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The military dictatorship in Pakistan says that it has released Benazir Bhutto from house arrest and that it will end the State of Emergency within one month and go to parliamentary elections in mid-February. Pakistanis have seen military governments make such pledges in the past, only to have them repeatedly broken, with elections postponed for […]

Pakistani dictator Gen. Pervez Musharraf has ordered opposition leader Benazir Bhutto of the Pakistan People’s Party placed under house arrest at her residence in Islamabad. Some 5,000 members of the PPP have been rounded up, and 50 close aides of Benazir have been arrested, according to Aljazeera. The moves were aimed at preventing Bhutto from […]

Theater Oobleck presents a conversation with Juan Cole of the “Informed Comment” blog and Chuck Mertz of the This is Hell radio program, to follow our 2pm Sunday performance of Spukt. They will be talking about Juan’s new book, “Napoleon’s Egypt: Invading the Middle East,” which is indeed the very subject of Oobleck’s new musical […]

Shahin M. Cole, Esq., writes: ‘I am one of those Pakistan-trained lawyers you have been hearing about. I have spent the last few days watching on television how my colleagues have been dragged, kicked, and beaten by hired hands, just because of their political views. My former law school professors, some of whom are now […]

Barnett Rubin warns that knee-jerk support for Pakistani military dictator Pervez Musharraf is not exactly ‘realism’ of the sort some Washington politicians like to boast of. Josh Marshall hosts a piece by Spencer Ackerman on how most of the billions Bush has given Pakistani military dictator Gen. Pervez Musharraf has been an un-audited free gift […]

While the Pakistani military is bothering innocent human rights activists and attorneys who want to defend the country’s constitution, it is ignoring Muslim radicals’ advances in the north of the country, according to Zee News: ‘ Pro-Taliban militants have strengthened their hold on the Swat valley in northwestern Pakistan by seizing several key towns after […]

In a further sign that the Bush-imposed order in Afghanistan (and the Middle East) is unraveling, a suicide bomber in Baghlan near Kabul unleashed a bomb amid a parliamentary delegation that had come to visit a sugar factory. The blast left at least 50 dead and killed 6 members of the Afghanistan parliament. Around 50 […]

My article on the Pakistan crisis, “Bush and Musharraf’s Grand Illusion,” is now available online. Excerpt: ‘ In the fall of 1999, as he campaigned for the presidency, George W. Bush was asked by a reporter to name the leader of Pakistan. Bush could not. He famously replied: “The new Pakistani general, he’s just been […]

The Financial Times reports that Pakistan’s cabinet has decided to hold elections in January after all, backing off statements made over the weekend that they might be postponed for a year. The FT suggests that the vehemence of the response from demonstrating lawyers and other elements of civil society has been stronger than Gen. Musharraf […]