print“Hillary Clinton is demanding answers about the death of Benazir Bhutto.” She is also demanding that the fracas in Pakistan be internationalized—call in the UN, says she. And above all, put pressure on the already impotent President Pervez Musharraf to usher in democracy. Or hold “free and fair elections,” as she puts it. As though Musharraf alone is what stands between the people of Pakistan—who apparently yearn to breathe free—and democratic institutions and the rule of law.
The harridan Hillary differs very little from Bush: she announced her belief that America is obligated to shore-up civil society in Pakistan and address the “root causes” of the restive, ever-seething Muslim Street in that country. (To quote Clinton: “I’ve talked to President Musharraf about the necessity for us to raise the literacy rate, to reach out with healthcare and education that would help the Pakistani people to really concentrate on civil society.”) Can you say Nation Building?!
This is a meddler with paws stickier than Bush’s.
Above all, in her reaction to Bhutto’s assassination, Hillary has demonstrated that she is a deeply silly woman, having learned nothing from the adventure in Iraq. Forcing democracy down Iraqi gullets—now that worked out really well, didn’t? How about in the Palestinian Authority? At our insistence, democratic elections were held in the PA, and voila! The freedom loving Palestinians voted for Hamas, which the US then promptly boycotted. Egypt anybody? Think the Muslim Brotherhood, which would likely gain a majority if American idiots got the better of a recalcitrant Mubarak and forced him to democratize.
Be careful what you wish for in Pakistan, Hillary! They say about 50 percent of Pakistanis support the al Qaeda Islamist elements and the resurgent Taliban.
As for Bhutto whom the liberal media has hurried to canonize: No doubt, her death is tragic. But you have to admit that she was utterly reckless, bobbing up and down from sun roofs in unarmored, unprotected, rickety vehicles. Musharraf ought to have kept her under house arrest for her own good.
Nor was Bhutto such a saint; her niece certainly disputes her sainted status. Nor was she much of a “democrat”—for what it’s worth in that part of the world—during her time in office. Had she come to share power with Musharraf, she’d have supported an ongoing American presence in Pakistan. That might have also raised some of her countrymen’s hackles.