South Asia

Enlarge Air Force aerial porters load a shipping container onto a C-130 Hercules cargo plane at Forward Operating Base Salerno, Khost Province, Afghanistan, Sept. 22, 2013. The 19th MCT, a small squadron of Air Force surface movement controllers and…

CIA

Pakistan: CIA “Bin Laden” Unit’s Fake Vaccination Ploy Sparked Polio Crisis

Juan Cole

(By Sarah Lazare) A Pakistani official on Thursday slammed the CIA's fake vaccination drive in 2011 for fueling distrust of polio eradication campaigns and driving "attacks on polio workers" as the country grapples with an outbreak of this highly infectious disease. Speaking to reporters at a press briefing, a spokesperson for Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign […]

Drones

The True Costs of Remote Control Drone Wars

Juan Cole

(By Pratap Chatterjee via Tomdispatch) Enemies, innocent victims, and soldiers have always made up the three faces of war. With war growing more distant, with drones capable of performing on the battlefield while their “pilots” remain thousands of miles away, two of those faces have, however, faded into the background in recent years. Today, we […]

Afghanistan

The Longest War: How the US drove potential Afghanistan Allies into the Arms of the Taliban

Juan Cole

(By Anand Gopal via Tomdispatch.com) It was a typical Kabul morning. Malik Ashgar Square was already bumper-to-bumper with Corolla taxis, green police jeeps, honking minivans, and angry motorcyclists. There were boys selling phone cards and men waving wads of cash for exchange, all weaving their way around the vehicles amid exhaust fumes. At the gate […]

Asia

Is Obama right that America’s Future is in Asia, not the Middle East?

Juan Cole

(by Juan Cole) Barack Obama, brought up in Hawaii and having lived as a child in Indonesia, is the first Pacific president, and his current trip to Asia, beginning in Japan, is meant to underline his policy of “rebalancing” toward Asia. Although the phrase has miffed some Europeans, the policy isn’t intended to substitute US […]

Afghanistan

Can Afghanistan’s Vibrant Democratic Press Survive?

Juan Cole

(By Olof Blomqvist) The presidential election has shown Afghanistan’s increasingly mature media scene at its best – hopefully not for the last time. Afghanistan’s vibrant and diverse media scene is often held up as one of the few real success stories of the post-invasion years. While the Taliban notoriously banned television, strung up video cassettes […]

Environment

This Saudi prince is accused of killing 2,000 endangered birds while on safari in Pakistan

Juan Cole

Jeez. Happy Earth Day. A Saudi prince has been accused of killing 2,000 endangered birds during a safari in Pakistan earlier this year. More from GlobalPost: These cities are among the greenest in the world The birds, known as houbara bustards, are…

Asia

Top 5 Reasons Solar Energy will Save the World

Juan Cole

(By Juan Cole) 1. The research and development monies now going into solar energy are great enough to fuel innovation and bring down prices rapidly. First Solar expects solar generation manufacturing costs to fall from 63 cents a watt to 35 cents a watt from now through 2017! 2. Honda is experimenting with a zero-carbon […]

Afghanistan

How Torture became Normalized in America

Juan Cole

(By Rebecca Gordon) The US military involvement in Iraq has more or less ended, and the war in Afghanistan is limping to a conclusion. Yet leaks of Senate torture reports about actions in 2002 to 2006 are still breaking news. Don’t the problems of torture really belong to the bad old days of an earlier […]