As I hinted at in my last post, the spate of violence in Pakistan can actually be seen as a good thing (the wanton death and destruction aside). This piece in today’s New York Times demonstrates that Pakistan is facing the prospect that “the Taliban, Al Qaeda and militant groups once nurtured by the government […]
The War on Terror marks challenging times for Pakistan. With this weeks military incursion into northern areas to combat terrorism, increasing drone attacks, suicide bombings and a crippled economy, cooperation in our war on terror looks increasingly domestic for Pakistan.
Not to be missed on tonight’s Frontline–the newest from correspondent Martin Smith and RAINmedia on the war in Afghanistan. “Obama’s War” airs on Frontline on Tuesday, October 13 at 9pm on PBS (check local listings). According to RAINmedia: “Three years ago, a small cadre of US army officers huddled at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, to re-write […]
The Obama Administration after deliberation, surge in troops and General McChrystal’s advice, is differentiating between the Al Qaeda and Taliban threat. The focus in the strategy in Afghanistan will now be on eradicating Al Qaeda.
This article by David Axe, Malou Innocent, and Jason Reich at Foreign Policy is pretty much* spot on. The Taliban, either Afghan or Pakistani, are not a security threat to America on their own—they have neither the capacity nor the will to strike at American interests. But al-Qaeda has proven itself capable of accomplishing horrific […]
PEN American Center will host what promises to be an engaging, eye-opening, and interesting event (regardless of one’s political ideology) about the U.S.’s so-called war on terror. Reckoning with Torture: Memos and Testimonies from the “War on Terror” will include Matthew Alexander, Jonathan Ames, K. Anthony Appiah, Paul Auster, Ishmael Beah, Don DeLillo, Eve Ensler, […]
General Stanley McChrystal’s request for more troops is, of course, expected. Military commanders are always going to want more resources to utilize, regardless of whether they know how to use them or not (McChrystal’s insistence on a population-centric strategy in rural Afghanistan seems to make little sense). As reported in today’s New York Times, President […]
General Stanley McChrystal, the Obama Administration’s guy in South Asia, has warned that without more troops the war in Afghanistan “will likely fail”, reports the Washington Post. President Barack Obama, not surprisingly, is worried about becoming embroiled in an escalating situation, where victory only requires an ever-increasing number of ‘just a few more (thousands) troops”. […]
The Obama Administration released yesterday its list of 50 metrics, under three objectives, to designate progress in the war in Central Asia. While it’s important to have a cohesive set of tactics for the war itself—and this document makes our goals much more lucid than before—what strategy does the war itself fit? Are we once […]
France’s center-right and left political parties are coalescing around a controversial issue: the idea of a national, parliamentary ban on the niqab. Proponents of the ban cite the threat of Islamism to France’s position as a secular state, and argue further that the niqab is both a symbol of and an act of the oppression of […]
It appears that for now, while some improvements are being made, women are still fighting for the hearts and minds of the Afghan people.
Public opinion is often hard to measure, but it’s a safe bet that assaults on a country’s sovereignty — real or perceived — can quickly inflame that nation’s public opinion. We see it in a whole range of issues this summer, from the health reform debate in the United States, where opponents raise the […]
Pakistan has a deep interest in seeing stable, peaceful democratic processes in Afghan elections this week. Islamabad’s insistence on allocating resources to uprooting domestic factions and maintaing troops along the Indian border rather than focusing directly on fighting terror in Afghanistan do not mean they are uncommitted to stability in Afghanistan. Rather, Pakistan is better equipped and rightfully focused on fighting domestic turmoil and given current Indo-Pak relations, must keep forces on the Indian border. Also, Pakistan has a profound interest in seeing their large refugee population repatriate to Afghanistan, which can only happen if elections are successful and lead to a more stable, democratic Afghanistan.
A new multimedia report worth taking the time to look at is GlobalPost’s “Life, Death, and the Taliban”, now on GlobalPost’s website. “It’s an ambitious multimedia project that brings together a team of writers, photographers and videographers reporting from on the ground in Afghanistan and Pakistan as the battle against the Taliban heats up on […]
There is nothing in Iran and Taliban’s past relationship, which leads one to believe that these two sides can cooperate. Taliban’s hardcore theology includes anti-Shiite prejudice that often bought it to the brink of war with Iran during its days in power. On August 8th 1998, Taliban killed eleven Iranian diplomats and carried out a […]