Criminal Profiling Topic of the Day: The Assassination of Benazir Bhutto

It has been a while since any news item has brought me to tears, but today we have lost a great world leader to Islamic extremists and terrorism. Benazir Bhutto, ex prime minister of Pakistan and first female leader of an Islamic nation, was assassinated today during a campaign rally in Rawalpindi,leaving the best hope for democracy and reasonable thinking dead in Pakistan. Bhutto represented the kind of idealism, courage, and commitment we in the United States rarely see in our own leaders and citizens. Bhutto returned to Pakistan fully aware of the danger awaiting her and she was willing, for the sake of her people and the ideals of a democratic society, to put her life on the line.

Benazir Bhutto did not lead a life free of controversy and one cannot claim she was a perfect leader, but she offered the best hope for common sense and decency in a part of the world plagued by terrorism and oppressive mindsets. Peace, fair elections, democracy, equality for women - all of these concepts have been trampled on today and I cannot help but feel the whole world will suffer because of this horrific act of hostility against a woman who sought to make her country and the world a better place to live in.

May the people of Pakistan come out of this tragedy with a combined strength to fight back against extremism and not let the loss of Benazir Bhutto be the death knell of all freedom and decency, inshallah.

Criminal Profiler Pat Brown