Only a sharpshooter could kill her

As I suspected yesterday after news of Benazir Bhutto's assassination, speculation is that she was taken down by a trained sharpshooter. Of course we will never really know because she was buried before any autopsy could be performed. Also the evidence was immediately washed away from the scene of the crime.

Within a few hundred yards of where her father was hanged by a military dictator and at the same spot where another popular prime minister of Pakistan was shot dead years ago, just 70 days after she returned from self-exile, Benazir Bhutto was shot.
Farewell Benazir.

Bhutto's Assassination Is a Political and Cultural Honor Killing, by Phyllis Chesler

In a sense, the assassination of Benazir Bhutto is a political and cultural version of an honor killing. Bhutto was the first woman Prime Minister of a Muslim nation and she symbolized an unacceptably Western form of female ambition and achievement. She had attended Harvard/Radcliffe and Oxford. She spoke English—perhaps more fluently than she spoke her native Sindi or Urdu. She once dressed as Western women do. Indeed, many Muslim women from wealthy families, including educators and feminists, have done so for a long time. They cannot do so now.

I am suggesting that, as a member of the Ummah (or larger Muslim collectivity), Islamist fanatics decided that Bhutto was unacceptably and publicly too-Western, and they sentenced her to death for this sin.

Pakistan is known for its many bloody honor murders and other atrocities.

In 1999, in Lahore, Pakistan, Samia Imran was shot dead in her feminist lawyer’s office by a man whom her parents had hired to kill her. Her crime? Daring to seek a divorce.

In 2001, in Gujar Khan, Pakistan, Zahida Perveen’s husband attacked her, gouged out both her eyes, her nose, and her ears. He wrongly suspected her of adultery. His male relatives honored him for doing so. (A team of American doctors subsequently fitted Zahida with glass eyes and prostheses for her ears and nose).

In 2002, a tribal council in the Punjab, in Pakistan, sentenced eighteen year-old Mukhtaran Bibi to be gang-raped as a punishment for something her twelve year-old brother had allegedly done: Walking with a girl from a higher-status tribe. (Actually, he had been sexually abused by Mastoi men who sought to cover up their crime in this way). Mukhtaran Bibi’s father was forced to witness her gang-rape, after which she was driven naked through the streets. Amazingly, the gang-rapists were eventually arrested and convicted. Mukhtaran Bibi was given round-the-clock government protection. The rapists have vowed to kill her anyway.

Did Benazir Bhutto think that her membership in a historic dynasty would protect her from the war against women that jihadists are currently waging? Did she think that the government could actually protect her from such woman-haters who would vote al-Qaeda into power if they had the chance? (The fact that she was a political threat both to Musharraf and to the Taliban and that she might have functioned as a bridge to America and potentially to Israel did not endear her to those who killed her. The fact that she had planned to recognize Israel and had already asked for the Mossad protection, could indeed have been the final nail in her coffin. SEE HERE.)

Bhutto was one of the “moderate” Muslims for whom the West yearns. Muslim fanatics murdered her in cold blood and they did so in an exquisitely planned and choreographed way. Their willingness to die in order to kill, terrorize, and impose their ideology upon others is precisely what keeps other “moderate” Muslims silent.

How far are the representatives of freedom, modernity, and human rights willing to go to end such terrorism? If we are not ready to do whatever it takes for as long as it takes to free humanity from the plague of fundamentalist Islam, then we must be prepared to convert, veil, submit—or die.

ANOTHER PERSPECTIVE:

Quicksand and Quagmires

Rosanne Klass, an old Asia hand, so to speak, reminds me how much central Asia resembles a far-out Eastern version of our own long-ago Wild West. The feuds never quit, the violence never stops, only more violence and larger bribes can ever dominate smaller violence and smaller bribes—and then only for awhile.

Thus, I am linking here to a sophisticated article written by Sol Sanders about Pakistan. I agree: Men here routinely assassinate male leaders. I still think that Bhutto’s assassination spells trouble for other women who may wish to divorce abusive husbands or to attend college.

To read Sol’s piece, click here…

Also on Women and Islam, yesterday I posted Video: Free the Women of Islam. Wild Phil reports:

The Lady who made that Video :Free the Women of Islam is at the following link and I have met her in some of the Blog Talk Radio Show Chat Rooms she goes by the handle x-dhimmi-(deb) she invited me to join her on her youtube site at http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=xdhimmi Lets join her and support her and her efforts to get the real facts out there.

Also see: Tragedy Because They Hate, The HILL Chronicles The Islamic Bomb, Part 1, Stop Islamic Conquest Bhutto Assassination - Questions, Comments (Evolving), Stormwarning's Counterterrorism Blog, and Bhutto - al Qaeda Claims Responsibility

Blog Notes:

Mushy, of Mushy's Moochings, is closing up shop on his blog and planning to enjoy his retirement. He will be missed. His personal tales of history, family, friends, the military, are insightful, entertaining, and pure Mushy. Go visit and read his archives now, but if you can wait ... he will be publishing a book with all his ruminations in the near future.

You can read about his previous book or purchase his book, Cross+Hairs here.
You can enjoy Mushy's Cooking here. If you are into "adult" writing, visit his other blog, The Silverbacks here.

YID With LID (Sammy Benoit) has been PUBLISHED in Israel Nation News. What a great thing for a wonderful writer. Read , Synagogue and State, by Sammy Benoit, We are a nation and a religion. Also he's having a contest, Self Hating Jew Award Nominations--Last Chance to Submit

Check out Blog BookMark Beta
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Comments

[Ruger Heat]

A true shame that is for sure.

But, an honor killing is typically up close and personal. Not a "reach out and touch someone" kind of deal. For some reason, they like to "torture" these people for the honor of whatever in the hell they want honored. For whatever they want "avenged".

[Debbie]

see:

The New York Sun - Bhutto Killed By Renegade Commando Sniper Team

http://www.nationalterroralert.com/updates/2007/12/28/the-new-york-sun-bhutto-killed-by-renegade-commando-sniper-team/

This is one of those stories I had to read three or four times to let sink in. There are varied reports as to the actual cause of Bhuttos death, but this one has serious implications if proven to be true.

American and Pakistani military leaders are seeking to account for what may be renegade commando units from the Pakistani military’s special forces in the wake of the assassination of Pakistan’s opposition leader and former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto.

The attack yesterday at Rawalpindi bore the hallmarks of a sophisticated military operation. At first, Bhutto’s rally was hit by a suicide bomb that turned out to be a decoy. According to press reports and a situation report of the incident relayed to The New York Sun by an American intelligence officer, Bhutto’s armored limousine was shot by multiple snipers whose armor-piercing bullets penetrated the vehicle, hitting the former premier five times in the head, chest, and neck. Two of the snipers then detonated themselves shortly after the shooting, according to the situation report, while being pursued by local police.

[Stormwarning]

Latest reports suggest that the bombed and the shooter were the same guy...close range, not sharpshooter.

[ERS]

I think characterizing Benazir Bhutto's murder as an "honor" killing makes for an interesting headline, but is a specious argument. She is the fourth member of her dynastic family to be assassinated. . .the other three were male.

This doesn't look anything like an "honor" killing to a trained eye.

Ellen R. Sheeley, Author
"Reclaiming Honor in Jordan"

[Yankee Doodle]

I hadn't thought of Bhutto's assassination as an honor killing, but of course that's a very good description.

[frasypoo]

I do not understand suicide bombers.How can you lend your life to kill ?
Pakistan needed Benazir Bhutto very badly.