Pakistan

Malala Yousafzai has released two videos in the past few days, one before her surgery to put a plate in her skull, and after she came out of the successful operation. She announced that she has created a foundation to promote the education of girls. She also spoke of her ordeal and said that she […]

Africa

US Covert Drone War in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia – Jan. Update (Woods et al.)

Juan Cole

Chris Woods, Jack Serle and Alice K Ross write at the Bureau of Investigative Journalism Yemen was hit by the highest number of airstrikes in one month since June 2012, though none have been formally confirmed as US operations. No US operations were reported in Somalia. The United Nations also launched a major investigation into […]

Afghanistan

How Torture Misled the US into an Illegal War: What Zero Dark Thirty Really Leaves Out

Juan Cole

An important problem with the narrative line of “Zero Dark Thirty,” Kathryn Bigelow’s film about the Central Intelligence Agency’s quest for Usama Bin Laden, is not just that it comes across as pro-torture but that it ignores the elephant in the room: Bad intelligence elicited by torture almost derailed that quest to put down al-Qaeda […]

Drones

Everything You Always Wanted to Know about US Drone Strikes *but Were Afraid to Ask (Currier)

Juan Cole

Cora Currier writes at ProPublica: You might have heard about the “kill list.” You’ve certainly heard about drones. But the details of the U.S. campaign against militants in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia — a centerpiece of the Obama administration’s national security approach – remain shrouded in secrecy. Here’s our guide to what we know— and […]

Afghanistan

Bombings in Pakistan Kill over 100, as Shiites are Targeted

Juan Cole

Pakistan on Thursday descended into the kind of violence that tends to occur in Iraq, with a distinct Sunni-Shiite cast to it. But the larger context was a spillover of enmities from Afghanistan. Three bombs were set off in Quetta. The first targeted a pool hall in a Hazara Shiite neighborhood. When people came to […]

Afghanistan

How America is Filling up itself and the World With Guns

Juan Cole

The American obsession with guns and violence is not unique, but it is distinctive. The US ranks 12th in the world for rate of firearm-related deaths. El Salvador, Colombia, Swaziland, Brazil, South Africa, the Philippines and some others are worse. But that is the company the US is in– not, say, relatively peaceful places like […]

Drones

Let’s also Remember the 176 children Killed by US Drones

Juan Cole

The US government continues to rain drones down on the tribal belt of Pakistan. While the Washington narrative is that these drones are precision machines that only kill terrorists, this story is not true. The drone program is classified, and so it cannot be publicly debated. It cannot even be acknowledged by President Obama and […]

Pakistan

On Malala Day, Pakistani Girls chant “I am Malala”

Juan Cole

Pakistan, and people around the world, commemorated yesterday as “Malala Day”, in honor of Malala Yusufzai, who was shot in the head by a Taliban militant for demanding the right of girls’ education. UN special envoy Gordon Brown submitted a petition to Pakistani President Asaf Ali Zardari with nearly a million signatures from around the […]

Pakistan

The US & Pakistan: The Mr & Mrs Smith of Foreign Policy (Hiro)

Juan Cole

Dilip Hiro writes at Tomdispatch.com: The Alliance from Hell How the U.S. and Pakistan Became the Dysfunctional Nuclear Family of International Relations The United States and Pakistan are by now a classic example of a dysfunctional nuclear family (with an emphasis on “nuclear”). While the two governments and their peoples become more suspicious and resentful […]