Assassin Nation

Fewer things are as demoralizing on a global scale as the assassination of a political leader. When someone who stood for a change of the status quo, who promised a brighter future for a piece of the world, is rubbed out like old newsprint, it crushes the human spirit. It feels like a regression, like we've gone nowhere as a species. As if, notwithstanding all our fabulous technological achievements, our baser instincts have, once again, taken precedence.

Thousands of people died today. Some starved to death. Some died of malaria, of cancer, of AIDs. Some were taken much too young. Some died old. But these were the faceless and the many. Not so for Benazir Bhutto. She had a face, and we saw her smiling as she waved to the throngs in Rawalpindi, her head sticking through the sunroof of her slow-moving armored car. Seconds later, three crackles split the air, three bullets, at close range. The one that killed her hit her in the back of the neck, severing her spinal cord. The killer must have been right next to her, and he did not miss. In an absurd bit of homicidal redundancy, after he shot her, he detonated a suicide bomb, killing himself and 20 other people who, no doubt, had been cheering for Bhutto less than a minute earlier.

That's the thing about assassinations. They're fucking personal. Thousands of people can die every day, in a tsunami, or earthquake, what have you. When nameless, faceless people die, it's upsetting, it's disturbing, it's tragic, but it doesn't resonate the same way as when a political leader is targeted for death and publicly murdered in cold blood. It just doesn't. You see the films, the pictures of these special men and women in their final moments: Lincoln at the theater; Kennedy in the motorcade; RFK leaving the hotel; King giving his last speech; Sadat watching the military procession, and you cringe because you know what's coming. You relive those final moments in your head and you can't stop it from happening, even though you want to. It's like you're there, experiencing it yourself.

Assassinations are intimate in a macabre way. All of a sudden these larger-than-life figures, people who embodied the hopes and dreams of hundreds of thousands, even millions, of people, are reduced to death within seconds. It's shocking to see pictures of JFK's blank eyes staring up in those autopsy photos, or the blood pooling under his brother's head, as people frantically try to save his life. This wasn't supposed to happen, is all you can think. It wasn't supposed to go down like this. This is anti-history. They were making a difference. How can they be dead??? No happy ending, no peace on earth, no good will towards men. Just another public figure massacred by contrarians, by people under threat, cold-blooded cowards who couldn't accomplish their goals through anything other than force. Assassinations are a carnal repudiation of an opinion, of an idea, of a vision of the future. They're cruelly strategic. Assassins are not just trying to kill a person, they're trying to kill the thoughts, ideas, and dreams of millions of people with whom they disagree. Assassinations are an act of weakness. They are the tool of the powerless and the ultimate in negativity. When you can't win the idea war, eliminate the idea-maker.

When popular leaders like Benazir Bhutto are killed, it feels like a punch in the stomach. She wasn't a saint, but she had a large following, and her presence in Pakistan was a candle in a dark cave of a country that is spiraling towards chaos before our eyes. She represented hope for a better future for Pakistan and the poor in that country. She represented an alternative to Musharraf and the Islamic extremists who not only take the form of Al Qaeda and the Taliban, both of whom are being harbored in Pakistan, but also members of the Pakistani army and secret service. All of the above will benefit from her death, and if you don't think that Pakistani military forces and/or secret service played a role in Bhutto's assassination, then you're deluded.

Worried about Iran, are you? How's this for a New Year's cocktail: mix (1) marginally effective and ostracized virtual dictator in Pervez Musharraf; sprinkle in disgruntled Islamist military forces, tens of thousands of Taliban and their sympathizers, and thousands more young, radicalized students attending religious madrassas. Then throw in a dash of intractable poverty and unemployment. Finally, stir gently before dumping in hundreds of NUCLEAR WEAPONS(!!!!)

Woo hoo!!! Now THAT's a stiff drink!

Do the words "failed state" mean anything to you? Go ahead, keep worrying about Iran. There's another Afghanistan forming next door, and one of the few people who might have changed Pakistan's future is lying dead in a wooden box.