NukeGate – Pakistan, “Greatest Threat to the West Today,” Experts Agree, and The Bomb

NukeGate – Pakistan, “Greatest Threat to the West Today,” Experts Agree, and The Bomb
7th January 2011

On NukeGate: “The Biggest Political Scandal of the Past Decade: Lockheed/Sandia, Bush’s State Dept., Pakistan’s Nuclear Smuggling & the Hidden Parapolitics of the Plame Scandal”

” … Overwhelmingly, the experts selected Pakistan as the country that posed the greatest threat to the West today, and a majority also picked it as the country most likely to have its nukes end up in the hands of terrorists. … “

From: “Duane Baughman on how political consulting led to ‘Bhutto’ documentary”
Excerpt – By Rick Marianetti Examiner January 7th, 2011

… In the current issue of Foreign Policy, 65 top experts in terrorism were asked, “Which country poses the greatest threat to the West today?” Almost 80% picked the same place:

Overwhelmingly, the experts selected Pakistan as the country that posed the greatest threat to the West today, and a majority also picked it as the country most likely to have its nukes end up in the hands of terrorists. Interestingly, only two experts named Iran as the West’s greatest threat or as a nuke proliferator to terror groups.

The Foreign Policy/Fund for Peace Failed States Index 2010 rated Pakistan in 10th place. To put that assessment in context, Somalia was at the top of the list, while Sweden (175), Finland (176), and Norway (177) finished in the last three slots. Haiti (11), Nigeria (14), North Korea (19), Rwanda (40), and Guatemala (72) were all rated more stable than Pakistan.

Through Bhutto’s story, Baughman blends interviews and incredible video footage that reveal a dangerously divided country armed with at least 100 operational nuclear weapons.

Culture and Events caught up with Baughman last week (the day after the 3rd anniversary of Benazir Bhutto’s assassination) at a San Francisco coffee house. He talked about his political consulting work and how it led to him make a film about the epic tragedy of one of the world’s most extraordinary women of the last half century. …

During the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, the United States assumed — wrongly, it was discovered years later — that the Soviet military command stationed in Cuba had the authority to launch a nuclear strike independent of the Kremlin. What is the situation in Pakistan?

Baughman: Benazir Bhutto found out about the details of her own country’s nuclear capabilities, the strategic location of her own nuclear facilities, from the CIA on a visit to Washington.

In the film, Islamic scholar Reza Aslan said of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI): “It is the NSA, CIA and Pentagon rolled into a single body; it is a shadow military force.”

Baughman: They have total control. That’s why it’s as much a negotiation with military as civilian leadership. For the first time in the short history of Pakistan, this government, as weakened as it is, is having actual success in having a small partnership with the military. The civilian government under Zardari (Bhutto’s husband) is actually handing over and decentralizing power for the first time, power that was accumulated under Musharrif’s dictatorship. …

One of the things that wasn’t in the movie: Zia (Pakistani President assassinated in 1988) kept her in prison and would put vials of poison at her door everyday with fake newspapers that read, “Bhutto to hang like her father” — in order to try to get her to commit suicide. In Muslim society, that kind of death, for non-religious reasons, is one of the most painful deaths because it’s about self. She would go to the door of the prison and kick the vials with whatever energy she could muster. It’s not anything she ever talked about. She just did it, she went on, and if she was going to die there, she was going to die in prison at the hands of the government. …

What is the status of the investigation into Bhutto’s assassination since the film was completed?

Baughman: In April, a United Nations investigation concluded General Musharraf refused to provide adequate security for her and intentionally destroyed forensic evidence at the scene of both bombings. It was a hugely uncharacteristic report from a usually benign United Nations.

Then just two weeks ago they arrested the actual policeman and the Chief, who was a Musharraf acolyte and gave the approval to one of his minions to go out and hose the thing down. This is in a place where they’re used to not getting justice — you only have to look back at the murders of her two brothers, which are still unsolved, and will remain unsolved as long as we live.

This is a bottom-up investigation, and it will lead to a Musharraf arrest, I guarantee it. …

http://www.examiner.com/culture-events-in-national/duanne-baughman-on-how-political-consulting-led-to-bhutto-documentary
























NukeGate – Pakistan, “Greatest Threat to the West Today,” Experts Agree, and The Bomb