Category: Politics & World Affairs
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Two weeks ago I attempted to give a brief account of how society, particularly American society, applies democratic ideals differently to domestic and foreign policy. You can read that post here. I’m not sure I really succeeded at getting the point across. But now, in Egypt, we’ve been given a perfect example of what happens…
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A little over a month ago Wikileaks began to release U.S. State Department diplomatic cables and politicians cried. Previously, Wikileaks had released U.S. Army SIGACT reports, detailing nearly every engagement in Afghanistan since the invasion, and politicians cried. Before that Wikileaks had released the Iraq War logs, before that the Apache attack on Reuters journalists.…
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We all know how the first Charlie Wilson's War ended. A sequel may be in the works. Once again the script is being drafted by the surviving half of the original adventurous duo, in Houston's upscale River Oaks neighborhood. I am both hopeful that the more benign Part II of the Texas strategy will succeed and a bit nervous about what new havoc the good intentions of the rich and…
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Surprise! Ron Paul Stands Up for the First Amendment! Ron Paul stands up for the First Amendment, protecting the truth, and supporting the messenger who delivers the truth.
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Revisiting Bangla Desh 1971 by Nadir Ali on Tuesday, December 7, 2010 at 7:14pm I served as a young captain and major in Dhaka and Chittagong and then as second in command and later as commander of 3 Commando Battalion , in the fateful 1971 .I was there from early April to early Oct . We were…
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The decision of a lower court to award the death penalty to a poor Christian woman accused of blasphemy has ignited a wide ranging debate over Pakistan’s blasphemy laws. Liberals have asked that the Zia-era blasphemy law should be repealed or amended because it has become an instrument of oppression and injustice in the hands of mobs…
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My apologies for the long note (luckily the long part is below the fold), but Propublica and the Washington Post have just published two articles about the Mumbai attacks.. and Mumbai continues to interest me because I think the cold-blooded intent, the conscious choices, the pleasure taken in the killing, the personal touch, these make Sajid Mir and company more evil…
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Bombing in Karachi : Washington Post. A group of terrorists was able to get together and attack a major police facility with automatic weapons and a huge truck bomb. Obviously, these are not isolated disgruntled individuals taking revenge for the latest drone attack. They are well organized, well trained and well supplied with arms, ammunition, technical…
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Salma Mahmud has written a fabulous article about Lahore as it used to be before partition drove a stake through its heart in 1947; focusing on the life of Rai Bahadur Kanhayia Lal, an engineer and polymath who left his mark on Lahore and wrote one of the earliest histories of Punjab, as well as…
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My last piece in Outlook India: A friend asked me about the current crisis in Pakistan and it got me thinking on the question: Is there something peculiar about the crisis in Pakistan or is it similar to all the other countries in South Asia, with the same problems of inequality, poverty, corruption, elite incompetence,…
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An interesting fallout of the 2010 campaign of fear – Oklahoma voters have banned the Sharia law! This is more along the line of inoculation than an actual ban because Sharia is not law in Oklahoma or any other US state. The central US state of Oklahoma is to become the first state in the…
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