Democracy is forthcoming in Pakistan we read, yet the Pakistan political parties appear undemocratic in their process. They seem to all operate as feudal dynasties, and leadership of the respective parties is passed on to the next family member in line.

Surely its the country and its people that come first, not the family business!

I see this as a highly informative entry, though remain unfamiliar with the author, though his credentials are imposing. Being unfamiliar with Pakistan, yet active in keeping up with world affairs, I wonder about the separation between religion and state in Pakistan. From the U.S.A., where I sit, it doesn't seem there is much separation at all; therefore, this tradition of violent unrest seems the active demon in the barn. If the Bhuttos are truly feudal, and since feudalism is at center not nationally inclined, but of private property and power, this would seem an added flaw to any possibility of democracy in Pakistan. This appears to raise an almost hopeless people'scape for the poor and underpowered.

When one lives by the sword (power, money and assumption of status), be prepared that someone else has a sword!

A simple message of love... to bin Ladin and his minions.. to the Pakistan Army.. "The army which has a country" rather than the Army OF a country. 'Biggest property developer in Pakistan.. the Army"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWYZAnVSGKY

Listen to every glorious syllable.

"Jesus died to make men holy, let us live to make men free" key thought.

We have just voted out the most successful party of the last forty yrs and not a drop of blood was shed.Pakistan is ruled by chaos,religious ignorance and tribal hatreds.What lunatic gave them nuclear weapons?It matters not one iota who is in power,since leaders just reflect the psyche of the general population.Could it have something to do with the religion?

Presently we are bringing this mentality into our country via immigration.How long will it be before we too,become like those whom we pity?

What BBC viewers think

The BBC has a "have your say" bulletin board on its website. Viewers can post their comments on topical issues.

A feature of the BBC's bulleting board is that posters may recommend the contribution of other posters. If I see a post of yours that expresses my thoughts I can give it a "tick."

Here, at the time of writing, are the top 5 most recommended posts on the topic of the Bhutto assassination.

(1)
That's the way politics works with The Religion of Peace. (810 recommendations)

(2)
Religion of Peace strikes agaiin. (692)

(3)
When will these 'moderate' Muslims we keep hearing so much about rise up and demonstrate in the streets against these suicide bombers and other extremists who have 'hijacked' Islam? Why is it the only demonstrations we see are Muslims angry at the West, screaming 'Death to America' and 'Death to Israel'? It is PAST TIME to scream 'Death to Extremists.'…. (634)

(4)
Quite interesting that India and Pakistan were the same country with the same people. When the people split and two nations were born, democratic Hindu (secular laws) India now flourishes, whereas the democracy-phobic Pakistan with its Islamic citizens has been a total failure. (608 recommendations)

Now the task for the Muslims and left wingers is to somehow try and blame Israel and America for this. (608 recommendations)

(5)
Is this another example of the wonderful tolerance for which, or so we are constantly being told, Islam is famous?
Its time the rest of the world stopped making excuses for this barbaric, dark ages way of life and completely condemned the casual brutality continually perpetrated by so many of the religion's supporters. (542 recommendations)

I found no posts in defence of Islam in the top 15.

See:

http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?sortBy=2&forumID=3985&edition=2&ttl=20071231210244&#paginator

(But, remember, it may have changed by the time you click on the link)

Whatever the BBC's editorial policy, its viewers seem to have little doubt about the nature of Islam and its role in the Bhutto assassination.

Good article, an example of what we need (in many other spheres as well), less hagiography, more history.
Amerika's even more than usually ignorant interference was intended to leave Musharraf in place to handle the Army & ISI (no chance of the latter), Sharif to handle the bribes and routine administration and Benazir to be the 'acceptable (to the West)face of corruption'.
When Shrub first ran in 2000 it was thought that he'd been slightly/relatively isolationist for which I hoped, "If only!".
Anyone thinking that Krudd will be less of a poodle than Howard is dreaming - Latham called him (and others) 'the Americans'.
Plus ca change - who ever one votes for, the Government still gets in.

Happy New Year to all the racists.

Very sad to see the season of goodwill hasn't stopped you from your miserly expressions of hate.

Your lectures on evil are as anti-christ as any of the violence perpretrated by individuals in the name of Islam.

But I don't at all wonder why racist and dysfunctional Israel has been bought into this sorry Pakistani affair. After all the similarities are more striking than any differences. The Israeli Army and it's former members, now the political elite, control the hate, murder and repression in debacle in Palestine.

A grand example of the kettle calling the pot evil.

To all you Israeli fundamentalists this article would be a tad worrying.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/31/world/middleeast/31israel.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

And it's printed in the New York Times too. I'd wish you all a happy New Year but yours, like the Communist Chinese, hasn't begun yet, has it?

Keith

You demonstrate the frequent and absurd inability of so many to differentiate race from religion. I haven't read any racist posts here, just ones correctly pointing out the ever-presence of violence and turmoil in Pakistan and plausible linkages to the religion upon which it was founded.

I suppose it is just easier to throw the label than to engage in constructive dialogue as to why so many find Islam the most loathsome of the monotheisms, in our times at least. Certainly the histories of the other two are littered with manifold crimes, but unlike Islam, they have been brought to heel (to a large degree) by The Enlightenment and engagement with the reality of the unstoppable force that is secular humanism.

If you then prefer to equate the murderous rampages witnessed in Pakistan (post the murderous Al-Qaeda Islamic extremist assassination) with culture rather than religion, you will be left with the equally certain proposition that religion and culture are indivisible, in a nation that only exists due to Islam. An unpalatable proposition indeed,for a cultural relativist- albeit inescapable.

One murder closer to a nuclear nightmare

I hope the Americans really do have contingency plans to seize Pakistan's nukes and nuclear materials.

See:

http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/world/One-murder-closer-to-a.3628315.jp

With Musharraf's grip on power and security weakening, there is a twin concern for the future: that the country's potential as a breeding ground for terrorism could increase exponentially, and that Pakistan's arsenal of nuclear weapons could fall into the wrong hands.

M J Gohel, the head of the Asia-Pacific Foundation, a London-based security and intelligence think-tank, believes there is a strong possibility that parts of Pakistan's nuclear technology could fall into the grip of militants.

"It's a very, very valid risk," he said. "It's only a matter of time before al-Qaeda or somebody sympathetic to them gets hold of nuclear weapons, and if al-Qaeda or its sympathisers are to get hold of them, then Pakistan is at this point the weakest link in the chain."

In early 2005, a joint security assessment by the CIA and the US National Intelligence Council predicted Pakistan could become "a failed state, ripe with civil war, bloodshed, inter-provincial rivalries and a struggle for control of its nuclear weapons and complete Talibanisation" by 2015.

This weekend the Pentagon, which publicly insists the nuclear warheads are safe at present, is working on contingency plans to 'secure' the weapons if the situation in Pakistan deteriorates. They involve US special forces working with the Pakistani military to spirit the warheads away if they are at imminent risk of falling into the 'wrong' hands.

Experts say a more likely threat is that nuclear material, such as small quantities of radioactive uranium, would be passed on, allowing militant groups to develop so-called "dirty bombs".

Pakistan's culture of violence is driven by instability which in turn is driven by poor governance over the years and international incidents. The author is right to criticise the west for it's poor understanding of the country's need.

Is Musharaf such a bad dictator. In fact he has been quite benign to most of the population and reduced tensions with India in the face of a provocative government (BJP alliance). I believe he actually dislikes the term dictator. The country needs a dictator who has the best interests of the country at heart. (General) Musharaf knows that the country's way out is through economic progress, increased wealth and education to a high proportion of the population and how to transfer power from a dictatorship to a people ready for it. The west's only advice to him has been about going back to democracy. This is certain to only bring chaos to the country. Surely they would have known that Bhutto's Assassination was a 99% certainty.

Saleem Khan: “…to rethink the real issue of a stable and democratic Pakistan. The need to make these necessary evolutionary changes is ever more urgent.”

Pakistan came into being because Indian Muslims wanted to practice the Islamic ideal; to build a kingdom of Allah on earth. In the words of its spiritual father Muhammad Iqbal,

“Islam does not bifurcate the unity of man into an irreconcilable duality of spirit and matter. In Islam, God and the Universe, spirit and matter, church and state are organic to each other. For such a group of people, the concept of an Indian nationhood and the construction of a polity on national lines amounted to a negation of the Islamic principles of solidarity and, therefore, not acceptable to Muslims.”

With Pakistan’s founding, millions of Hindus were killed in both Pakistan and former East Pakistan (Bangladesh). Non-Muslims have been persecuted and chased away from these countries. A religion founded and propagated through violence will never know peace. Consequently, a country founded along the Islamic ethos of non-tolerance, coercion, violence would not, and cannot, find peace.

What Pakistan needs is not evolutionary changes but a revolution to demythologize Islam that it is a viable religious-political ideology. Islam belongs to the stone-age where the law of the jungle reigns supreme.

ps. In 1998, the then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif presented to the Pakistan Parliament to make the Quran and Sunnah the supreme law of Pakistan.

I think that Pakistan will have to be ruled by a pretty strong and perhaps ruthless dictator for some time,since anything else will be looked upon as weakness in a totally chaotic and violent state.Democracy is poison to Islam and the Imans know it.

The US made the mistake of getting rid of Saddham who was able to control three versions of Islam that thrived on hatred.
When the US instigated "shock and awe" they created an rod for their own back.Iraq under Saddham was also the perfect foil for Iran.Now the US could go into another conflict uniting Islam even more.

The best way to control Pakistan is to secure the nuclear weapons and the let the various tribes exhaust themselves in conflict.Perhaps Pakistan needs to be divided again into the nutters and the moderates,otherwise people of ability and money will flee creating more instability.For the US to put massive amounts of troops on the ground would be an Islamic delight.They would fall into the trap of Iraq.

Only when these nutters exhaust themselves through conflict,will they begin to listen.Democracy is and evolutionary process and Pakistan is decades if not centuries from achieving it.How do you educate those who are blinded by religious hate?It is self perpetuating system that just spirals downwards.Their failures are blamed on the evils of the West and life will only get better through the passage of death.

Surely Allah has run out of virgins by now and there will be less incentive for this rancid,toxic way of thinking to perpetuate itself?

Stickman

Oh you are right of course. I should have used the word bigots.

But pray tell me do you see how Israel fits so many of your descriptions. Let me show you, and be prepared to watch the abuse flow.

...pointing out the ever-presence of violence and turmoil in Israel, the occupied West Bank and Gaza and plausible linkages to the religion upon which Israel was founded.

...why so many find the religion of the Hebrews the most loathsome of the monotheisms, in our times at least. Certainly the histories of other religions are littered with manifold crimes, but unlike the religion of the Hebrews and some Muslim elements, they have been brought to heel (to a large degree) by The Enlightenment and engagement with the reality of the unstoppable force that is secular humanism.

...If you then prefer to equate the murderous rampages witnessed in Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank (post the murderous assassinations of Hamas leaders) with culture rather than religion, you will be left with the equally certain proposition that religion and culture are indivisible, in a nation that only exists due to the religion of the Hebrews. An unpalatable proposition indeed,for a cultural relativist- albeit inescapable.

Hope you are not as offended by the above few accurate words ... as will no doubt a whole gaggle of Israeli fundamentalist bigots.

Cheers mate. Yep I'm wearing a grin and my tongue is stuck firmly where it should be.

Now Keith,you can call me a religious bigot,but don't try to play the race card just because others have differing opinions to yours.
Islam will not accept or tolerate any other philosophy but theirs and for most sane people this is untenable.If we don't stand up to this facist philosophy,then they will prevail.Many are saying that it is already too late for Europe.Isalm is by far the fastest growing religion there and it will eventually reach a critical mass whereby its philosophy will be enshrined in law.

Study Malaysia since Islam has been in political control.You have no rights unless you are in the fold.

An interesting fact about China is that Buddism I thought would be by far the prevailing philosophy,but the communists have surpressed it so much,that now under more freedom,Christianity and Islam will now outstrip their traditional belief system which is probably the best of the religious philosophies.

Why was Benazir Bhutto assasinated?

Probably for the same reasons which are outlined below, by others who wish to retain, or gain, the same kinds of financial reward for being strategically placed in high office of a country.

http://iram.wordpress.com/2007/12/02/benazir-bhutto/

//In 1995, a leading French military contractor, Dassault Aviation, agreed to pay Mr. Zardari and a Pakistani partner $200 million for a $4 billion jet fighter deal that fell apart only when Ms. Bhutto’s Government was dismissed. In another deal, a leading Swiss company hired to curb customs fraud in Pakistan paid millions of dollars between 1994 and 1996 to offshore companies controlled by Mr. Zardari and Ms. Bhutto’s widowed mother, Nusrat.

In the largest single payment investigators have discovered, a gold bullion dealer in the Middle East was shown to have deposited at least $10 million into an account controlled by Mr. Zardari after the Bhutto Government gave him a monopoly on gold imports that sustained Pakistan’s jewelry industry//

Truth? who knows..... does it matter? In the field of worldly politics this is 'par' for the course it seems to me, and as I learnt a long time ago... sin does not dissappear with high office, it just becomes more sophisticated.

The solution for sin, is humble repentance and faith in Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

Arjay,

You are not racist only a bigot. :-)

Is Boaz-David's attitude an example of the tolerance of other religions?

Falon-Gong has more adherents in China than there are members of the Chinese Communist Party.

Arjay, we just voted out the most hated self indulgent born to rule scumbags in forty years and I have been a card carrying member of the party since the middle seventies.

As for your comments on the Pakastani people's form of government, the British have nuclear weapons also, are a highly tribalised and racially bilgerent mob whose religion is dedicated to the destruction of non belivers. It has a civil service made of the same families that go back hundreds of years as well as a ruling elite in the house of lords that get into parliment on the basis of their birth.

Yet more and more of them keep coming to this country each year, refusing to become Australians or vote and worst appear on those dam info commercials and continue to bludge on our welfare system.

I would be in favor of deporting these undesirable in a heart beat.

Somebody may have killed Bhutto because she had proof the Pakistani government was planning to rig the elections.

See:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/01/01/2129959.htm

Here is some background on Pakistan from Guardian columnist Anita Inder Singh.

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/anita_inder_singh/2007/12/the_finger_on_the_trigger.html

And this place has nukes!

More generally, the MIC [military-intelligence combine] had reared and sustained extremists against Pakistan's archenemy, India, long before 9/11 placed terrorism on the global agenda. Since 2001 the MIC has trained the extremists who threaten to derail Nato's anti-terrorist campaign in Afghanistan. Even the ignorant Bush government, which thought that Pakistan could become democratic by the mere act of Musharraf replacing his uniform with civvies, has been told of the links between the MIC and extremism.

The embrace between state and Islamic clerics has been strong and constant. Bhutto herself succumbed to that embrace as prime minister in the 1990s, if only to steal the thunder of her political and military rivals and to establish her credentials as the "best" Muslim. Indeed the Taliban, created by General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, was sustained by her government. And military rulers have always found alliances with religious extremists indispensable to shoring up their political standing and power.

Perhaps a momentary digression to Afghanistan could throw some light on the question, as Taliban thuggery has increased over the last two years. Would the Taliban have been able to carry out their cruel acts without training and sustenance from the Pakistani side? No. Never. In fact, UN, Nato and even American officials see Pakistan's hand behind the rising Taliban violence in Afghanistan.

So blame the military and intelligence, if you like, for Bhutto's assassination. Blame the suicide bomber, who may have spun out of the MIC's control - or acted under their instructions and with their connivance. Whatever - or whoever - inspired Bhutto's suicide killer, the chances are that his disgusting mission was facilitated by the culture of violence created by Pakistan's military and intelligence services, governing with the benefit of clergy.

I have no way of assessing the truth of Ms Singh's allegation but, to me, they sound plausible.

Yes! yes! yes! we all know the story. Just remember one thing. There are first world people and there are second world people and there are third world people. Too interfere with an old world has to be done with a careful and gentle understanding. And with that, and lets face it, in evolutionary terms, we are all learning our self's. Technology has been pushed down our throats at a rate that we all are choking on it and at our stage of development, I believe that this is unfair. In my opinion, we should all back off and tend to our own gardens. If you all just look around you, we are all moving a bit too quick. No wonder there is so much hate in the world today! Some are drinking their fill, and some are scraping the dirt for something to eat.

We should not be going this way, and it all still comes down to one thing. OVER POPULATION.
Now do you see the problem.

keith

You are getting sillier and sillier. I know you don't actually believe what you say. Israel had nothing whatever to do with Pakistan. The Jewish religion, unlike Christianity and Islam believes that all good people can go to heaven regardless of their religious belief. That is why Jews make no attempt to convert any one, they see no advantage in the eyes of God. That is why Jewish communities in India have always been accepted by the Hindus. It is why Muslims, Christians and others have equality and a vote in Israel.

Now let's get back to the subject. India with an identical colonial past is becoming a free democratic nation (like Israel). Why has Pakistan not been able to follow in the same way?

Keith - touche ;)

Note however, that I wrote that I think Islam is the most loathsome of the monotheisms.. which doesn't mean I don't think the others are loathsome too, just less so. I am no fan of Israel's policies either. The middle east is a superb example of what lies at the heart of most 'religious' disputes anyway - land. If you have read my posts before, I find most organised religion and interference of church in matters of state - abhorrent.

None of which detracts from the fact that followers of Islam appear far more prone to violent conduct than most. Pakistan is merely the latest example (9/11, Danish cartoons fiasco etc).

The more complicated the world thinks, the no answers you get. Its true, aim set in my primitive world, but at least, I don't pretend that this whole site is just a pissing contest. The fact is, if you are all that smart, why arnt you all million aries.