Goodbye Benazir

I'll readily admit that I don't know much about Benazir Bhutto. Until this past October when she returned to Pakistan out of exile (a self-imposed exile to escape corruption charges), I think I had heard her name, but nothing more. Or perhaps I only think I found her name familiar as it has become familiar since. It's all together possible I didn't even know of her at all until two and a half months ago.

But she seemed to embody something that was about the people instead of being about power and wealth. And maybe this also was spun out of whole cloth. And maybe not.

Ms. Bhutto defied a power-hungry friend of George Bush who, also like King George some fear, opposed free elections and fancied dictatorship as his due. She returned to Pakistan in hopes of building a coalition government with Musharraf. Instead he declared her an outlaw. He fired the Pakistani Supreme Court and declared marshal law. And now he takes no blame for her assassination.

George Bush sits and points his finger at "international terrorism." He probably ordered her death at Musharraf's behest.

I didn't know even a smidgeon of what could have been know about this probably very brave woman. But I find myself deeply saddened and disturbed at what was done to her today in a land that we call an ally.