To hold the country’s top office is perhaps the only agenda the political elites of Pakistan have and how far they could go to achieve that can be seen in the recent statements of Benazir Butto, the two times Prime Minister and the daughter of, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. Zulfiqar Bhutto was one of the most out-spoken political figures still in peoples mind in the Muslim nations, Benazir Bhutto said in her interview with Hannity and Colmes at the Fox TV News programme. During her interview she said that 9/11 attacks in US would never have happened, had she been in power. Referring to the 1998 bombings at the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and attack on the USS Cole in 2000, Benazir further added that the two (previous) attacks on the World Trade Center, and attacks on the US embassies in Africa, the Cole ship in Yemen all took place when her party and she was in the opposition. She claimed and at the same time blamed President Musharraf claiming that under her leadership, Pakistan fought the forces of extremism, militancy and terrorism and she had stopped the Taliban from taking over Afghanistan while Musharraf’s regime invited Osama bin Laden and set up al-Qaeda network. What could anyone drive from these assertions and allegations?
Replying to a question asked by Hannity, Benazir said that she did have links with the high officials in Washington. By looking at her views and her claim about her link with the high officials in US administration, one can imagine what else she could sell to US and other western powers to gain the sympathies and support just to hold the office in Islamabad.
As a matter of fact, several historical facts can be stated from the facts-sheet when Benazir was running the government in Pakistan about her link with Taliban, for example; the Taliban was formed and provided heavily arms from USA through Benazir’s administration to steadily gaining control of much of Afghanistan by Taliban up to late 1990. However, this is not the aim of writing this article neither the writer wants to appreciate any militarily regime in Pakistan but time and again it has been seen that the gluttonous and power-greedy approach of the political figures of Pakistan, they are ready to sacrifice the national interest, are the reasons that Pakistan could not convince even her friends about Pakistan’s genuine territorial issues and grievances.
As the history witnesses, this is not the first time that Benazir abuses Pakistan’s administration on the matter of national interest and foreign policies, there have been the speculations in the past about her transformation of information to India on the Sikh freedom movement and on Kashmiri freedom fighters. During her visit to India, Benazir openly condemned the Kashmiri freedom fighters calling them as terrorists.
Since the 9/11 attacks, the anti-Muslim and the anti-Pakistan elements, especially neighbouring India has been trying to establish links of Pakistan’s involvement in the attacks. How could Benazir not have had in mind before making these types of statements on international media network that this would provide the opportunity to those anti-Pakistan elements to use her statement as a reference to call Pakistan as a terrorist country? One can hardly imagine that Benazir could be so much unpatriotic in power mania that to please and gain the support from the US and the other Western Capitals she would openly blame Pakistan and making Pakistan responsible for 9/11 attacks.
The writer is a Sydney-based freelance journalist and a political analyst.
