Here are three reflections that get past the debate over which presidential candidates will benefit from Benazir Bhutto's death and instead focus on what the tragedy means for Pakistan and Islam.

The Rev. Deb Haffner shares a message from a feminist leader in Pakistan:

Only after her assassination have we come to realize just how many of our hopes were pinned on Benazir, her presence and leadership of the only mainstream party that consistently speaks of the federation, of the poor, the peasants, the workers; spoke of equality for all, especially the minorities and women. The one party with supporters until now across a deeply divided and troubled country, who gave us hope that, maybe – just maybe we could turn this nightmare around, if elections were held and if they were not entirely rigged, and if we received some breathing space…so many if's and still we dared to hope.

And Brian McLaren writes:

we should reflect on what this means for our Muslim friends and neighbors. I think we in the U.S. risk missing the point when we assume the real battle is between fundamentalist Islam and the West: it may be far truer to say that the real battle is between fundamentalist Islam and Islam. Instead of saying to the world, "You are either with us or with the terrorists," perhaps we need to say that we stand with all who oppose terrorism, and all those who are threatened by it - realizing that those most threatened are peace-and-democracy loving Muslims themselves.

On the other hand, Le Monde Diplomatique correspondent David Wearing shares some helpful informed critique of Bhutto's previous time in power. While her death clearly is a blow to liberalization in Pakistan, this analysis helps to clarify the circling causes -- beyond the bumper stickers of "they hate our freedom" or mere extremism -- and provides a deeper view of the conflict roiling the country.

In power, Dalrymple notes, "Amnesty International accused [Bhutto's] government of having one of the world's worst records of custodial deaths, killings and torture". More sinister still are allegations made by many, including her niece, and detailed in Tariq Ali's recent article for the London Review of Books, that Bhutto was involved in the murder of her own brother, who had become a political rival.

Nor should it be forgotten that it was under Bhutto that the Pakistani military and intelligence services helped bring the vicious Taliban government into power in neighbouring Afghanistan, as an exercise in Pakistani power-projection. Bhutto's was one of only a handful of world governments to recognise the "extremist" regime. All in all, the picture of Bhutto the moderate democrat - a latter-day martyr to secularism and modernity - begins to look a little thin under close examination

In reality, it is these very "moderates" whose venal, corrupt and amoral behaviour creates the conditions - poverty, disenfranchisement and a government in the pocket of foreign powers - that fan the flames of extremism to begin with. Certainly it is more than a little rich for the Western leaders who have enthusiastically backed a military dictatorship in Pakistan since 1999 to talk of their desire to see democracy flourish in that country. Bhutto's return had been a Western-sponsored attempt to prettify the tottering despot Musharraf by engineering an unseemly and decidedly non-democratic power-sharing accommodation between the two. This clumsy attempt to put lipstick on a pig descended into grim farce as Musharraf attempted to minimise his losses by enacting a state of emergency; ostensibly to crack down on extremists but which in fact targeted members of Pakistan's genuinely democratic opposition. As Musharraf sacked the judiciary and replaced them with his own lackeys, the West could only mumble disapproving platitudes (perhaps privately welcoming the resulting strengthening of their pet "moderates"). For Bhutto's part, the Guardian's leader writers commented that "her resistance to Mr Musharraf's attacks on civil society was equivocal. Her demands for the release from house arrest of Pakistan's former chief justice Iftikhar Chaudry were tempered by the knowledge that if the supreme court were restored to its pre-emergency rule state, the amnesty she had obtained from Mr Musharraf would be up for judicial review."

As Xpatriated Texan laments, "so much for fostering democracy abroad."