The assassination of Benazir Bhutto and MSMs attempt to reframe next week's Iowa primaries to promote the candidates with proven 'experience' in foreign affairs is an ideal time to revisit Obama's Foreign Policy Advisor Samatha Power's August 3rd memo.
Power wrote the memo after Obama came under attack for his comments on the situation in Pakisan, advocating a position which would re-examine the efficacy of continued US support of Mushareff as Ismalic fundamentalists' power grab on the country's northwest borders with Afghanistan continued to gain momentum
The full memo is here, an excerpt below
Vision: American foreign policy is broken. It has been broken by people who supported the Iraq War, opposed talking to our adversaries, failed to finish the job with al Qaeda, and alienated the world with our belligerence. Yet conventional wisdom holds that people whose experience includes taking these positions are held up as examples of what America needs in times of trouble.
Barack Obama says we have to turn the page. We cannot afford any more of this kind of bankrupt conventional wisdom. He has laid out a foreign policy that is bold, clear, principled, and tailored for the 21st century. End a war we should never have fought, concentrate our resources against terrorists who threaten America. End the counter-productive policy of lumping together our adversaries and avoiding talking to our foes. End the era of politics that is all sound-bites and no substance, and offer the American people the change that they need.
The conventional US methods of interjecting ethically questionnable cohorts into the politics of countries on the Western elite's drawing board failed in Iraq (Chalabi) and fails once again in Pakistan.
Not much is being reported on Bhutto's checkered past, when just last month MSNBCs Richard Engel, Middle East bureau chief reported:
Bhutto is a flawed hero. She has been accused – she says for political reasons – of massive corruption while serving twice as prime minister, first in the late 1980s and later in the mid-1990s. Bhutto stands accused of stealing roughly $1.5 billion, mostly in the form of kickbacks on government contracts.
Common interests
Bhutto and Musharraf also have a common interest in keeping the courts here weak. Despite her rhetoric against the Pakistani president, it was Musharraf who helped to have Bhutto's corruption charges put on hold when he allowed her to return to Pakistan from exile last month.
While the Harvard- and Oxford-educated Bhutto is the leading opposition politician in Pakistan, she is still more popular in the West than at home. Bhutto’s regime is remembered for having one of the worst human rights records in Pakistan's history, and her government did not allow the media freedoms she criticizes Musharraf for crushing.
Bhutto could also still face corruption cases in Britain, Spain and Switzerland.
Engel's report references another less than favorable NYTs article which reports:
"But her record in power, and the dance of veils she has deftly performed since her return – one moment standing up to General Musharraf, then next seeming to accommodate him, and never quite revealing her actual intentions – has stirred as much distrust as hope among Pakistanis,"
Some interesting tidbits ... a timeline ...
May 2006, Bhutto and Nawaz Shariff, both then exiled ex-premiers signed a "charter of democracy" "which rejects all constitutional amendments introduced after General Pervez Musharraf assumed power in bloodless coup on October 12, 1999.
October, 07. Conventional Washington wisdom backed the return of Bhutto to Pakistan in to broker a shared government deal with Mushareff. Despite the attempt on her life upon her arrival, the US registers no overt concern, leaving her security in the hands of Mushareff
November,Mushareff, reluctant to cooperate with Washington, flies to Saudi Arabia and agrees to allow exiled former PM Shariff to re-enter Pakistan in time to register for the Jan 8 election. From AsiaNews http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/?sid=302375
Interestingly, Saudi Arabia's ambassadors to the United States Adel A. Al-Jubeir and to Pakistan Ali Saeed Awadh Assiri were present in the meetings with the King Abdullah. The presence of the Saudi envoy to the US was important since it indicated that the US would also be on board in the ongoing interaction between Sharif and the authorities in Pakistan, sources added
November, Bhutto announces plans to partner with Sharif (overthrown in the 1999 coup by Musharraf) and demands Musharraf step down ...
December, on the same day as the Bhutto assassination, Bloomberg reports:
At least four supporters of Pakistan's former premier Nawaz Sharif were killed and another 12 wounded in the capital, Islamabad, when gunshots were fired on an election rally.
Where am I going with this? What does this have to do with Blackwater? I guess Im wondering if conventional washington thinking, souring on the idea of Bhutto, just opted out of ensuring her security .... and now sits back as chaos unfolds throughout Pakistan, just like we did in Iraq, before the US sent in Bremer to implement 'disaster democracy' using private mercenaries to protect its envoys.
No matter how you spin it, what the story really is, the Bhutto assassination is just another example of the failures of conventional US foreign policy.
HuffPo's Lionel Beehner has got it right: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lionel-beehner/us-options-for-a-postb_b_78461.html
The next leader of the free world needs to think more specifically and clearly about how best to use American influence to keep Pakistan from becoming the next Afghanistan or Sudan circa late-1990s. The first serious American politician to propose a radical realignment of U.S. policy toward Pakistan was Barack Obama. Last summer, he proposed unilateral military action if the United States was supplied with "actionable intelligence" on Osama bin Laden's whereabouts in Pakistan. He was pounced on by the punditry, his statements taken as further evidence he is a foreign policy lightweight. How dare a presidential candidate jeopardize one of America's most prized partnerships and impinge Pakistani sovereignty! Or, even if Republicans might agree with Obama, it's best not to say such things in public, pundits said.
Now, fast-forward a few months--after a state of martial law, the most deadly terrorist attack in Pakistani history, and the assassination of the country's top opposition figure--most Americans would probably agree that Washington's backing of Musharraf makes for bad policy. Even Republicans like Mike Huckabee have echoed Obama's sentiments to take out terrorist camps in Pakistan without Islamabad's permission.
Problem is, we don't have the time we had back then for everyone else to catch up with Obama's new vision ... .... !!!
