Bhutto Assassinated

In what will surely be the story of the week, Pakistan opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated Thursday in a suicide attack at a campaign rally that also killed at least 20 others, aides said. Bhutto's supporters erupted in anger and grief after her death, attacking police and burning tires and election campaign posters in several cities. At the hospital where she died, some smashed glass and wailed, chanting slogans against President Pervez Musharraf.

This assassination was just the type of violence that President Musharraf had attempted to stop, through his use of house arrest, and martial law. The lifting of the emergency, and giving Mrs. Bhutto access to the venue which she attended, and at which she was assassinated, was just what Musharraf feared most.

The militants will use this anger to disrupt the country, and will turn this into a civil war, if calmer heads do not prevail. It is necessary for the world to speak with one voice and help keep Pakistan from falling into the abyss of violence. This is a nation with a nuclear stockpile that would be the envy of any terrorist organization, and this stockpile must remain safe under all circumstances!

I feel sad for the death of Mrs. Bhutto, but she knew that returning to Pakistan was a "death sentence" and even though her goal was to have more democracy for her country, she may have the opposite effect, and losing democracy in Pakistan to al-Qaeda and The Taliban, may be a very sad legacy for her sacrifice!


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