It’s no secret what Pakistan’s been doing with the Taliban All sides know what’s been going on since Afghanistan was first occupied. It’s also clear that this war can’t be won Tariq Ali The Guardian, Friday 30 July 2010 Article history David Cameron’s post-WikiLeaks remarks on Pakistan helping the enemy in the Hindu Kush shouldn’t be taken too seriously. The carefully orchestrated “outburst” in India was designed to please his hosts and seal a few business deals (Cameron and Cable are fagging for the British arms industry). It’s all part of the schmoozing. Pakistan’s official response was equally disingenuous. Since it’s … Continue reading No secret – Pakistan and the Taliban, but…..

Point of rupture by Nadeem F. Paracha If one is to pick a year from where Pakistan’s political and cultural slide towards a curious faith-based neurosis (and ultimately a socio-political nervous breakdown) began, that year is bound to be 1979. The lead up to this decisive year was 1977’s military coup against the Zulfikar Ali Bhutto government by his own handpicked General (Zia-ul-Haq). In one of his initial addresses to the nation on PTV, General Zia-ul-Haq suddenly cut away from his written speech, looked up into the camera and claimed that he knew why most people had stopped watching Pakistan … Continue reading Pimps of Pakistan

by Ali K.Chishti – Karachi The present war in Afghanistan has many dimensions, many shades and many players, known as well as hidden. Most of the analysis fails to assess this subtle war and thus arrive at conclusions which are superficial. Salient aspects of this war are as follows: – A Proxy War – A combination of State and non State Actors – Known and hidden actors – A case of hunting with the hounds and running with the foxes – Ethnic Factors – The Great Myth of 80,000 Troops – A case of large spaces and insufficient force ratios … Continue reading Af-Pak Policy – a Strategic Analysis

Religion and sexuality From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search For other uses, see Religion and sexuality (disambiguation). This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2009) Most world religions have sought to address the moral issues that arise from people’s sexuality in society and in human interactions. Each major religion has developed moral codes covering issues of sexuality, morality, ethics etc. Though these moral codes do not address issues of sexuality directly, they seek to regulate the situations which can give … Continue reading Sex & Religion

Patrick Coburn: ‘We need to talk to the Taliban’ David Cameron’s controversial attack on the links between the Taliban and the Pakistani military misses the point. Those links are our only hope of solving this conflict, argues Patrick Cockburn David Cameron’s denunciation this week of Pakistan for “promoting terror” misses the point that there will be no peace in Afghanistan without Pakistani involvement. Finger-wagging by Mr Cameron is not going to change the interdependence between the insurgency in Afghanistan and the Pakistani army which has existed since the Soviet invasion in 1979. But the link between the Taliban and the … Continue reading Talk to the Taliban

Tea Partyers in Wonderland by: Barbara Koeppel  |  The Nation | Op-Ed (Image: Jared Rodriguez / t r u t h o u t; Adapted: cgorski, cc Gisela Francisco, Cookieater2009) The mythmongers in Tea Party land and millions more Americans seem to prefer fiction to fact. Based on a mid-April New York Times/CBS News poll of about 1,600 adults, we learned that 52 percent of Tea Party supporters believe “too much has been made of the problems facing black people.” Could it be because 89 percent of the Partyers polled are white? They also have above-average incomes: 31 percent of Tea Partyers … Continue reading Redneckistan! Republic of The Tea Party

VIEW: Let us keep our fingers crossed —Daud Khattak Calling the military campaigns a success in the face of the rampant attacks and the enormous loss of lives is being oblivious of reality Perhaps the horrendous murder of young Mian Rashid Hussain was not sufficient to quench the thirst of the merchants of death for bloodletting. The next day they dispatched another bomber to target those gathered in a mosque in Pabbi town of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) to mourn the death of the previous day. The father of Mian Rashid, Mian Iftikhar Hussain, is a man who has valiantly fought … Continue reading Let us keep our fingers crossed

VIEW: Bipolar Anonymous —Ishrat Saleem Due to lack of awareness, superstitious culture and inadequate mental health infrastructure, people prefer to go to traditional charmers and quacks rather than seeking proper psychiatric and psychological help to treat symptoms of mental illnesses A number of bipolar disorder patients and their families meet regularly in Lahore in separate groups called Bipolar Anonymous (BA) and Bi-Anon respectively, named after Narcotics Anonymous (NA) and Nar-Anon meant for narcotics addicts and their friends and families respectively. The programmes of these two sets of meetings are almost similar because it has been observed that the challenges of … Continue reading Bipolar Anon