In human history any country has dark ages typified by oppressive regimes, internal conflicts, mass uprisings, political assassinations and revolutions. Most countries in the developed world have escaped their dark ages. Pakistan has not; in addition, it faces an even bigger threat from religious extremism.
Last week's assassination of Benazir Bhutto is indeed pitiful. Whoever killed her must have seen her as an irreconcilable threat. But however big a political threat she might have been and regardless of whether her political ideals or goals were good or bad, she was a woman who trusted the crowd around her. Why do some people want to assassinate political rivals instead of struggle for power in a democratic way? Why must some people choose violent means -- kidnapping, assassination, suicide-bombings, etc. -- to reach their goals? Don't they realize that they will be subject to the same violence?!
Political assassinations such as Bhutto's indicate that the human species, or at least some of us, remain at a very primitive stage of evolution -- not much beyond the level of wild beasts even though we may think ourselves children of God, Allah or whomever. Bhutto's assassin killed himself in a bomb blast, yet his accomplices and masters are still somewhere in our world. There must be no time limit in searching for and bringing these scum of our human race to justice.