the presence of non-Muslims in the world is an insult to Allah. For them to tolerate non-Muslims damages their chances to wind up in paradise.
While radical islamists are, at this juncture, far more prone to violence, their position is not far different than that of christian fundamentalists. Anyone not of the faith must either be brought into the fold or ultimately, they will be "left behind."
I have no doubt that there are those amongst radical muslims who long for power and riches while drawing breath on our little planet. I'm not sure that's true of bin Laden and perhaps some of the other al qaida leaders. Bin Laden left a life of great wealth wherein he could, had he chosen to do so, have wielded power from the base provided by his family. He certainly has harboured delusions of grandeur, but I think a great deal of his motivation is other worldly.
B-tone
8 - Silver Surfer
Baritone: They want a return to the caliphate (and one that is worldwide and ruled by Sharia law). I've done a little post above explaining the background to it. But that's basically what they want.
9 - P.Marlowe
Let me jump in here... It is true that Islamic fundamentalism was in no need of the West to bring itself into being...
However, all rabid fundamentalist movements, religious or otherwise do need a scapegoat.
It is for all the worse if that scapegoat does ADD to the misery of the millions who will be the ripe recruiting fields for these fundamentalists.
If we think Corporate America is bad here in America just step into any Third World nation where that corporation has "vested" interests and millions to pay in bribes.
The cases of abuse by these corporations are too numerous to list here. Suffice it to say that their actions simply through petrol on the fire...
It won't matter if we hunt down every single Al-Qaeda member and send the bastards to hell where they'll be surrounded by 40 Leona Helmsleys... We'll turn around and find they've all been replaced...
So long as we offer LEGITIMATE reasons for those teaming millions - utterly desperate, starving, to hate us these evil men, warping and twisting the words of the Prophet Muhammad will have an endless stream of recruits.
They already appeal to the worst side of our nature, let's try not to help them along through our own greed and short-sightedness...
P.Marlowe
10 - P.Marlowe
Baritone... No, Islam does NOT teach that "all others" are infidels. NOR does the Qu'ran teach that jihad is to be directed against Jews or Christians (except in specific incidences - where - at that time - the USUALLY much smaller Muslim community was under attack).
Just as with the Bible, people pick and choose what they want from it... The passages that speak of destroying the "infidel", the "unbelievers" etc., is actually - SPECIFICALLY referring to the POLYTHEISTS of the Arabian peninsula of that time...
Remember that, save for small enclaves of Jews and Christians along the coasts, most of the Arabian peninsula was home to dozens of deities... The powerful families that controlled access to religious sites, including Mecca made their fortunes because of this... Muhammad's Call of strict monotheism threatened all that...
So the references to take no mercy on the unbelievers, etc., is directed at THOSE people...
The People of the Book on the other hand, Jews and Christians, were to be left alone and treated with respect - as long as they in turn didn't try to attack the Muslims or interfere in the Muslim communities...
But, just as with America, where most people professing to be Christian have really never STUDIED the words of Jesus and thought things through - LET ALONE STUDIED CHRISTIAN HISTORY... Millions of Muslims allow supposed "holy men" to do their thinking for them... These illerate, ignorant and very angry and confused millions are a wonderful source of cannon fodder for the fundamentalist movement...
While those that ARE well educated, like a good number of the first generation Al-Qaeda members were seething with anger at the massive corruption they saw among their class in their respective countries... And like many young men everywhere had delusions that the way to change this was all very simple...
P.Marlowe
11 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
I'm also going to jump in here. First of all when you talk about these guys, you need to call them by their right name. Understanding your enemy is the first step to destroying him.
The right name is Wahhabi, the followers of a man named el-Wahhab. According to the Sufis and many Sunni, these people are not Moslems at all because of their conception of G-d - a conception which differs from that of Islam. But they control Mecca and Medina, and so they get to talk in the name of Islam, even though what they say is wrong.
Stan is right about them wanting a caliphate world wide under their version of "Sharia" law. But they are unlike other Moslems in that they do not recognize your right to live if you do not agree with their beliefs. In other words, according to the Wahhabi, "it's my way or the grave."
At least under Islam, be it Sunni or Shi'a, a person who believes in one G-d but who is not a Moslem gets to live, though he lives as a second class citizen, dhimmi.
That doesn't help you too much, Baritone. Living under any Moslem Sharia law would require you to lie just to stay alive.
But let me return to the typical Wahhabi attitude, because that attitude is the one being spread in the madrassas world wide. It is why I'm so dead set against the bastards.
Their attitude in dealing with westerners, is that there is nothing to negotiate over. If they are to die, that is the Will of Allah, and they seek to die as heroes so as to screw those 72 virgins for eternity. Their attitude regarding westerners is that the only thing they really want from you is conversion. Become one of them or die. There is nothing to "deal" over. Western intel types, used to dealing with money. pain and power, and expecting Arabs to haggle, cannot handle this. It just isn't on their radar.
So long as western intel types keep using the wrong names (Moslem extremist, Moslem fundamentalist, etc, etc.) they lose the only weapon they really have against these murderous bastards - the fact that they are not really Moslems at all!! They are fakers! Israelis are no better at this than anybody else. Israeli intelligence is just as blind as American intelligence concerning the Wahhabi because most of the intelligence agents do not believe in G-d.
12 - Clavos
And, of course, the leadership of Wahabbism is centered in Saudi Arabia, and is in control of greater wealth than the world has ever seen in the hands of religious fanatics; wealth which grows every time anyone around the world turns on a light or puts gasoline in their vehicle.
Think about it...
13 - Baritone
Ruvy,
But isn't the radicals' being Wahhabi rather than true Muslims also lost on most of those they recruit amongst the Islamic community to do their dirty work, which, in effect, renders it a moot point?
Of course, I agree with you (really!) regarding the intractability of the radicals by whatever name. You are either with them or against them. If you are against them you must die. Even if they at some point agreed to sit down and "negotiate" with the west, the possibility of the radicals actually abiding by the terms an any such agreement would be as likely as it was that Hitler would have done so. The islamic (or wahhabi) radicals are not only on a different page than the rest of the world, but in a completely different book.
B-tone
14 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
But isn't the radicals' being Wahhabi rather than true Muslims also lost on most of those they recruit amongst the Islamic community to do their dirty work, which, in effect, renders it a moot point?
Actually B-tone, no. The only real weapon against the Wahhabi is to expose them as false Moslems. Do that, and you take away their legitimacy, and their credibility. This means that a fellow Moslem has to explain why the Wahhabi conception of G-d is wrong. This is the first crowbar one can insert between the Moslem and the indoctrination of the Wahhabi from the masdrassa.
That is where belief in G-d is so crucial. The believer - we'll use me, for example - can sense in his gut the weapon of robbing the enemy of his legitimacy and credibility. I'm not preaching at you, but simply trying to drive home a point.
You and I have both driven in New York. We both know in our gut what works on a New York street, you better than I, having been a cabbie. We both have that same gut sense for making a long run down Broadway, say. Explaining this to a non-driver is a hopeless case. Unless you are an outstanding wordsmith, the non-driver just will not get it.
Doing this is hard work, but many leading Moslems have no use whatever for the Wahhabi and their intolerant policies. I know at least one of them personally.
15 - Baritone
Mightnt that be a vain hope, though? It would seem that the message being spread by the Wahhabi is being embraced by a significant number of people. I believe the "message" is more political than doctrinal, it being that Israel, most of the west, and in particular the U.S., who all also happen to be Jewish and Christian infidels are the enemy.
B-tone
16 - Clavos
Ruvy,
I think B-tone has a good point in #15. It almost seems as if you begin to argue against yourself in #14.
As you know, I've long agreed with you about the Wahabbis; to argue that all that has to be done is to convince other Muslims that the Wahabbis are false would require the participation of other Muslims, specifically clerics (No one else will carry the necessary authority, certainly not non-Muslims, or even lay Muslims).
Who will Muslim clerics listen to about the Wahabbis; as you've pointed out in the past THEY (the Wahabbi) are the ones dominating the education of Muslim children through the Madrassas; even here in the US.
17 - brian
It seems the BBC has censored Bhutto:
NOTE a comment on youtube: 'The BBC has now censored the 4 second clip where Benazir Bhutto says Bin Laden was murdered. Go to the BBC website and do a search for the "Frost Bhutto" interview on November 2nd. At approximately 05:04 in the interview, it cuts to David Frost to cover up the visual discontinuity that would be there if Bhutto was shown saying "...murdered Bin Laden". On November the 3rd, Musharraf declared a state of emergency and placed Bhutto under house arrest. Could this be why they had her assassinated?
========================================================
BBC Censored Benazir Bhutto's Reports that Bin Laden Had Been Murdered
When a news organization as venerable as the BBC censors the reportage of a story as important as the assassination of Benzir Bhutto --a highly visible critic of Bush/British policy with regard to the "War on Terrorism" et al --it is fair to ask: who is the BBC protecting? Are they covering up the motive for her murder? Are they protecting the regimes that engineered her assassination?
Here is the original, unedited version in which Bhutto states that Bin Laden had been murdered.
Here is the BBC's Censored version.
Bhutto herself has exposed a motive for her murder. Solving the case is a matter of finding the gunmen whom Hilary Clinton thinks may be found found among Pakistani troops.
CLINTON, Iowa - Hillary Rodham Clinton waded into Pakistan's volatile internal political situation yesterday, raising the possibility the country's military might have assassinated Benazir Bhutto because the killing took place in the garrison city of Rawalpindi.
Clinton's remarks came as Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf's government seemed to reject a call for an independent international investigation of the murder that Clinton and John Edwards proposed on Friday.
During a question-and-answer session at an elementary school here, Clinton offered a detailed prescription for the troubled country, suggesting that the U.S divert aid away from its military to social welfare programs.
And for the second time in as many days, she cast doubt on Musharraf's contention that the suicide bombing that led to the death of the country's most popular opposition leader was masterminded by al-Qaida.
"There are those saying that al-Qaida did it. Others are saying it looked like it was an inside job - remember Rawalpindi is a garrison city," she said.
--Hillary: Pakistan troops might have killed Bhutto
Isn't it interesting that it was Secretary of State Condoleezsa Rice who brokered Bhutto's return to Pakistan when even Bhutto knew that her life would be endangered? I smell the work of an axis of evil: neocons, Bush, and his puppet: Musharraf.
Bhutto herself has exposed the fraudulent nature of the Bush/Blair "war on terrorism". If Bin Laden is dead, as has been reported, then the various tapes that he is alleged to have made are all phony. The war on terrorism itself is a callous, calculated fraud perpetrated by a murderous Bush regime, a murderous Blair regime, a murderous puppet regime of Musharraf.
That's why Bhutto was murdered. She was the woman who knew too much. Bhutto exposed the fact that US policies cause terrorism and she stated the various ways in which groups inside the US and Britain benefited politically and materially from the phony war on phony terrorism, the failed war in Afghanistan, the war crime that is still perpetrated against the people of Iraq. Bhutto posed a threat to the culprits in the Bush regime to include Bush himself. She posed a threat to the kiss ups in Musharraf's regime to include Musharraf and the liars who tried to float the incredible "lone lever" theory. She was murdered. And the BBC has been caught censoring the most important piece of the puzzle. If Osama is dead, the war on terror is a bloody fraud!
etc
BBC censors Bhutto
18 - P.Marlowe
We cannot think of the Islamic world and their axiology as resembling ours at all...
You're talking about a man-to-man axiology... One which is EXTREMELY Paternal and OBSESSED with their concept of RESPECT...
The Persians are perhaps the best example of this... The Farsi language is so amazingly VAGUE and SUBTLE as to be nearly useless to Americans or Europeans... It's as if the language were designed by diplomats FOR diplomats... All designed to never EVER say anything that might possibly, remotely be considered an effrontery...
So it is EXTRAORDINARILY hard for Muslims to speak out against their "holy" men... Even though they KNOW these men are often evil, everything has to be dealt with at an oblique angle...
Only recently - in the past 20 or 30 years have you seen ANY breaking away from this axiology - mostly due to Western influence... And who rails AGAINST that influence? Oddly enough the POWER STRUCTURE threatened by a People who've found their voice... So they too are killed or silenced in the name of Prophet.
No doubt it's enough to make Muhammad weep.
P. Marlowe
19 - P.Marlowe
Brian... Thanks for the update... I wondered if that were going to happen. I'm running out the door to a movie now - CHARLIE WILSON'S WAR (Ha!)
Not to fear... I recorded AUDIO on it and have it in several locations...
I'm sure the NSA will have their boys at my door by the time I return tonight... I'll serve them coffee or tea - it would be rude otherwise...
P.Marlowe
20 - brian
a bit more:
'...By the way, I heard this from a call-in on C-span, and have not directly checked this out, "that in an interview with David Frost Benazir Bhutto said that Osama Bin Laden was assassinated at the end of 2002" and "claimed she knew who did it, when, and how," and suggested that the subsequent bin Laden videos and audio tapes (reportedly "released by Al Qaeda") are, in fact, "high tech constructs and slick patch jobs produced by a third party."
Bin laden claimed killed end of 2002
21 - STM
Really, the main problem here is the ending of the old Caliphate post Great War after the break up of the Ottoman empire.
The caliphs had largely been moderate - indeed, as Ruvy knows, even offered genuine protection to Jews as "people of the book" (Constantinople/Istanbul was full of Jewish traders and merchants and some were even employed as government and personal advisers to the Ottoman sultans - which shows how far we've gone from that) and always spoke as spiritual leaders of the sunni "umma" worldwide.
The caliph was sent into exile by secular, modern Turkey under Kemal Ataturk after the Great War following the berak up of the Ottoman empire.
Now that it's gone, there is no voice for moderate islam, because there is no islamic religious hierarchy.
Anyone (like OBL and the Wahabi) can now get up and say: "This is the way you must worship ... or else."
The want the caliphate back, but THEIR caliphate, not the old, moderate one.
22 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Clavos,
As I said earlier, there are a considerable number of Moslem clerics who are firmly opposed to the Wahhabi. These clerics do not need to be educated - they are educated and can carry the basic message of Sunni or Sufi Islam to anyone. They need money and a certain level of protection - things they WILL NOT get from the United States, which is in bed with the Wahhabi in Saudi Arabia, the funding source of the madrassas.
Part of the problem is knowing people within the Moslem world, something which most westerners are woefully deficient in. It requires understanding that world from the inside. One writer, Almagir Hussein does, but he rejects Islam, so his willingness to help out in this effort beyond analyses of the Moslem world is limited.
This is not an easy job, and I suspect that before it is successful, many buckets of blood will be spilt. I had hoped at the end of 2005 and the beginning of 2006 to try to work something out that would have been an end-run around the Wahhabi and their spoor. But it was not to be.
Stan:
You are substantially right in what you say about the Khalif - but you didn't add the end of the story, the end that really killed off the voice of moderate Islam. The British and Americans gave ibn Saud and his hordes gold to buy weapons, so long as they signed on the dotted line - the oil would be run by the Brits and Americans. So ibn Saud came out of the desert and stole the Vatican of the Moslems, Mecca and Medina....
And now we are all here to deal with the price of that theft.
23 - STM
Ruvy: "As I said earlier, there are a considerable number of Moslem clerics who are firmly opposed to the Wahhabi."
Problem is, no matter how moderate or how many muslims are prepared to listen to calls for moderation, no one has any real authority any more - because there is no caliph.
I do understand, however, the Wahabis and the oil issue. It's going to be hard going for some time yet I reckon.
24 - avoice
Ahmed Omar Saeed had ties to ISI, M16, & CIA.
More proof that 911 was orchestrated by Pakistan, Britain & US. Perhaps that is why G.W. Bush "Doesn’t really care where he (Bin Laden) is"
I felt this as the attacks where happening and have not changed my opinion since. We can survive the knowledge that our government is that corupt. We are a strong people.
25 - REALITY
Ironic since AMERICANS created this religious fundamentalism, supporting Osama giving him billions and Taliban, Pakistan once had a popular liberal leader who was critical of America and leaned towards communism, he was the most popular leader of Pakistan, Americans scared that Pakistan would support the Soviets, supported a brutual dictator who killed him and waged war on humanity and together America and the general funded what is known today as fundamentalism...so to americans shut the fuck up you hypocritical idiots