Benazir Bhutto Assassinated
 

From the BBC: Benazir Bhutto assassinated

Well, this is bad news. My only hope is that this doesn't completely toss the country into anarchy; a dictatorship with nukes is better than anarchy with nukes.

They're already calling it Pakistan's version of the JFK assassination.

And from what I've seen on CNN, some have thought that it was Musharraf that was the mastermind behind this, seeing her as the biggest threat to his power.

Yeah I heard about that too. It's really depressing when I hear about shit like this because I really doubt that countries in the Middle East can maintain a democracy. People in America think that "Oh if we successfully turn these governments into democracies, then we wouldn't have as many problems with them." But it doesn't work out like that. How can the countries in the Middle East become democracies when candidates are often assassinated like this?

Not to mention how the culture in many countries there are not conductive to democracy, due to a strong tribal past.

We don't even have to speculate on a possible direct implication. These acts of violence are being performed on his behalf (or are intended to) and he's not preventing them. There's nothing incidental about that, and it's enough.

Yeah I mean the best-case response in this case is that Musharraf only allowed it to happen.

What I am reading about this is that Bhutto was supported by the US government, so what this assassination looks like is Musharraf / Al Qaeda's pushback against the US trying to put Bhutto into power, presumably due to buyer's remorse over its previous support of Musharraf.

Honestly a lot of the Islamic countries just don't seem like they can be dealt with anymore. The few ones that are against the violence don't even 'speak very loudly', I guess the phrase is.

I don't really see how this can be put down as Musharaff's fault. Sure he didn't like Bhutto very much but that hardly means he was behind this.
And allowing it to happen? It pretty hard to stop people being assasinated if their opponents are determined enough.
Someone mentioned JFK. Did the US goverment allow him to be assassinated with inadequate defences?
I'm not saying Musharaff is not behind this but until I see evidence of it I don't think we should speculate/ Especially as this may lead to riots and I'm not sure he would take such a risk when he has the power to minimise her role anyway.

As for this being an indicator that Islamic countries are inherentely violent and non-democratic I think that's a huge leap to make. When JFK or Lincoln was assasinated did we proclaim the end of democracy in the US? Every country has its extremists who are willing to use violence to get what they want. They are hardly reflective of the majority.

Two things:

JFK was riding in an open car. That alone is inadequate defensive procedure but he insisted.

It's not that we're proclaiming that the assassinations happen in Islamic countries but they happen all the damn time. As well as random suicide attacks or rocket bombings, or inane revenge things going on forever.

And there ARE those who don't like the violence. But the people who are violent aren't hesitant to be violent towards them too.

The USA has it's own set of problems but I'm fairly certain that you can't compare living conditions in the US to pretty much anywhere in the Middle East.

And Bhutto always help big open air meetings and constantly met with her people. She refused to lock herself away as she wanted to be with the people. It was a planned gesture but it was also one that could lead to things like this, just like JFK,

But isn't this just symptomatic of an undeveloped system. France had lots of violence in developing its democracy. The US had lots of violence in developing its democracy. These things don't just happen overnight. They take struggles and to compare a fully developed country like the US with one that is developing is not particularly helpful.
As for assasinations happening all the time, I personally can't remember a great deal of targeted assasinations (as opposed to random suicide bombings). There is a difference in message between causing generic unrest with bombings and targeting people who have specific messages. If there have been lots of assasinations recentely I'd be keen to find out but I don't remember any.