Ms. Bhutto was killed today. I was informed thanks to an early phone call from a telemarketer who woke me up and then I ended up watching the TV.
It was interesting to see how CNN was presenting the news. Senator Mitt Romney was one of the first persons interviewed and he presented a garbled mix of “buzz words” whose meaning he obviously does not understand: “work of global jihadism”, “we should not allow democracy to stop”, “global islamic extremism” etc. No one asked how he knows this to be the work of global jihadism/islamic extremism when even the Pakistani government does not know who did it! Maybe Sen. Romney has specific information about the assassination, in which case he should be taken into custody for possible involvement in the plot. He also had some funny remakrs regarding “we civilised nations” and “we countries of the West”. No comments!
Then, the CNN “ueber” commentator, that jack-of-all-trade, that teller or tales, spreader of nonesense, Mr. Wolf Blitzer was called in for “comments”. He also uttered a few more words about Islamic extremism and democracy and “we must not allow it” (apparently no one notices that “we” are not Pakistan).
Then, Sen. Arlen Specter was called on the phone as he was supposed to meet with Ms. Bhutto tonight (“sorry for breaking the date Arlen, unforseen circumstances, really.”). He also said something more about the same subject, and finished with saying “we cannot let suicide bombers take over our world.” As if “suicide bombers” are a race of people, all related to each other. I propose all Kalashnikov holders are also brothers!
So, it seems like the suicide bomber who detonated his bombs AFTER Ms. Bhutto was shot to death actually got more attention. It is like a signature: if you blow yourself up, it means you are a Muslim extremist/Jihadist (whatever the latter means). So, it is like a signature, apparently. Convenient really, if you ask me. Anyone can just kill people and leave this “keepsake”, and we don’t even need to bother looking for who really did it.
Along with all other stupidities taking over our supposed humanistic world, the ability to ask basic questions seems to be another capability we are losing. Instead of asking the obvious question in a political assassination, the question of who benefits from it, we just decide that we know who did it because someone blew themselves up after the assassination. No one asks that concidering the fact that Nawaz Sharif is barred from standing for elections, the removal of Bhutto would mean that there will be no January 8, 2008 elections in Pakistan and Gen. Musharaf can now re-group for a possible, but god knows when, later election with no strong opposition. He can also bring back the state of emergency that he was forced to remove. I suppose Georgio Agamben has outlined this already. Now, how would this monster “Islamic Extremism” beneft from Bhutto’s death?
