And made the point that we all are diminished by every untimely death. The assasination of Behazir Bhutto is no exception to Donne's admonition.

The lesson, however, is some thing different. It underscores the Bush's administration capacity for creating disasters is continues undiminished. After years of blunder in our Afghanistan campaign, short changing our troop commitment and repeated failures indefeating al-Qaida and Bin Laden in eastern Afghanistan, we now lookto Musharraf as the cause for failure to capture Bin Laden and for theresurgence of the Taliban.

After our failure to capture Bin Laden we sought to place all the blame on Musharraf, ignoring the fact that his ability to act in the north of the country was limited by the political instability of the area and his limited military capability and intelligence sources,which were no better than our own. Rather than acknowledge his steadfast support for the U.S. under difficult circumstances, the administration sought to undermine him by promoting an opportunistic Bhutto in the guise of promoting democracy. Musharraf has had to maintain a delicate balance over the last several years, with a long standing problem with India over the Kashmir on his east as well as a mixed assortment of domestic dissidents less thanenthused with his military assumption of control of Pakistan. Nevertheless he was our only reliable ally in the region and if his support was at times less than enthusiastic it was at least consistent.

Sometimes we forget that the art of diplomacy is to harmonize the U.S.objectives with the long term concerns of our allies who will remainin the region after the U.S. withdraws its forces and will have to contend with the aftermath of our participation. In the middle east Bush's primary attention has always been in Iraq with Afghanistan and the Pakistan border viewed as a secondary issue as evidenced by the relatively small commitment of men and materiel allocated to Afghanistan as compared to Iraq. Small wonder if Musharraf seemed at times to cover his bets, with the real prospect for being left out on a windy limb if the U.S. looses its enthusiasmfor capturing Bin Laden. Given our history in Vietnam this seems a reasonable concern.

Bush's response to this concern was to foment regime change, by resurrecting Behazir Bhutto's ambition to once again become the leader of Pakistan, and setting her up as a stalking horse and supporting her attempt to wheedle herself into a power-sharing position with Musharraf through a series of secret negotiations under the tutelage of Condolezza Rice. Supposedly under the banner of restoring democracy to a state which has never been able to sustain one. Bhuttowas the inheritor of what is essentially a cult of the personality,rather than a democratic political party. She was it's sole leader anddeclared herself its chairman for life, hardly a democratic organization. She wheeled and dealed with Musharraf for concessions,hardly a democratic practice, while the Bush administration worked to bring her back from her exile, a move calculated to totallydestabilize the country and apparently replace Musharraf who had failed to accept the role as fall guy, for Bush's mistakes in the area. Bush's chief concern seems to be with his legacy rather than long term stability in the area. Musharraf is muscled into granting Bhutto amnesty for the corruption of her former regimes. She was twice forced from power by her countrymen. Encouraged to return to Pakistan by Bush,she immediately created widespread chaos and commenced a "March onthe Capital" to present her demands to Musharraf. Placed in protective custody but released in response to U.S. pressure, allegedly to advance the interests of democracy.

In this part of the worlddemocracy is a word, sometimes convenient sometimes not. What Bhutto sought was power. We tried to play both sides of the street and failed miserably. Now assassinated and quickly being elevated to sainthood by the U.S.and International press, we will leave Pakistan and Musharraf muchworse than we found them thanks to Bush's inept bungling. Having weakened our one strong ally in the area and with no viable option apparent we have created yet another opportunity for Islamic terrorismto gain strength. Publius from Montevideo