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The now-martyred Benazir Bhutto was far from perfect in her two stints a Pakistan’s prime minister, and she would probably have been far from perfect had she served a third. But she didn’t need to be perfect. Bhutto was the only person who represented the serious hope of a democratic Pakistan, and that’s why those most threatened by democracy murdered her.

Much will be said about Benazir Bhutto's assassination; little will be understood about what it truly means. I'm not speaking here about Pakistan, of course, as important as that country is, but rather the lesson - as if we needed any more - for that broad Middle East which begins in Pakistan and ends on the Atlantic Ocean coast. The following is a true story. Back in 1946, an American diplomat asked an Iranian editor why his newspaper angrily criticized the United States but never the Soviet Union. The Iranian said it was obvious. "The Russians," he said, "they kill...

It’s tempting to rerun my column on Pakistan from a month ago. Not because I predicted the assassination of Benazir Bhutto or offered any other great insight, but rather for the opposite reason: “Everyone’s an expert on Pakistan, a faraway country of which we know everything: General Musharraf should do this, he shouldn’t have done that, the State Department should lean on him to do the other… Well, I dunno. It seems to me a certain humility is appropriate when offering advice to Islamabad.” Oh, well. In the stampede of instant experts unveiling their Pakistani solutions-in-a-box, some contributions are worthy...

They have killed a woman. A beautiful woman. A visible, indeed a conspicuously, spectacularly visible woman. A woman who made a point not only of holding rallies in one of the world's most dangerous countries, but did so with her face uncovered, unveiled--the exact opposite of the shameful, hidden women, the condemned creatures of Satan, who are the only women tolerated by these apostles of a world without women. They killed a Jew, Daniel Pearl. They killed Ahmed Shah Massoud, the great guerilla leader against the Taliban, a moderate Muslim, a cultivated man and free spirit. They tried for years...

On an earlier post, I made the comment that Benazir Bhutto’s assassination should remind voters that we still live in a very dangerous world, and we need a grown-up as president with the wisdom and the strength of character to utilize our military to protect our interests and our citizens. I went on to say that this rules out all Democrat candidates. Since some either do not understand what this means (or PRETEND not to understand), lets explore this further. All through the 1990’s, a Democrat administration dealt with Islamic terrorism as if it were a problem for the civilian...

Excerpt - "Long live Bhutto," Benazir Bhutto shouted, waving to the crowd surging around her car. They were her last words before three gunshots rang out and she slumped back on to her seat. "She did not say anything more," said Safdar Abbassi, her chief political adviser, who was sitting behind her. In the first eyewitness account from inside the car, Dr Abbassi told The Sunday Telegraph: "All of a sudden there was the sound of firing. I heard the sound of a bullet."I saw her: she looked as though she ducked in when she heard the firing. We did...

OSKALOOSA, Iowa - Fred Thompson has shied from directly criticizing his Republican rivals seeking the presidential nomination. He's also not been part of the daily lineup of television ads jamming Iowa's airwaves. Both changed Friday. Thompson called on Mike Huckabee to explain why he wants the United States to apologize for Thursday's killing of Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto. The former Tennessee senator said he was concerned what people around the world "will think when they see a presidential candidate was apologizing" for the assassination. "That's hard to understand," he said. Huckabee on Thursday offered "our sincere concern and apologies...

Bhutto Killing Puts EuroLeaders On Notice: Time to Choose Friday, December 28, 2007 10:05 AM by Scott Ott The assassination of Benazir Bhutto has put on notice the leaders of every European nation. Your secularism, your democracy will not stand. The growing Muslim populations in your own lands that you have done so much to tolerate, protect and celebrate, will soon rise up against you. Sharia law shall become your law. The Caliph shall rule you. It remains only for you to choose submission or assassination. This bullet to the neck of democracy in Pakistan should cause a twinge in...

OTTUMWA — Fred Thompson’s campaign slogged through yet another winter storm to get to Ottumwa supporters on Friday. His reward was a packed room at Hotel Ottumwa. The audience was younger than that for most campaign events. It helped that school is out for the winter break. And it helped that Thompson’s visit was in the middle of the day. That was part of what convinced Phil and Constance Cavanaugh to bring their three children. Not that the Cavanaughs follow the school schedule. They home school the kids. “It’s the timing of the event, and he’s my second choice,” Phil...

Bhutto aide says bathed body, saw bullet wound AFP Saturday, December 29, 2007 13:07 IST ISLAMABAD: A close aide to Benazir Bhutto told on Saturday she saw a bullet wound in the Pakistani opposition leader's head when she bathed her body after her assassination. Bhutto's spokeswoman Sherry Rehman, who said she was in the former premier's motorcade at the time of the gun and suicide attack, rejected government claims that the death was caused when Bhutto's head hit her sunroof. "I was actually part of the party which bathed her body before the funeral," said Rehman, who added that her...

Excerpts - ~ snip ~ Bhutto told this reporter two weeks before she flew home on Oct. 18 about her plans to flush the Taliban and al-Qaida out of FATA. She wanted to open up FATA to the country's principal political parties to compete with a coalition of six politico-religious parties, known as Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, now the only ones allowed to campaign there. The objective was to wean Pashtun tribesmen from MMA, Taliban and al-Qaida control. This was to be done in conjunction with some $750 million in U.S. aid already authorized to bring basic improvements to mountain villages that...

Four cardinal principles of security violated, say Indian experts Praveen Swami New Delhi: While Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United States, Mahmud Ali Durrani, maintains that Pervez Musharraf’s government provided “unprecedented security” to Benazir Bhutto, Indian security experts disagree. Speaking to The Hindu, a senior Special Protection Group official who reviewed available footage of the attack described Ms. Bhutto’s security as “dismal, almost as bad as if it was designed to facilitate her assassination.” Set up in the wake of Indira Gandhi’s assassination, the elite SPG provides security to both serving and past Indian Prime Ministers and their families. e-mail to...

G.K. Chesterton once stated, “When learned men begin to use their reason, then I generally discover that they haven’t got any.” I believe that sentiment defines the way many people — including me, on occasion — look at our world today. As we prepare to enter the year 2008, our world is encountering widespread turmoil and confusion. The shocking assassination of former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto rekindles the fears we have of militant terrorists who will recklessly sacrifice their own lives to carry on their reign of terror. And while the experts and pundits and politicians continue to weigh...

Benazir Bhutto discusses her murderers

Bhutto died trying to duck from blast, not bullet or bomb: ministry ISLAMABAD (AFP) - Pakistan's interior ministry said Friday that Benazir Bhutto died from hitting her vehicle's sunroof when she tried to duck after a suicide attack, and that no bullet or shrapnel was found in her. Ministry spokesman Brigadier Javed Cheema said the opposition leader had died from a head wound she sustained when she smashed against the sunroof's lever as she tried to shelter inside the car. "The lever struck near her right ear and fractured her skull," Cheema said. "There was no bullet or metal shrapnel...

Times Online December 28, 2007 Pakistan military can deliver security, but not a long-term solution Bronwen Maddox, Chief Foreign Commentator of The Times The burning barricades set up across Karachi today by Benazir Bhutto's supporters do not have to presage civil war. Pakistan has gone through a year of crisis, as eight years of military rule has unravelled, yet enough of the country's institutions work well to have provided a powerful steadying influence through the growing turmoil. The military itself, the strongest organisation in the country, is the biggest insurance against widespread sectarian violence. The civil service, the judiciary (even...

After the shock Greg Sheridan, foreign editor | December 29, 2007 The West is failing to keep alive its friends in the Muslim world. Foreign editor Greg Sheridan writes that Thursday's murder also underlines the failures of Pakistan's dictatorial President THE assassination of Benazir Bhutto is a catastrophe for Pakistani democracy and society. It is also a savage setback in the larger war on terror. To assassinate a two-time prime minister, a moderate and liberal woman leader in the world's only Islamic nuclear power, is a signal victory for the terrorists. Bhutto's assassination also has wide geo-strategic consequences. It leaves...

Benazir and Rajiv, linked by dynasty and death RADHIKA RAMASESHAN New Delhi, Dec. 27: A still-young former Prime Minister, faced with a make-or-break election, is killed in a suicide attack at a rally venue. Benazir Bhutto, or Rajiv Gandhi? Sonia Gandhi’s condolence message to Benazir’s family today reflected one of the many threads that link the two most illustrious political dynasties of India and Pakistan. Benazir’s assassination is “a painful reminder of the threat posed by the forces of violence and terror to the civilised world”, the Congress president said. “Her life’s unrealised potential has been cut short. For the...

Benazir Bhutto [Mark Steyn] Dec. 27, 2007 Benazir Bhutto's return to Pakistan had a mad recklessness about it which give today's events a horrible inevitability. As I always say when I'm asked about her, she was my next-door neighbor for a while - which affects a kind of intimacy, though in fact I knew her only for sidewalk pleasantries. She was beautiful and charming and sophisticated and smart and modern, and everything we in the west would like a Muslim leader to be - though in practice, as Pakistan's Prime Minister, she was just another grubby wardheeler from one of...

Call it the Brzezinski Variation of the Some-Say Gambit. In the wake of the Bhutto assassination, Morning Joe panelist Mika Brzezinski has broken out a "friend" to put the blame on George Bush. Joe Scarborough dialogued with Mika from Florida, where he has been spending the week. View video here. Excerpts: