Word: blow
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...young country staggered through its grief, seeking a unified identity out of dozens of feuding ethnic divisions, history continued to deal blow after blow. Liaquat Ali Khan, Pakistan's first Prime Minister and Jinnah's political heir, was shot dead in 1951 by a Pashtun separatist. Fifty-six years later, Benazir Bhutto died in the very same park. One of her attending doctors was the son of the physician who tried, and failed, to save Khan's life...
Benazir Bhutto's assassination is a body blow to the troubled but strategically vital state of Pakistan. It removes from the scene a secular, liberal, pro-Western leader. It gives momentum to Pakistan's jihadis in their campaign to Talibanize the country, and it edges Pakistan closer toward Islamic revolution. Her death is also, of course, a tragedy for her family, including the three children she leaves motherless. But the horror of Bhutto's end should not blind us to her mediocre legacy, and it is misleading to depict her as any sort of martyr for freedom and democracy...
...taking that risk, Bhutto must have been confident that Pakistan could find its own way, even without her, toward becoming a more stable, peaceful nation. "I think her death is a body blow to democracy," says Bishop Michael, "but not a death knell. The political process, the judiciary process and the civil liberties movement all flourish in Pakistan. It would be difficult to stop all of that." Now all Britain's Pakistanis can do is wait and hope that he's right...
...weeks to come will determine just how severe a blow Benazir Bhutto's death is to Pakistan, but debate over Washington's role in the run up to this tragic day will continue well beyond that. Even as the smoke still lingered in Rawalpindi, President Bush demanded that those responsible for Bhutto's death be caught and punished. "The United States strongly condemns this cowardly act by murderous extremists who are trying to undermine Pakistan's democracy," Bush told reporters in Crawford, Texas, where he had arrived Wednesday to begin a long New Year's holiday. "Those who committed this...
...Robert Baer, a former CIA field officer assigned to the Middle East, is TIME.com's intelligence columnist and the author of See No Evil and, most recently, the novel Blow the House Down