Religion Of Peace: The Bhutto Transcript

Pakistan has released a transcript that apparently proves radical Taliban Islamists affiliated with al-Qaeda were behind the Bhutto assassination. In the transcript, militant leader Baitullah Mehsud, is referred to as Emir Sahib. The other man is identified as a Maulvi Sahib, or "Mr. Cleric."

Maulvi Sahib: Peace be on you.

Mehsud: Peace be on you, too.

Maulvi Sahib: How are you Emir Sahib?

Mehsud: Fine.

Maulvi Sahib: Congratulations. I arrived now tonight.

Mehsud: Congratulations to you, too.

Maulvi Sahib: They were our men there.

Mehsud: Who were they?

Maulvi Sahib : There were Saeed, the second was Badarwala Bilal and Ikramullah was also there.

Mehsud: The three did it?

Maulvi Sahib: Ikramullah and Bilal did it.

Mehsud: Then congratulations to you again.

Maulvi: Where are you? I want to meet with you?

Mehsud: I am in Makin. Come I am at Anwar Shah's home.

Maulvi Sahib: OK I will come.

Mehsud: Do not inform their family presently.

Maulvi Sahib: Right.

Mehsud: It was a spectacular job. They were very brave boys who killed her.

Maulvi Sahib: Praise be to God. I will give you more details when I come.

Mehsud: I will wait for you. Congratulation once again.

Maulvi Sahib: Congratulations to you as well.

Mehsud: Any service?

Mauvliv: Thank you very much?

Mehsud: Peace be on you.

Maulvi: Same to you.

Peace be on you ... praise be to God. This is the Islamist enemy, praising God that in one blow they were able to strike out against modern roles for women, democracy (or a typically corrupt South Asian version thereof) and stability.

More on the suspect, from CNN:

Robert Grenier, former CIA station chief in Pakistan and former head of the CIA's counterterrorism center, describes Mehsud as an Islamic radical leader in northwest Pakistan's South Waziristan closely associated with the Taliban.

Grenier said that Mehsud spoke publicly before Bhutto's return to Pakistan in October after her self-exile that the former prime minister was marked for assassination.

Some say the assassination is all the more reason to withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan:

We don’t know what’s going on in these volatile countries. The best thing is to stay out of the way and let them solve their own problems. ...

Meanwhile, the U.S. government plants to “vastly expand” its forces in Pakistan. They’re just being sent into a rats’ nest.

Here’s a better idea: We get out of countries like this. We don’t let them come to our country. Let them stew in their own juices. If businessmen want to trade with these countries, they do so at their own peril.

America’s foreign policy should be that of non-intervention and neutrality, as our Founding Fathers, especially Washington and Jefferson, insisted. (John Seiler)

This is a chicken and egg argument, with the non-interventionists saying our presence in the Middle East caused 9/11 and interventionists saying earlier Islamists terror strikes necessitated our presence in the Middle East. Besides, that was then and cannot be undone. It is foolhardy to think that we can just withdraw from the Middle East and radical Islamism will stop fighting the West.

They have tasted power and they want more, in the name of Allah and the Islamist caliphate, which is the real lesson of the Bhutto assassination. It was not an attack on America; it was an attack on Muslim efforts to stop the jihad.