Bhutto assassination - Kent Ninomiya

Kent Ninomiya. The assassination of Benazir Bhutto is predictably throwing Afghanistan into turmoil and further destabilizing West Asia. What was not so predictable is the relative apathy demonstrated by network news organizations. None of the big three network news anchors bothered to return from their vacations to cover the assassination and fallout much less travel to the region to field anchor. I can only imagine that they concluded it just wasn't important enough to the American audience. The reality is... the story is important to Americans... they just don't realize it. Few would argue that the war in Iraq impacts us all. We spend billions of our tax dollars there and our soldiers are dying in a conflict with no apparent end. What happens in neighboring Afghanistan impacts Iraq. Any withdraw or peace in Iraq would involve our reluctant friends in Afghanistan. Supporting Benazir Bhutto was our government's attempt to bridge the gap between Pervez Musharraf's hard line authoritarianism and our democratic ideals. The Bush administration hoped to plant a democratic seed in Afghanistan that would take root and someday spread to neighboring Iraq. She was quite literally our only hope. There is no one else of her stature or influence who could have pulled it off. Many of our government's democratic dreams died with Benazir Bhutto. The assassination may have doomed us to a longer and more bloody involvement in the Iraq war. Add to that the mystery of who killed Bhutto and why... and you have a intriguing story that impacts us all. So why didn't the networks dispatch their top dogs to the scene? I believe that it is the job of journalists to put stories in context and explain why people should care. Most Americans believe Benazir Bhutto's assassination has no impact on them. We should help them understand why it does. Kent Ninomiya.