Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto Assassination, Musharraf"s Pakistan Opposes Democracy & Bush Failures
As hundreds of thousands attended the funeral of Benazir Bhutto at her family's mausoleum Friday, Pakistanis blamed President Musharaf for not providing sufficient protection, al-Qaida and the Taliban for the assassination, and warned that Nawaz Sharif another key opposition leader is next in line for assassination under threat of militant attack.
Pondering on these tragic and sudden events, as one who has been to Pakistan and has close friends there, I give you my heartfelt thoughts and foreign policy perspective.
I've been to Pakistan twice since 9/11 to speak to large crowds on peace and non-violence.
The first time I went to Pakistan the U.
S.
was simultaneously executing a Pakistani in Virginia for killing two CIA agents.
Hence being precautious I spoke in the open air wearing a bullet proof vest and having Pakistani police on the platform.
The second time a year later when I returned to speak, I did so without the vest and police protection to large crowds.
Nevertheless both times I realized my life could be suddenly ended.
I met a British school master who reported armed young men who murdered his security guards after entering the educational institution with weapons hidden in the gym bags.
After killing the guards, the young men proceeded to kill teachers and students also - the reason was none other than it was a Christian school (to which they as Muslims were opposed).
I was shocked to be introduced to a young lady in Faisalabad named Gulza, who a Pastor friend in Pakistan brought to me.
Gulza's face and eyes were heinously and intentionally burned with acid by a Muslim young man when she refused to convert to Islam and be his girlfriend.
Today she has brutal scars and is blind in one eye.
She refuses cosmetic surgery as she wants to know the terror and truth about radical Islam.
Pres.
Bush early on during the war in Afghanistan should have authorized U.
S.
troops to enter Pakistan to go after al-Qaeda and Bin Laden therein regardless of Musharraf's wishes.
Our delay to swiftly act and choice to be misdirected into Iraq will have major blowback - the assassination of Prime Minister Bhutto being the just the first of many serious consequences.
Iraq was a deadly U.
S.
diversion indeed in a multiplicity of ways.
Pondering on these tragic and sudden events, as one who has been to Pakistan and has close friends there, I give you my heartfelt thoughts and foreign policy perspective.
I've been to Pakistan twice since 9/11 to speak to large crowds on peace and non-violence.
The first time I went to Pakistan the U.
S.
was simultaneously executing a Pakistani in Virginia for killing two CIA agents.
Hence being precautious I spoke in the open air wearing a bullet proof vest and having Pakistani police on the platform.
The second time a year later when I returned to speak, I did so without the vest and police protection to large crowds.
Nevertheless both times I realized my life could be suddenly ended.
I met a British school master who reported armed young men who murdered his security guards after entering the educational institution with weapons hidden in the gym bags.
After killing the guards, the young men proceeded to kill teachers and students also - the reason was none other than it was a Christian school (to which they as Muslims were opposed).
I was shocked to be introduced to a young lady in Faisalabad named Gulza, who a Pastor friend in Pakistan brought to me.
Gulza's face and eyes were heinously and intentionally burned with acid by a Muslim young man when she refused to convert to Islam and be his girlfriend.
Today she has brutal scars and is blind in one eye.
She refuses cosmetic surgery as she wants to know the terror and truth about radical Islam.
Pres.
Bush early on during the war in Afghanistan should have authorized U.
S.
troops to enter Pakistan to go after al-Qaeda and Bin Laden therein regardless of Musharraf's wishes.
Our delay to swiftly act and choice to be misdirected into Iraq will have major blowback - the assassination of Prime Minister Bhutto being the just the first of many serious consequences.
Iraq was a deadly U.
S.
diversion indeed in a multiplicity of ways.