In 1914, an obscure Archduke and his wife were assassinated in Sarajevo, a place that, to most Western Europeans and Americans, was the back of beyond. It should have been nothing more than a bloody moment in local history that quickly vanished into the backwash of time. It didn’t, of course. Instead, it set in motion a series of events that led to World War I, one of the bloodiest wars in modern history and a war that set the stage for World War II and the Cold War.
I couldn’t help but think of 1914 and Sarajevo when I woke up today to read about Benazir Bhutto’s assassination today in Pakistan. It wasn’t a surprise, of course, considering the fact that this was the third known try against her in only two months. If people are trying that hard to kill someone — and if they are not worried about either their own deaths or collateral damage — they’re eventually going to succeed.
It remains to be seen who was responsible for that assassination. Al Qaeda has already volunteered itself as a suspect, but that may simply be opportunistic blather. Many suspect President Pervez Musharraf, of course, since he was facing an election against Bhutto, but it could just as easily have been Musharraf’s Islamist enemies. Pakistan is certainly not a place lacking people who are motivated to kill. Indeed, to the extent that the increased instability in Pakistan may benefit the Republican candidates, who are seen (rightly, I think), as more prepared to deal with threats against America’s security, I’m sure there are many lining up in the nutroots rooms to blame the assassination on Karl Rove.
I’m not sufficiently well-versed in events in Pakistan to venture any predictions about how this event will play out, both in Pakistan and abroad. My only hope is that it doesn’t take World War IV from a luke warm war to a hot, hot war.
UPDATE: You might have noticed that my blogging rate is low today, despite the big happenings. We were to have been driving to the mountains today, but got snowed out. Instead, my husband suggested that we clean closets, which I thought was a good way to end the old year and see in the new. The one problem is that, in terms of blogging, that’s almost as bad for my output as being in a car. Since I’m incapable of deep thoughts right now, let me pass you on to the Captain who has, I think, some of the better posts about the assassination’s meaning at home and abroad.
As always, American Thinker’s Rick Moran has some good posts, too — here and here.
UPDATE II: And, of course, Mark Steyn.
UPDATE III: Christopher Hitchens also offers extremely interesting comments about Bhutto’s personality and legacy.
Filed under: Pakistan | Tagged: Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan |
Bookworm Room (ARCHIVES) 
Can’t we at least bury this woman before analyzing the affect on the US Primaries? All the “who benefits?” commentary — yes even from our beloved AT — makes me sad.
By all reports this was a truly extraordinary woman, “Destiny’s Daughter.” May she rest in the Peace she sought for her country but never knew.
PS: the big question, I think, is not the impact on the American Primaries, but the impact on Islam worldwide.
If this murder is indeed proved to have been done by Radical Islamists, what will be the reaction of Islamist moderates?
OK, tmro I will tell you that Hill’s claim “I came to know Mrs. Bhutto over many years” was based on a single meeting.
http://sweetness-light.com/archive/hillarys-press-release-on-benazir-bhutto
Today I mourn,.
I’m beginning toi think the term “Islamic moderate” is a nice, fuzzy, feel-good term we invented to describe a creature who essentially doesn’t exist. Kind of like “Big-Foot.”
To describe these people as animals is to denigrate the animal kingdom. I begin to grow sick of these people. All of them.
Ah, jj, don’t give up hope. General Petraeus – the real ‘Man of the Year’, not Putin – has shown in Iraq that wisdom, intelligence, and proper strategy can achieve results that cause the advance of civilization and the retreat of barbarism.
Islam is mired in a cesspool of totalitarian, repressive, barbaric philosophic thought. It’s been spiralling down to this point for about three centuries. Things are so bad right now that Islam can easily be described as anti-science and even anti-thought. During our own Christian Dark Ages, we had Aquinas and other thoughtful philosophisers. Islam has very little these days… The recent decades-long oil glut has benefitted solely those who spread the current poisonous message. (Thank you VERY much, Saudi Arabia.) This era is truly the Dark Ages of Islam. It was never this bad in our own Western era of Christian totalitarian Dark Ages, was it? I do not think so.
Middle Eastern countries have a culture of violence that makes our own
American culture of violence look like kids playing patty-cake. (Understand, I *like* the American culture of violence when I compare it to our shrinking violets over in Europe; and due to my belief that predators exist, and human predators actively enjoy preying upon the weak in every soul-destroying way that they can.)
It’s merely our own unfortunate circumstance to be alive at this time, to have to shoulder the responsibility for the fight. In the end, if civilized forces within Islam cannot transform it from within, we will transform it from without – perhaps after a very long, civilization-searing struggle, perhaps easily.
I offer some useful examples: the assassin who shot Bhutto was moderate. The accompanying suicide bomber was radical.
Now here’s something interesting:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/12/30/wbhutto230.xml
Looks as if Bhutto desired to hire Blackwater for security. Had she done so, she might still be alive.
You know the State Department and other Democrats would have had trouble approving of that. Bad for the image, you know, what with all those “death blossoming” jackboots around on camera.
Michael Williamson did a nice portrayal of Executive Production outfits like Blackwater in his novel “Better to Beg Forgiveness” published by baen and available on ebook format.
That should be Protection, not production.
“I can’t explain why the Bush administration didn’t pressure Musharraf to do more. Her death leaves the US with a Pakistan policy that is completely bankrupt.”
I guess mercenaries are popular again when the lives of the elite are on the line, eh?
I suspect, to the contrary, the problem is not with the bankruptcy of U.S. policy but with the innate insolvency of Pakistan. Pakistan was formed to be the first Islamic state and has proved Islam is not compatible with modern statecraft.
Islamist moderate are like moderate Zionists. There is no such thing.
Re the last comment, it repeats a trend I’ve noticed (and that you can’t see because only I got M_Z’s email address): the antisemites always leave fake Jewish names. There’s something Freudian going on with that one.
Incidentally, MZ left another comment which was simply a wholesale incorporation of someone else’s blog post. I deleted it because it went against two policies I have: (1) using my blog to parrot other people’s blogs and (2) crass antisemitism.