Bhutto in the last eight years had lived in London and Dubai and made several visits to Washington. Her visits were mostly ignored by the leaders in the U.S. Congress and the cabinet members of the current and former administration of George W. Bush. Her association with the Western leaders and her moderate views angered the extremist elements in the country.

The leaders of the U.S. Congress and administration saw no value or benefit in supporting Bhutto when Musharraf controlled the military and was ready and willing to do their work at the expense of democratic institution in Pakistan.

The extremists groups had shown their displeasure when Bhutto returned from the self-imposed exile to Pakistan last month with a bomb blast that killed more than one hundred and thirty people on her arrival. She narrowly missed the attack.

However, today’s attack, which most political and military observers in Pakistan link to the work of terrorist groups, killed Bhutto for her belief in Western values and association with Western leaders, who also rejected her when she was out of power.

It is sad to see a leader of a troubled nation that had worked to bring the democratic values in a country that has seen so little progress in terms of good governance and remains as one of the poorest nation on the planet, been rejected by the powers in Washington and killed by the extremist violence.

Benazir Bhutto paid for the second time today, this time with her life for defending the Western and democratic principles that extremists hated. Earlier she was relegated as a leader with no future potential by Western leaders.

The U.S. and its allies supported military administration of Musharraf for the last eight years which has failed in every respect in improving lives of common man and control terrorism at the borders of Afghanistan and India.

Bhutto paid with her life for supporting democratic values while Musharraf with dictatorial powers enjoys widespread support of the Western nations.

Democracy in Pakistan may have to wait for many more years and the future of the democratic institution looks bleak in the face of current violence and military rule.

Pakistani leaders have paid more attention to the wishes of the leaders in America, Saudi Arabia, and China and have generally ignored interests of their own people.

Until leaders of Pakistan focus on improving lives of common people, security in the nation, and build democratic institution without external interference, moderate voices in Pakistan will not find a platform and younger generation will find greater meaning in religious fundamentalism.

12:00PM New York – U.S. stocks declined after Bhutto in Pakistan was killed and November durable goods orders declined.

U.S. stocks declined in the first hour of trading on weaker than expected durable goods order data, weekly jobless report, and death of Bhutto in Pakistan from suicide attack.

Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 102.75 to 13,448.94, Nasdaq declined 2,704.77, S&P 500 fell 10.08 to 1,487.58.

The Commerce Department reported that November durable goods orders rose 1% to a seasonally adjusted $214.6 billion. The orders fell 0.7% excluding transportation orders.

Initial claims of jobless benefits rose at the end of the last week by 1,000 to 349,000 and total number of people claiming benefits in the period rose to 2.713 million according to the Department of Labor.

U.S. commercial crude oil inventories dropped by 3.3 million barrels compared to the previous week. At 293.6 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are in the lower half of the average range for this time of year. Total motor gasoline inventories increased by 0.7 million barrels last week, but are in the lower half of the average range. Finished gasoline inventories fell last week while gasoline blending components inventories increased during this same period.

Oil jumped $1.46 to $97.43 on the report.

SLM Corp (SLM: chart) fell 6% or $1.552 to $20.06 after it said that it plans to issue common and preferred stocks worth $2.5 billion to cover the stock buyback contract.

Banks declined after the durable goods orders report and bearish report from Goldman Sachs on banks.

Goldman issued a research report with an estimate of $35 billion in write-downs in the fourth quarter largely related to CDO debts and weakening values of the mortgage securities.