There has been a lot of hand-wringing about religious extremism in Pakistan in the wake of the assassination of Punjab governor Salman Taseer. On Sunday the fundamentalist religious parties held a rally some 40,000 strong in the southern port city of Karachi against repealing Pakistan’s blasphemy law, as the Pakistan People’s Party MP Sherry Rahman […]
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Asia
Wainwright: Taseer’s Assassination Lays Bare Contradictions in Pakistani Islam
Aadil Wainwright writes from Pakistan in a guest column for Informed Comment: The assassination of Punjab Governor Salman Taseer has laid bare a crucial debate within the Pakistani public over the nature of Islam and the place of Islamic law in national affairs. That it is a debate among Muslims with more than one side […]
Death of Pakistani Progressivism?
Salman Tasir, the governor of Punjab Province in Pakistan, was assassinated by one of his own guards Tuesday, allegedly for his desire to repeal Pakistan’s blasphemy law, which has been increasingly misused by the religious right to target Christians, Ahmadis and secularists. The guard who killed him was not a Deobandi fundamentalist but an adherent […]
Wrong Again, Sen. Graham: Cole in Truthdig
My column is just out in Truthdig, entitled “Wrong Again, Sen. Graham,” on the South Carolina senator’s modest proposal to keep two big American air bases in Afghanistan “permanently.” Graham says the bases would keep Afghanistan from being taken back over by the Taliban. But is that anyway an actual prospect? And wouldn’t the bases […]
Taliban Getting Stronger, As US Public Support for Afghanistan War Collapses
Afghan President Hamid Karzai is getting weaker over time, and the Taliban are getting stronger, according to Jessica Mathews, president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Matthews says that there will be a lull in the winter, but insurgent operations will pick up in the spring. As NATO allies draw down (many have announced […]
Top Ten Middle East Challenges for U.S. Policy, 2011
10. The new Republican majority in the House of Representatives will attempt to stampede Obama into keeping troops in Iraq, delaying any withdrawals from Afghanistan, and launching a military strike on Iran. Just last week, Rudy Giuliani, Fran Townsend, and other members of the Permanent War Party flew to Paris to lobby on behalf of […]
Top Ten Myths about Afghanistan, 2010
10. “There has been significant progress in tamping down the insurgency in Afghanistan.” Fact: A recent National Intelligence Estimate by 16 intelligence agencies found no progress. It warned that large swathes of the country were at risk of falling to the Taliban and that they still had safe havens in Pakistan, with the Pakistani government […]
Collateral Damage in Pakistan: Cloughley
Brian Cloughley writes in a guest column for Informed Comment: I started thinking about the phrase after a recent, disturbing trip to Pakistan. ‘Collateral damage’ is a seemingly bland phrase, but it indicates stomach-churning contempt for human life. It was fashionable during the Vietnam war, when countless thousands of civilians were blown to bits, burned […]
80 Killed in Bombing, Military Strikes in Pakistan
On Saturday, a suicide bomber targeted a food aid center in Khar in Bajaur, one of Pakistan’s northwestern Federally Administered Tribal Areas, killing 43 and wounding 100. The development has implications for US troops in Afghanistan, since Bajaur abuts the strategic and troubled Kunar Province in Afghanistan and Taliban based there and in Mohmand raid […]