THE BENAZIR BHUTTO PARADE IS A METAPHOR FOR THE CURRENT STATE OF MODERATE ISLAM

AP/HAARETZ:

KARACHI - A suicide bombing in a crowd welcoming former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto killed 126 people Thursday night, shattering her celebratory procession through Pakistan's biggest city after eight years in exile.

Two explosions struck near a truck carrying Bhutto, but police and officials of her party said she was not injured and was hurried to her house.

Bhutto flew home to lead her Pakistan People's Party in January parliamentary elections, drawing cheers from supporters massed in a sea of the party's red, green and black flags. The police chief said 150,000 were in the streets, while other onlookers estimated twice that.

The throngs reflected Bhutto's enduring political clout, but she has made enemies of Islamic militants by taking a pro-U.S. line and negotiating a possible political alliance with Pakistan's military ruler, President Gen. Pervez Musharraf.

Authorities had urged her to use a helicopter to reduce the risk of attack amid threats from extremists sympathetic to the Taliban and al-Qaida, but she brushed off the concerns.

"I am not scared. I am thinking of my mission, she had told reporters on the plane from Dubai. This is a movement for democracy because we are under threat from extremists and militants."

Last month, she had told CNN she realized she was a target. "Islamic militants, she said, don't believe in women governing nations, so they will try to plot against me, but these are risks that must be taken. I'm prepared to take them."

Leaving the airport, Bhutto refused to use a bulletproof glass cubicle that had been built atop the truck taking her to the tomb of Pakistan's founding father, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, to give a speech. She squeezed between other party officials along a railing at the front.

Her procession had been creeping toward the center of Karachi for 10 hours, moving at a snail's pace while dancing and cheering supporters swarmed around the truck, when a small explosion erupted near the front of the vehicle. That was quickly followed by a larger blast just feet from the truck, setting an escorting police van on fire and breaking windows in Bhutto's vehicle.

Via PJM:

Ms Bhutto’s husband Zardari told Geo TV that he did not think that extremist elements were behind these blasts, adding that some elements within the government, including some ministers, were responsible for the blasts. He said the PPP was a democratic party and was not a threat to jihadi elements.

UPDATE: MORE BHUTTO DENIAL - VIA THE BBC:

Former Pakistani PM Benazir Bhutto has accused supporters of late military ruler Mohammed Zia ul-Haq of being behind the bomb attack against her. ... Zia overthrew Ms Bhutto's father, Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1977, and had him hanged two years later. ... Speaking shortly after the attack on her convoy, Ms Bhutto told Paris-Match magazine: "I know exactly who wants to kill me.

"It is dignitaries of the former regime of General Zia who are today behind the extremism and the fanaticism."

ZIA NOT AL QAEDA AND THE TALIBAN AND IRAN. SHEESH.

LET'S BREAK THAT DOWN:

• She knew she was a target of al Qaeda.

• Despite that - and specific warnings to delay her return by Musharraf - she went back. And she blames an old rival and her hubby blames Musharraf, not the Taliban or al Qaeda - even thought THEY made the threats against her. SHEESH.
  

• And instead of taking an unknown route back from the airport, or traveling by helicopter, or just driving at regular speed, she took a well-publicized route - AND WENT AT WALKING PACE.

She invited the attack. She thought it would not come, that she was bigger than "them" and her misplaced AUDACITY led to the slaughter of 128 people - SO FAR, and hundreds more injured.

THIS STRIKES ME AS A METAPHOR FOR THE CURRENT STATE OF MODERATE OF ISLAM:

Like Leftists here and in Europe, moderate Muslims from the Philippines to Morocco are willfully ignoring the very real dangers presented by the islamofascists. Like the Left, they deny the nature of the enemy - as if, like the ostrich with her head in the sand - that made them safer.

IF WE WANT TO WIN WITH THE LOWEST CASUALTIES, THEN WE MUST ALL UNITE - RIGHT & LEFT, CHRISTIAN, MUSLIM, HINDU, BUDDHIST, JEW AND ATHEIST - AND WE MUST GO ON THE OFFENSIVE.

Or one day - sooner than we think - an attack like this will be done with a WMD, perhaps a nuke... perhaps one of Pakistan's...

MORE ON PAKISTAN HERE.