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R.I.P. Benazir Bhutto

December 27th, 2007
By HOLLY IN CINCINNATI, Copy Editor

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I just got to my computer to find that former Pakistani PM Benazir Bhutto has been killed in a suicide attack (along with 15 others) while speaking at an election rally.

BBC:

Pakistani former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has been killed in a presumed suicide attack.

News of her death was confirmed by a military spokesman and members of her Pakistan People’s Party (PPP).

Ms Bhutto had just addressed an election rally in Rawalpindi when gunfire and an explosion occurred.

At least 15 other people are reported killed in the attack and several more were injured. Ms Bhutto had twice been the country’s prime minister.

She had been campaigning ahead of elections due in January.

My spot analysis? Bad, sad news.

Ami Isseroff’s Analysis at MideastWeb: Bhutto Assassinated - Hope for democracy mortally wounded

Former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated during a campaign rally, Thursday, December 27. A Jihadist terrorist shot her in the neck and chest as she was getting into her car to leave a rally in Rawalpindi, and then blew himself up, killing 20 others. Her supporters shouted “Dog Musharraf,” blaming the Pakistani leader for the assassination, rather than the Islamists.

Two days ago, Bhutto had pledged again, perhaps too insistently, that she would fight extremists. In Pakistan as in Afghanistan, as in Iraq as in Lebanon as in the Palestinian territories, it seems that in Islamist “democracy,” comrade Kalashnikov’s invention (the AK-47 assault rifle), the suicide bombers and the their allies are winning the “war for hearts and minds” by murdering people.

Thus far, nobody has outlined a realistic policy for dealing with the spreading problem of Islamist extremism, though it should be becoming clear that it threatens to engulf all of us. On the one hand, repressive regimes like that of Pervez Musharraf disallow all manner of legitimate protest or democratic dissent. The only opposition that can survive takes refuge in the mosques and is defended as “religion.” Indeed, in countries such as Syria and Egypt, Islamist extremism is virtually the only tolerated form of dissent, provided that the terror tactics and hate are not turned against the government itself. It is very likely that Pervez Musharraf will now reinstate the state of emergency that was lifted under Western pressure. Pakistan will see many more sad days - repression and violence beget more repression and more violence. No doubt, the suspicion will grow that Musharraf engineered this assassination as an excuse to perpetuate his own rule. The possibility cannot be ruled out. But Musharraf did not invent the Islamists and he could not have conjured them from nowhere. The blame must be put where it belongs.

MORE

Ami ends with the following:

All those “decent” folk of whatever creed, wherever they are, who apologize for Islamist terror, who insist on “engaging” and “coopting” and justifying these murderers, should understand that Benazir Bhutto was a martyr for them, for us, for our freedom. If we do not wake up and fight this menace together, we shall all meet her fate or be enslaved by them. The Islamist extremists declare that they are not interested in compromise or mercy or democracy in the terms that ordinary people understand it. Democracy for them means that you will be convinced, by the barrel of a gun, that their way is right, and then you will vote for it by consensus. You can have a choice of which Islamist candidate to support. There is nothing to discuss with these people except disarming and re-educating them.

It is time to understand. The apologists for terror and those who look the other way, and those who fund “educational charities” that teach hatred and perpetuate ignorance and xenophobia are not friends of Islam or friends of the poor people of Asia. They are not fighting to end any occupation or oppose any tyranny, but rather to impose a dark tyranny on all of us.

Jerusalem Post - Analysis: The killings of Bhutto

Ultimately, main question is what will happen in Pakistan after it comes to term with her death.



This entry was posted on Thursday, December 27th, 2007 at 8:08 am and is filed under Radical Islam, Islamism, Islamists, Benazir Bhutto, Al Qaeda, Muslims, Islam, Terrorism, Pakistan, Foreign Politics, War On Terror. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

 
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