Asia

Be sure to check out Manan Ahmed’s “Getting Pakistan Right at our Global Affairs group blog. It is a powerful corrective to American tendencies to undervalue the democratic potential of the place.

Rumors Musharraf will impose Emergency Laws in Pakistan Islamabad blames Obama Blogger acting up, affecting comments, archives. Should clear up soon. Sorry. Rumors are flying in Pakistan that Gen. Pervez Musharraf may declare what amounts to martial law, responding to ‘external’ and ‘internal’ threats. [Musharraf announced Thursday that he was not in fact going to […]

Pakistani Editor: ‘Tancredo has Expressed his Evil, inner Self’ At IC Global Affairs, the editors of major Pakistani newspapers reply to Tom Tancredo and Barack Obama. The issue came up again at the AFL-CIO debate in Chicago last night, with Obama being generally criticized by the other candidates not so much for the policy but […]

Obama Sticks to his Guns Senator Obama still can’t see why it is controversial for him to threaten to violate Pakistan’s sovereignty to get at the Arab al-Qaeda in Waziristan. His comments of last week roiled US-Pakistani relations. What he should be saying is that if he had an opportunity to deploy a Predator against […]

Pakistani Protests against Obama; Clinton leaves Nukes on the Table; Tancredo an Inspiration to the Criminally Insane that They, Too, Could run for President I’m going to hear Senator Barack Obama on Saturday afternoon at the Yearly Kos convention. Will report back on Sunday about his remarks. On Thursday, he said he would not use […]

Pakistani Army Invades Red Mosque The Pakistani military invaded the Red Mosque and seminary complex early on Tuesday morning. As I write, Aljazeera is reporting that the army has 85% of the complex. Some 40 Muslim militants inside the mosque have been killed, as have 3 Pakistani soldiers. For the background of this crisis, see […]

Musharraf Warns Militants of Death See Manan Ahmed’s excellent analysis of the crisis in Pakistan at our group blog. He points out that the militant Red Mosque was an ally of the United States and the Pakistani government in the 1980s, when they were fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan. On Saturday and early Sunday, Pakistan’s […]

Pakistani Army Moves in Takes Faridia Seminary Standoff at Red Mosque Pakistani troops took the Faridia Seminary attached to the Red Mosque on Friday. On Saturday morning, the army continued to move in on the mosque itself, amid sounds of explosions. The clerical leader there, Abdul Rashid Ghazi, has been talking about fighting to the […]

Government Troops advance on Red Mosque Pakistani troops moved in on the Red Mosque complex early Friday morning, engaging in fierce gun battles with the remaining militants within On Thursday, the standoff between the militants within and the Pakistani government had continued. About 50 of the several hundred remaining hold-outs had surrendered, and the leader, […]