As for the Taliban rise, Steve Coll catalogs how Bhutto was complicit in assenting to the Taliban’s sweep across Afghanistan. I don’t doubt that she had legitimate reasons for wanting to stabilize the country—the mujahideen war, to which we in the U.S. have paid precious little attention, was unbelievable misery—but that break in the government, with the military doing its own thing and the civilian government does its own thing, contributed. She was a contributing part of that breach: Sharif mishandling everything hadn’t yet happened, but she didn’t even try to intervene even while she knew what was going on.

I would contend that transcending her feudal roots would have healed the breach, and maybe even have brought the military a few steps back from its mad blind brinksmanship with India. At the very least, it would have shown her to be something a bit beyond the run-of-the-mill corrupt princess she was.

I’m sorry to speak harshly of a woman I know you respected, but I think there is a post-death tendency to gloss over the ways she contributed to the country that eventually killed—like Time Magazine calling her a “martyr.” She is nothing of the sort, just a tragic figure cut down in an increasingly tragic country.

http://www.oilandglory.com

I didn’t say creation here, though I probably did as a shorthand in my GTalk conversation with Jezebel (which I didn’t realize was going to be cut and pasted into an entire post; I thought it was either background or for quotes for another post). But Bhutto did contribute a lot to the Taliban’s rise, and the role of the extremists madrassas that created them—that’s the causation I’m laying out here.

And the break between civilian and military? I say it’s a big reason why the country is so screwed up.

Steve LeVine
The Oil and the Glory
http://www.oilandglory.com

Inkan, I don’t think it was a failure of security, at least in terms of it breaking. There is only so much security to be had when you’re sticking your head out of a moonroof on a crowded street. And there are only so many provisions you can take at a massive public rally. But there may well have been a failure here somewhere, it’s just not obvious.

Having a passing knowledge of Pakistan does not make me cooler than anyone. Just the opposite, in my opinion. I don’t like it when people lord their Economist subscriptions over others.