I found the news of Ms. Bhutto's assassination a bit troublesome. Where does Pakistan go from here?

I think it's time for Musharref to go away. Did he have something to do with the assassination? They're currently rounding up the 'usual suspects' and doing their best to paint this as an al-Qaeda operation. It is the Musharref regime however, which by virtue of being so virulently anti-democratic - lies at the root of the incident. I seem to recall that it was a military government that first deposed and later murdered Benadir's father as his populism was a threat to their hold on power.

Deja vu?  

Apologies, but there just doesn't seem to be any news over here (or anywhere that I'm plugged into) about the recent Lakota Nation dissolution of peace treaties with the U.S. Can anybody on the other side of the pond find something more informative? Reactions? Anything?

You would think that the north-central U.S. reverting to Indian ownership and cancellation of land treaties which means the loss/secession of both Dakotas and most of a couple more states; and the issuing of Lakota passports - might cause a bit of a stir. The land title issues alone could be tied up in court for another twenty years. If you've got a house or business in Lakota territory and you're not Indian, it's no longer yours; unless you're willing to take up arms to defend it.  

But no - nothing. Not even chatter. That's a bit odd. Don't you think? 

Seems the US scandal du jour is the waterboarding/torturing of prisoners at Guantanamo, and then having the gall to delete the videos before somebody leaked them to YouTube.

Believe I talked about what was taking place at Guantanamo almost 6 years ago.  It's taken this long for them to admit what we already knew was happening. The only reason they're whining about the videos now is because it's coming up on an election year and they'd really like to use the footage on the campaign trail.

But I got to thinking... The only reason why we can hold all these guys in violation of Geneva Convention is because we claim that technically they aren't part of an army. They're 'illegal combatants' in Cheney-speak. If Al-queda wanted to prevent us from doing things like this going forward, all they would have to do is declare themselves to be a political party operating under a government in exile from somewhere. Then they would legally be soldiers and we couldn't torture the poor buggers. In fact I'd have to say that Iraqi-born insurgents are probably legal combatants and completely entitled to POW status today. Defending one's homeland from foreign invaders is the noblest of military pursuits.

Any Syrian or Iranian combatants are on their own.