VIEW: A thought revolution —Dr Mahjabeen Islam The situation is so dire that any and all of our incomes beyond our basic needs must go towards rebuilding Pakistan. We must question each party, each purchase and each bite of food, keeping the memory of the millions always alive in our minds I have spent years crying silently for the brothers that I lost to a car accident and my father who died within five years of them, overcome with grief. I have hated that life went on as though nothing had happened; the condolences faded and soon enough it was … Continue reading A thought revolution

VIEW: Sialkot and the writing on the wall — I —Naeem Tahir There are also whispers that efforts are afoot to save the guilty. This may become an invitation to be lynched. Has anyone tried to understand the consequences? Do we understand the cause of mob anger and its desperation to take revenge without recourse to law? A TV news channel was showing the gruesome killing of two young boys by a mob in Sialkot last week. It was so disturbing that I did not have the heart to watch it. I moved away, shocked. The channel was doing public … Continue reading Sialkot – The Trigger for Revolution?

Can North Koreans Use the Internet? Only a lucky few. BY JOSHUA E. KEATING This week, the Internet was buzzing with reports that the typically secretive North Korean government had set up its own Facebook and Twitter accounts. While it turns out that the accounts were set up by foreign supporters of Kim Jong Il’s regime rather than the North Korean government itself, the story has raised interest in how the Hermit Kingdom interacts with the online world. So can anyone in North Korea actually get on the Internet? Very few of them can. A small number of people — … Continue reading Dear Leader on Facebook!

Jimmy Carter Gets Dissed by North Korea Jacob Heilbrunn foriegnpolicy.com Jimmy Carter seems to be getting dissed by North Korea’s reclusive leader Kim Jong-il. Like Jesse Jackson, Carter is something of a connoisseur of Third World kleptocrats. He’s rarely met one that he didn’t want to cozy up to and embrace. But this time he may be disappointed. Carter showed up at the North’s invitation to negotiate–in other words, beg for–the release of an American hostage. But as the Los Angeles Times puts it, “In a trip shrouded in mystery and speculation, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il traveled to … Continue reading Carter went to hug Kim Jong-il who escaped to China!

Kowtowing to the Israeli Right Amjad Atallah After almost one year of intense pressure on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas by the Obama Administration, direct talks between Israel’s right-wing government and the PLO are set to resume next week. Israel insisted and received guarantees that there would be no guarantees. The talks will include all final status issues but have no agenda. The Palestinians did get a one-year timeframe, but with no word on what happens if that timeframe is not met. Not surprisingly, there is little excitement or optimism among Israelis or Palestinians. Is this just the latest in a … Continue reading US Kissing Likud Ass?

Paul R. Pillar THE POST of director of national intelligence (DNI) has had an unhappy five-year history. Until now it has been easier to blame the successive occupants of the position than to acknowledge the fundamental flaws of the office. Much commentary about the recent ouster of Dennis Blair, for example, has focused on his lack of chemistry with the president, his riling of the Israel lobby by attempting to appoint Chas Freeman to head the National Intelligence Council and a deficiency in political street-fighting skills compared to those of CIA Director Leon Panetta. All those no doubt contributed to … Continue reading Unintelligent Design

Ahmed Rashid THERE IS perhaps no other political-military elite in the world whose aspirations for great-power regional status, whose desire to overextend and outmatch itself with meager resources, so outstrips reality as that of Pakistan. If it did not have such dire consequences for 170 million Pakistanis and nearly 2 billion people living in South Asia, this magical thinking would be amusing. This is a country that sadly appears on every failing-state list and still wants to increase its arsenal from around 60 atomic weapons to well over 100 by buying two new nuclear reactors from China. This is a … Continue reading The Anarchic Republic of Pakistan

Bruce Riedel IN A secret special national intelligence estimate (SNIE) in 1960, the American intelligence community concluded that “possession of a nuclear weapon capability . . . would clearly give Israel a greater sense of security, self-confidence, and assertiveness.” For almost half a century since, Israel has possessed a nuclear-weapons monopoly in the Middle East, a monopoly it has fought hard to preserve. Israel has never acknowledged publicly that it is a nuclear-weapons state, but it has also never signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Now the Arabs, led by Egypt, are demanding that Israel do so or they will … Continue reading If Israel Attacks

Japanese PM Candidate Ozawa: “I don’t think Americans are very smart,” “I don’t like British people” Posted By Joshua Keating Ichiro Ozawa, the backroom dealer and longtime fixture of Japanese politics who announced today that he will challenge Prime Minister Naoto Kan as leader of the ruling Democratic Party, and therefore also as prime minister, will have some explaining to do to Japan’s allies if he reaches the top spot. Here’s what he had to say about Americans at a political seminar in Tokyo on Wednesday: “I like Americans, but they are somewhat monocellular,” the former Democratic Party leader said. … Continue reading Ozawa – Japans Sarah Palin?

USAID: Rajiv Shah did not visit a terrorist run camp in Pakistan Posted By Josh Rogin fp Alarm bells went off in Washington Thursday when the Pakistani media reported that USAID chief Rajiv Shah had visited a relief camp run by a group associated with terrorists. But according to the aid agency, that’s simply not the case. Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper was the first to allege that Shah, who has been touring the flood-ravaged region, had stopped in the town of Sukkur Wednesday to drop off two trucks of emergency supplies in a relief camp supposedly run by Falah-i-Insaniat (FI), which … Continue reading Rajiv Shah did not visit a terrorist run camp in Pakistan