The British government has investigated the killing of Benazir Bhutto and concluded that she was killed in just the way Musharraf’s government has said: agitators attacked her motorcade, fired shots , and in the melee that followed, Bhutto smashed her head against something.

I see that various groups in Pakistan refuse to accept this account of the assassination. Bhutto’s followers and other anti-Musharraf protestors are calling for a United Nations investigation into the matter. They’re hoping that a truly unbiased and disinterested investigation will find that… is going to show that… is going to prove…

Prove what? That Musharraf strangled Bhutto with his own hands? That Pakistan spy agency ISI replaced one of her guards with one of their agents who, at a crucial moment, fired the actual bullet that killed her?

Why would Musharraf or ISI get their own hands dirty?

I sympathize with the people who won’t accept the official account, who feel that somehow Musharraf and ISI were responsible for this death. No one will ever find a smoking gun, however, because there isn’t one. Musharraf didn’t need to arrange or even order Bhutto’s assassination–that’s the scary thing. He knew, as everyone knew, that countless rabidly violent individuals and ruthless little Jihadist groups were gunning for Bhutto. All Musharaff had to do was a little less than everything possible to keep her alive. That would be enough to ensure that one of those killers would get her. No conspiracy was needed, no secret planning, no cloak-and-dagger assassination schemes. Yes, Musharraf and his cohorts executed Bhutto just as surely as if they’d fired the bullet themselves, but there’s nothing to discover about the killing except what’s in the papers.

I’m willing to bet that Musharraf himself never said the words “Bhutto must die.”  He didn’t have to. Some matters are just understood. Most of the really problematic conspiracies are conspiracies of common interest. As for Bhutto’s assassination, you can learn everything there is to learn about it, I think,  by simply reading the papers.