Today, Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in Pakistan. She had returned to participate in power transition from Gen. Musharraf. There is, as usual, a debate about who might have been behind the attack. Was it Musharraf? Al Qeada? Who knows, and given the state of “democracy” in Pakistan, we may never know.
Bhutto wasn’t exactly a beacon of hope. Her Presidency was marred by scandal and corruption and she lived in exile for 8 years to avoid corruption charges. Nevertheless, she was one of the only opposition voices in Pakistan and her death has almost assured that Musharraf and his cronies will retain power in elections in a few weeks.
I wonder how long it will be before Pakistan implodes? When it does, will their main export be nuclear weapons and the technology to make them? Will our wishy-washiness about Musharraf’s anti-democratic regime come back to bite us?
Here is the one historic fact that I have to come back to when I think of Pakistan; They were the only country that actually recognized the Taliban as the rightful government of Afghanistan.