Could Benazir Bhutto be the New Franz Ferdinand?

Let me preface everything I’m about to say by stating that I’m fully aware this is all in very bad taste. You're not telling me anything I don't already know. And yet, I can’t be stopped.



OK. Maybe I’m kind of a bit of a conspiracy theorist. Maybe I smoked too much pot in my youth. Perhaps smoking a lot of pot in your youth makes you prone to conspiracy theories. Or Vice Versa.

Yesterday, Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. The world is mourning this charismatic leader. When pretty people die the world tends to mourn long and hard.


She had an awful lot of other qualities, too, but one wonders if any of these qualities would have come to light if she hadn’t been so much of a babe as well. Perhaps we will never know. She seemed to have had a good head on her shoulders and her heart in the right place, and as history teaches us, those qualities in a leader are like begging for a bullet.

Anyway – here’s why the whole thing’s got me scared: This might spark a lot of other incidents that could lead to an even bigger conflict. I mean, I think that we can all agree that the area is, to put it politely, unstable, N’est pas? And you’ve already got shit happening in Iraq and Afghanistan and if something kicks off now in Pakistan it’s like all these hotspots geographically surrounding Iran and the pressure could – I don’t know – be like popping an enormous pimple and suddenly we’ve got WWIII.

Because it wasn’t that long ago that WWI, ”The Great War” got started off in a very similar fashion. Franz Ferdinand was minding his own business, doing whatever it is that the Archduke of Austria and Prince Imperial of Austria, Prince Royal of Hungary and Bohemia does; you know, going on photo ops, appearing at public functions, that sort of thing, when he was assassinated. Then everyone declared war on each other then millions of people from lots of different countries spent the next 4 years sitting in mud pits lopping bombs at each other.

OK. So here’s where it gets weird:

Franz Ferdinand was shot in the neck.
Benazir Bhutto was shot in the neck

There was another attempt on Franz Ferdinand’s life a few months earlier.
There was another attempt on Benazir Bhutto’s life a few months earlier.

Benazir Bhutto was pretty and wore makeup.
Franz Ferdinand had himself sewn into his outfit so he would appear slimmer (True!)

Franz Ferdinand is an alliteration.
Benazir Bhutto is also an alliteration.

OK. That’s all I’ve got. And, you know, I hope I’m wrong because I have absolutely nothing to wear that’s appropriate for a Global Conflict.

Also I can’t help but think how tragic it will be if 100 years from now some hapless teenager is at a Benazir Bhütto concert and someone turns to him and says, ”Dude, did you know that Benazir Bhutto was an actual person and that’s where they got their name? I think it was some guy who started the first Nuclear Holocaust or something.”



“Wow. I just thought it was some cool band name.”