The lesson of Bhutto's assassination: No holiday from history
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Benazir Bhutto is dead, assassinated Thursday at a campaign rally in Rawalpindi, Pakistan:[pP]>free download windows bork
Bhutto, 54, was leaving the rally in her bulletproof vehicle when she asked that the rooftop hatch be opened so she could bid supporters farewell, aides who were with her said. She leaned her head through the hatch, and several gunshots rang out, an aide seated next to her said. Just as Bhutto sank into her seat, a large bomb detonated outside the vehicle. The left side of Bhutto’s face was badly bloodied, aides said, but it was not clear whether she’d been hit by bullets or shrapnel from the bombing. She lost consciousness, and never regained it.
al Qaeda has reportedly claimed responsibility for the attack. [pP]>free download windows bork
John Podhoretz reflects on the implications for America:[pP]>free download windows bork
The horrifying assassination of Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan this morning comes only one week before the Iowa caucuses and 12 days before New Hampshire. It is a sobering and frightening reminder of the challenges and threats and dangers posed to the United States by radical Islam, the nature of the struggle being waged against the effort to extend democratic freedoms in the Muslim world, and the awful possibility of a nuclear Pakistan overrun by Islamofascists. This is what the next president will be compelled by circumstance to spend a plurality of his or her time on. This is what really matters, not the cross Mike Huckabee lit up behind his head in his Christmas ad.
American politics would dearly love to take a holiday from history, just as it did in the 1990s. But our enemies are not going to allow us to do so.
President Bush says the perpetrators “must be brought to justice.” Bryan at Hot Air wonders, “What does ‘justice’ mean in the context of jihad, if jihadists perpetrated this attack?”[pP]>free download windows bork
When they’re caught, tried and imprisoned in some countries, they remain unapologetic enemies of the rest of the world and they tend to get early parole. If they’re not allowed to escape by allies in strategic government positions. When we capture them and hold them at Guantanamo, “human rights” groups agitate for them and the ACLU goes to bat for them while the MSM reports their fabricated accusations against our personnel as truth, all while the political opposition works to grant them full habeas corpus rights. So what does “justice” mean when these assassins, whoever they may turn out to be, could well have touched off a civil war in a nuclear country? [Pakistan has between thirty and eighty nuclear warheads. — Ed.]
Michael Goldfarb says it can mean only one thing:[pP]>free download windows bork
It should be emphasized that Pakistan has become the main front for al Qaeda not only because of the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan and the compromises of Musharraf with the radicals, but because al Qaeda in Iraq is being beaten and they are seeking a more vulnerable front. Pakistan has been the second bloodiest theater in the [war on terror] after Iraq for years now. So while it’s all well and good to say that the perpetrators, almost certainly members of al Qaeda, must be brought to justice … there is no justice for terrorists. The only good terrorist is a dead terrorist.
