How long can we delude ourselves that doing this will improve the lives of ordinary Pakistanis when we prop up those who oppress them?, asks Benjamin Gilmour.
Pakistan
Best of frenemies: why Pakistan hates the US
Pakistan and the US have long had a complicated relationship but Pakistan’s recent actions have turned it toxic, writes Christopher Hitchens. When will the US realise that its true closest ally in the region is India?
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America’s secret war in Pakistan
Elite helicopter-borne US forces have been conducting clandestine raids into Pakistan at night as part of an ongoing secret war near the country’s Afghanistan border, according to a former Nato officer.
The Osama bungle: time to pass the impassable
For a country who prides itself on dominance and power, why can’t the US just catch Osama Bin Laden? Eight years after Tora Bora, it’s time to head into Pakistan and stop this embarrassing stain on US military history, writes Maureen Dowd.
How India could fall to militant Muslims
If Pakistan fails, its territory and population could be consumed by India — adding 180 millions Muslims to the country, many of them a little upset about the loss of a Pakistani state. Throw in some radical Hindu nationalists and neo-Maoist guerrillas, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.
Meet Pakistan’s other insurgents
A day in the life of the Baloch guerrillas, a rebel group from the former Balochistan, an area now divided between Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan — and rich in uranium, gold, oil, and gas — which they’re fighting to reclaim. Good luck with that.
Letter from...: Letter from: Peshawar
“Seconds later, as if in answer to my thoughts, a suicide bomber detonated himself among those we had just passed …” Benjamin Gilmour writes from Peshawar.
CIA outsources its dirty work in Pakistan
The US is paying controversial private military contractor Blackwater to plan targeted drone-strike assassinations and run “snatch and grab” operations on key Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives in Pakistan, according to an investigation by The Nation.
Why is America funding Pakistan’s spies?
The CIA is pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into Pakistan’s intelligence service, according to former officials, even though it’s widely suspected the agency is helping Taliban extremists.
Is the world safe from Pakistani nukes?
The success of recent attacks by the Pakistani Taliban raises a scary prospect: just how safe are the country’s nuclear warheads from falling into militant hands? Intelligence officials aren’t so sure.
How global warming could ignite an India-Pakistan war
The always heated relations between India and Pakistan over Kashmir could flare up into a raging blaze if climate change worsens Pakistan’s droughts, as both countries battle for access to the region’s glacial water supply.
shocking A third of people killed in CIA drone strikes are civilians
A shocking new report has found that a third of the victims of CIA’s Taliban-targeting drone strikes in Pakistan are civilians — and those are just the ones the media knows about.
Rocky Pakistan terrain gets even more unstable
Pakistan’s military have taken a risky move: they’ve launched an offensive in the Taliban-Al Qaeda stronghold of South Waziristan. Will the move unleash a new wave of terror attacks in major cities?
How Islamabad went from boring and green to violent and mean
Islamabad in Pakistan wasn’t always known as a scene of suicide bombings and security checkpoints. NY Times journo Salman Masood looks back on the “laidback, dull” city of his youth.
Why Islamic extremists hate India
India doesn’t have a single soldier fighting in Afghanistan — so why are suicide bombers targetting the Indian Embassy in Kabul? Salil Tripathi explains the long and complex relationship between India and the Islamic world.
How the US nearly destroyed a UK terror investigation
Did the Bush administration lose its nerve in 2006 and nearly cause a whole UK investigation of terror suspects (who were planning an attack “bigger than 9/11”) to fall apart? Andy Hayman of the Metropolitan Police says yes.
Meet the new Pakistani Taliban chief
With Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud said to have been killed recently by the US military, the organisation has named his successor: “ruthless and rash” 20-something Hakimullah Mehsud.
We took our eyes off Afghanistan
The media should stop fixating on the political conflict and focus on long term policy and systems in Afghanistan — not as headline grabbing, but more important for Australia’s future, writes Greg Sheridan.
Why China will attack India
China will attack India by 2012, says Bharat Verma: the country needs a military victory to unite its fractured population, and pacifist India is the softest target.
US super embassy won’t win hearts and minds in Pakistan
A planned new US “super embassy” in Islamabad sends a very visible message about the US engagement with Pakistan, writes Shakira Hussein.
Taliban’s top man: dead or alive?
Conflicting reports abound on whether Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud and his second in charge have been killed in Pakistan, as the struggle for power continues between Taliban factions.
Trained for terror: the Taliban’s brainwashed boys
CNN meet a group of Pakistani boys who say they were kidnapped by the Taliban and groomed as suicide bombers. Rescued by the army, a team of psychologists are attempting to bring them back from the brink of brainwashing and repair their shattered lives.
UK MP blows the lid on MI5 torture secrets
The former UK Home Secretary has revealed how MI5 and police “effectively sub-contracted” the torture of a terror susepect to a Pakistani intelligence agency, with information previously suppressed by the government.
Cricket takes on the Taliban
Pakistan’s Twenty20 World Cup cricket win has given a monumental boost to a nation drained of all morale, says Tunku Varadarajan. Can the sport offer an alternative vision for the country to militant Islam?
The New Republic / Monday, 11 January 2010
Pakistan’s mainstream media is increasingly pushing an ominously anti-American line, claims The New Republic, and at the forefront is newspaper The Nation and its editor Shireen Mazari — the country’s answer to Anne Coulter.