Skunks’s Weblog

On 60 Minutes Sunday Lara Logan interviewed Pakistan’s President dictator Pervez Musharraf about accusations that he may be to blame for the assassination of his chief political rival, Benazir Bhutto, and what exactly he is doing to combat the resurgence of the Taliban and al Qaeda, whom his government claims was behind her killing, and whether his government is even trying to find Osama bin Laden.

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On all counts, Musharraf’s answers were lacking. He repeatedly denies that he was to blame for anything at all and points fingers elsewhere, callously blaming Bhutto for her own death by saying that “it was she to blame alone. Nobody else. Responsibility is hers.” Apparently, in his mind, the man who climbed up on the back of the car and shot her in the back of the head and the suicide bomber who blew himself up and everyone else around had nothing to do with it.

Now I don’t know whether or not all of the rumors are true that Musharraf or his government actually had a part in Bhutto’s death or whether he should be held accountable for denying her repeated requests for more security, but he certainly did himself no favors in this interview to convince anyone otherwise. It’s simply ridiculous to blame her “alone” for her death, and his refusal to accept blame for anything, his claims of successes in combating extremists in his country despite all the evidence to the contrary and his apathy towards whether or not his government is even looking for Osama bin Laden was – well – eerily Bush-like.

UPDATE: (Nicole) Some scary drumbeats being heard as far as Pakistan. According to the NY Times, the US is considering covert push in Pakistan (how covert it can be when it’s in the NYT is another story), which Tom Hayden at HuffPo also weighs in on as well with a warning to Barack Obama to ratchet back the rhetoric. Moreover, given the news coming out in international circles (because you’ll never hear about it in the US media) from Sibel Edmonds about our own actions in allowing Pakistan to develop their nuclear program, can we afford to take such an aggressive stance against Pakistan without risking any lingering goodwill we still hold on the global stage?

http://www.crooksandliars.com/