To people who follow Ukrainian politics, Pakistan offers a sense of déjà vu. Bhutto, like Ukraine’s Julia Timoshenko, is an ultra-corrupt female leader posing as pro-Western but heavily relying on local throngs. Timoshenko relies on Ukrainian nationalists often indistinguishable from neo-Nazis, and Bhutto relies on the Islamists.
Most female leaders are inherently weak, and have to rely on someone. Bhutto, a woman, cannot control Pakistani army directly, but needs a proxy. If she opts for a proxy general, he would soon overturn her. So she chose Islamists for the proxy function. Incidentally, Bhutto’s policy put Islamists in charge of the Pakistani nuclear weapons. Many Pakistani nuclear scientists are hardcore Muslims, anyway, but Bhutto’s supporters are Islamists-Islamists, the professional Mus ims.
The US Administration obsession with Bhutto’s pro-Western attitude is ridiculous beyond words. Western diplomats commonly show such attitude toward the Western-educated, English- or French-speaking local thugs. When they lack Western education and don’t speak English, any other affiliation goes; Ukraine’s Yuschenko became the US Administration’s darling after he married a State Department’s official. Another textbook case of deception is the West’s obsession with Ahmed Shah Masood, a ruthless Afghan Islamist warlord who speaks good French and wears Bob Dylan’s beard.
Bhutto, an example of democratic aspirations, leads essentially a monarchic clique called Pakistan People’s Party, previously led by her father and mother. There is just no way that two women can be democratically elected to lead a political party in rigidly Islamic country. Bhutto spent very short time in Pakistan, staying mostly in the US, UK, and United Arab Emirates. She had very little contact with common Pakistanis, certainly not enough for the groundbreaking rise of a woman to prime minister in Islamic country. Bhutto’s leadership of PPP proves exactly the opposite of what the US Administration ascribes to her. Bhutto ascended to power in no democratic way, and is no supporter of democracy. She is the head of a clan, somewhat short of a queen. Specifically, she is the head of Islamist clan: her support comes from Punjab, a proverbially Islamist region. Bhutto routinely acts in accord with Jamaat e-Islami, the political front for Pakistan’s Islamists. She installed Taliban in Afghanistan. PPP explicitly promotes Islamic socialism, and was very close to the Soviet Union.
Bhutto’s “commitment” to transparent government is supported by the Interpol’s warrant for her arrest on corruption charges. Bhutto was sentenced for money laundering – not in the dubious Pakistani courts, but in the impeccable Switzerland’s. During her terms as Pakistan’s prime minister, Bhutto did nothing worthy of mention, except enriching herself and her cronies. To all purposes, she proved herself grossly incompetent as a country’s leader – a natural outcome for graduates of Harvard and Oxford where the leftist education is divorced from reality.
Bhutto is not particularly popular in Pakistan; how could a woman, essentially a foreigner, and a corrupt politician be popular? PPP got only 23% of the seats in the 2002 elections, and even of that modest number, many MPs do not support Bhutto, even defected to other factions.
It is puzzling what wrong the US Administration finds with General Musharaff who staunchly supports the US Afghan invasion, abandoned Taliban and Islamic fighters in Kashmir, and represses Muslim terrorists. Musharaff staked everything on the rapprochement with America. He alienated every good Muslim in Pakistan, down to Osama bin Laden. In return, the US Administration didn’t even release to Pakistan the fighter jets which Pakistan has paid for long ago, and whose delivery was frozen since.
It would be soothing if the US Administration pursued a sensible plan of installing Bhutto in Pakistan to use her home base in Sindh province as a camp for operations in Iranian Baluchistan to sabotage the Ahmadinejad’s regime. Such strategic thinking, however, is unlikely. More probably, the Black professor in the White House sympathizes with the fellow female who holds academic degree from American university.
I'll try to make it short:
The last sentence summed it up correctly.
The US is obsessed with women superiority ideology, and, lacking any real evidence that its religious belief in 'Democracy' is any better than alternate belief systems, use the women rights idea as support for their feelings of moral superiority.
That Pakistani crook has nothing going for her except the fact that she is a woman. The US is letting its absurd support of women, a gender bias that contradicts its own constitution, lead it to do a terrible mistake.
A mistake we will pay for, as usual.
I'm not sure it is specifically about women. Masood is very much a man.
I was referring to the Bhutto case specifically. Are they related?
I think so. Bhutto is just one of the many examples of Western diplomats' obsession with the local thugs who dress well and speak good English.
You could be right Danny. I just have an overwhelming hunch that there is a gender connection in this case between Bhutto and Condi Rice.
I cannot present other cases, since she's the only female Islamic gang-leader in sight currently (That I know of).
I believe the US would love to show their support for any female 'leader', no matter how corrupt and inept one would be, and this is just their first opportunity.
Show me the US supporting a male warlord against a female one, and you got me convinced
Either way, I'm afraid those Pakistani missiles are gonna fall into the wrong hands, if that didn't happen already.
Erick and Danny — I think you are both correct. It is impossible for the US establishment mindset to believe that a woman who speaks good English (or French) could not be honest and good. Condi Rice actually is intelligent in a cloistered academic way, but she has no business running the State Department. Arabs and Russians (her specialty) have no respect for her. Hear how her voice quivers with uncertainty when she speaks. But that she is not respected is in a perverse way more of a qualification for the social experimenters. President Bush is truly a wiener.
The namesake of my German muse, Nicole, directed me to your well researched article on the fallacies and hypocrisies of America's gunboat diplomacy in Pakistan.
I agree with your article, except your erroneous statement that "Most female leaders are inherently weak".
Most female leaders have proved to be better leaders of nations and kingdoms, such as Queen Amina of Nigeria, Queen of Sheba of Ethiopia, Indira Gandhi of India, Margaret Thatcher, the Iron Lady of Britain and others documented in history.
Benazir Bhutto is a puppet of the fallacies and hypocrisies of America, because once she is cute and speaks good English or French, they hoist her up as their effigy of democracy.
Benazir Bhutto is a good actress.
I blame Benazir Bhutto's husband for her political rascality, because he has failed to discipline his wife.