It's more like there is no culture, mechanism or desire to change governments by any way other than violence, intimidation, bloodshed, coups, car bombings, shootings, secret arrests, executions, assassinations or exiles. The real exception is when this DOESN'T happen. Let's review the Islamic nations this hasn't happened in.

Egypt - nope.

Yemen - nope.

Lebanon - nope.

Syria - nope.

Iran - nope.

Afghanistan - nope.

Algeria - sort of - only an eighth of a million dead.

Libya - nope.

Chad - nope.

Pakistan - nope.

Sudan - nope.

Somalia - nope.

Turkmenistan - nope.

Iraq - nope.

Indonesia - yes, in a way.

Malaysia - yes.

UAE, GCC states - no, they are stable absolute monarchies

Tunisia - no, see above

Morocco - no, see above

Jordan - no, see above

I do not mean to speak ill of the dead here, but really what exactly is this moron Sandip talking about...?

Benazir, Rajiv, Indira etc ..were all leaders who played dirty politics to get the power they wanted. Benazir also cajoled (but not to the same extent as Nawaz and Musharraf) these Islamic fundamentalists and nurtured them in Pakistan when it was politically convenient for her. She didnt do much for the Pakistani poor but promised them heaven and stars, only if they would vote for her. She used these Islamic fundamentalists to wage proxy war against India and in the process won overwhelming popularity in the ISI establishment as well as gain approval of the mullahs. Rajiv was the same in the sense that he too manipulated Hindu Muslim feelings when it convenient for him to do so.

At some point all these leaders made enough enemies for a good chunk of people to wanna get rid of them. Sure thier followers will play the sacrifice card, but I wouldnt count running to London or Saudi Arabia or Dubai when you are charged with corruption as a sacrificial moment..far from it, Benazir and Nawaz sensed Musharraf was weak and people hungry for change so they came back for the votes..otherwise they were safely ensconced in their ivory towers in one of the foreign countries

Can anyone name a current political leader or an aspiring one, who, like Bhutto, would knowingly and willing take a bullet for this country? Our men and women in uniform do so, but what of our often coiffed civilian political leaders?

Would anyone of them “martyr” themselves for American democracy?

Benazir Bhutto’s legacy will be mixed and considered checked by many, but her unwillingness to be cowed by suicidal thugs ought to be seen as one of the defining moments in this postmodern era’s on-going saga of terror and peace.

For some she will be viewed as the verification of old American ethic cleansing nostrum: the only good Muslim is a dead Muslim, but she was genuine proof against that lazy assumption that Islam and democratic values cannot exist. Yes, in that part of the world one can die for proclaiming that.

The rot of the whole matter is that she is dead while the dictator remains in power and has virtually done nothing to defeat the very terrorists who attacked the United States six years ago. And he’s supposedly our ally.

More importantly, however, is that there are some leaders in the world who are willing to put their lives on the line for basic democratic principles rather than merely mouthing pieties about democracy.

Sadly, though, we seem to become a nation that no longer understands the loss of our democratic heritage. We have now become a nation that tolerates torture, the subversion of habeas corpus protection, warrant-less wiretapping, pre-emptive strikes against dilapidated kleptocracies, unconstitutional expansion of executive powers that seek to undermine the Constitution’s limits on executive power, all to the detriment of our basic democratic values.

So Bhutto, despite her flaws and married to "Mr. 10 Percent", died for something she believed in, something she was willing to risk her life for.

She has been proclaimed the daughter of Pakistan but now she becomes a martyred daughter of democracy…

Rest in peace, sister.

The more things change, the more they stay the same: Ms. Bhutto's father was hanged during the reign of a military dictator (Zia). Now his daughter has been executed during the reign of another military dictator (Musharref).

normankelley: You make Bhutto seem like an abused wife. She wasn't simply passive while hubby pilfered. Bhutto didn't take a bullet for democracy, she took it for fame and a crack at another 10% of the US supplied gravy train. The rise of the Taliban began in 1996 during her reign, this supposed saviour of Pakistani women. I am not an Islamophobe, just another South Asian who is sick and tired of subcontinental leaders sacrificing the interests of their people in the name of their megalomania and avarice

why do i have the feeling that this is just a trial balloon for bush not leaving office in 2009?

"In 1998, the CIA, a long time aide of Ahmad Shah Massoud, offered Afghanistan's anti-Taliban opposition leader a substantial bounty for the capture of Osama bin Laden, dead or alive. The claim was further supported by former US president Bill Clinton in an interview with New York Times in 2001. Clinton said, "At the time, we did everything we can do ... I authorized the arrest and, if necessary, the killing of Osama bin Laden, and we actually made contact with a group in Afghanistan to do it." In April 2001, Nicole Fontaine invited Massoud to address the European Parliament. In his speech, he warned that the Taliban had connections with Al-Qaeda, and that an important terrorist attack was imminent. The US and European governments paid no attention to these warnings.

Massoud then became the target of a suicide attack which occurred at Khwaja Bahauddin on September 9, 2001. The news of Massoud's death was reported almost immediately, appearing in European and North American newspapers on 10 September 2001. It was quickly overshadowed by the September 11, 2001 attacks, which proved to be the terrorist attack that Massoud had warned against. The Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Mujahideen leader Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, an Afghan Wahhabi Islamist, have also been mentioned as a possible organizers or assisters of the assassins.

The ISI lost its importance during the regime of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, who was very critical of its role during the 1970 general elections, which triggered off the events leading to the partition of Pakistan and emergence of Bangladesh. During 1998-1999, the ISI Director General was sidelined due to his relationship with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif; General Muhammad Aziz Khan was in operational control and directly answerable only to General Pervez Musharraf. During this time, the ISI was contributing greatly to the Taliban."