This past week was one that offered sharp reminders that – under the veneer of white papers and white lies — reality can bite. In other words – hello, why are you surprised at these “surprises.” Let’s start with an easy one. Who is surprised that at least some elements of Pakistan’s government probably […]
What do Greek elections, doctors, Mali, and Obama all have in common? They’re all featured in our weekly must reads! Take a look at our recommendations below. “Greece Votes Itself in the Foot Again: The Rise of the Coalition of the Radical Left and the Demise of Europe” Foreign Affairs 12 June 2012 With the […]
Right after U.S. forces went into Afghanistan in 2001 — in those heady “Paris 1944” days of liberating Kabul and most of the country — one of my best friends put to me an urgent request. Knowing I was en route to Kabul he asked me to please bring him a “Karzai hat” upon my […]
This week, the WHO upheld its current guidelines in relation to use of hormonal contraception and women living with HIV. President Obama released his administration’s budget request for 2013, with some surprising news for US global heath policy. Finally, polio eradication efforts in Pakistan have been hamstrung by government health care and regulatory incompetency […]
We are at war. Twelve new wars have broken out in the world since the dawn of the new millennium, including the United States’ war with Afghanistan, Iraq, and the even more recent civil wars in Libya and the Ivory Coast. So much global unrest is enough to make anyone uneasy, despite the recent death […]
But let’s talk about bin Laden. The first notion we can discard is that the US pulled this feat off alone–that our intelligence and military capabilities allowed a convoy of Blackhawk helicopters carrying teams of Navy Seals, along with gunships (loaded with 100+ Army Rangers or Marines) flying defense above the Blackhawks, to penetrate, probably from Afghanistan, 100 miles or more into Pakistan’s airspace to one of the country’s most heavily guarded locations (Pakistan’s ‘West Point’) without detection by Pakistan’s intelligence/ military forces or without encountering Pakistani fighter jets.
AFGHANISTAN: ALREADY AT UNEASE FOR POST-WAR Afghanistan may be one place, where its people have legitimate worries after the elimination of one of the strongest points of the U.S. war on terror. Now that the “terrorist” is gone, the war might be shortened, making the Afghan lands abandoned once again. No surprise that there were […]
Zainab Jeewanjee discusses CNN coverage of Libya’s Gaddafi and recent uprisings. She weaves that story into a larger discussion of enemy, but rational world figures operating against American interests and how understanding their political objectives is key to an effective counterterrorism strategy post 9/11, specifically in Afghanistan and Pakistan.