Benazir Bhutto, 1953-2007
It's odd the things that come to mind when a news story of world importance bursts onto the Internet.
When I read the news yesterday about Benazir Bhutto's assassination in Pakistan, I couldn't help but think back to a Halloween party I attended with some of my Harrisburg (Pa.) Patriot-News colleagues back in 1988. I think it was Halloween and I think it was 1988, the year Bhutto began her first stint at prime minister of Pakistan. In any case, one of my colleagues came to the party as her. She did a good job of it, too, bearing a certain physical resemblance that was topped off with the traditional costume Bhutto wore for public appearances.
Many kudos for the costume--Bhutto was a big deal then as the first female to head a Muslim nation. She was just 35 at the time, which I can easily remember because she was born a month before me in 1953 (and a month after former British prime minister Tony Blair, that other 1953-born political leader).
I'm sorry she was murdered, but my sense of loss is tempered by the belief that she probably wouldn't have accomplished great things had she returned to power. Her previous two terms in office were both ended early by military coups. Yes, she was against Islamic terrorism and that may have gotten her killed, but would she have delivered Osama bin Laden to George W. Bush? I doubt it. More likely her reign would have been more of the same delicate balancing act that the current President/dictator Pervez Musharraf has carried out.
The Indian sub-continent of which Pakistan is part has to have some of the more violent politics in the world. Think of the assassinations of Mohandas Gandhi and Indira Gandhi in India, and the hanging of Bhutto's own father after he was overthrown as President of Pakistan by General Zia. Not that America has been much different. What is it that makes one country prone to political assassinations and lets another escape them entirely?