Nice

Cole

The seriousness of the situation in the streets of some of Pakistan's important towns and cities doesn't seem to me to be being reported in the US press and media. In contrast, Pakistani newspapers are giving chilling details of large urban centers turned into ghost towns on Friday morning, with no transport available, hundreds of thousands of persons stranded far from home, shops closed, and banks, gas stations, police stations and automobiles torched. Karachi, Hyderabad, Larkana, Sukkur, Jacobabad and many others in Sindh Province fell victim to the violence (Bhutto was from Larkana in Sindh but had a residence in Karachi). The police seemed to be AWOL for the most part in these cities, allowing the rioting and looting to go on unhindered.

So here's my question based upon what I understand of the prevailing CW. If the US pushed Bhutto back into Pakistan with the specific intent of propping up and legitimizing the Musharraff regime, why does it make sense for Musharraff to be behind the assassination?

My instinct tells me that Musharraff has different ideas about how to maintain his unpopular military regime and that the Bush foreign policy is as tone-deaf as ever here. And certainly as a Louisiana native, I understand that political actions can be exceedingly selfish and surprising and almost always counter to what Washington might expect.

Update: And now we have a magic bullet-shrapnel-explosive-blunt object theory as well.

I just hope the rioters all over Pakistan don't destroy too many condos.