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HOLLYWOOD AND THE CIA — Film historian Ed Rampell details Hollywood’s entangled relationship with the CIA and the Pentagon; HOUSES OF THE DEAD: Nancy Kurshan exposes the cruel human rights offenses taking place inside America’s vast gulag of Control Unit Prisons; BROTHERHOOD OF SUMMER: David Macaray charts the history of the most powerful union in the US: the Baseball Players Association; TAR SANDS COME TO AMERICA: Steve Horn explains how the Keystone Pipeline debates have diverted attention from Big Oil’s other plans to transport Alberta’s oil into the US. PLUS: Jeffrey St. Clair on CONSTITUTIONAL ENTROPY; Mike Whitney on HOW THE BANKS TARGETED BLACKS; Chris Floyd on THE RISE OF BRITAIN’S TEA PARTY; Kristin Kolb on THE NEEDLE AND THE DAMAGE DONE; Kim Nicolini on the FILMS OF WILLIAM FRIEDKIN; and Lee Ballinger on POETS VS. THE ONE PERCENT.
Archives by Tag 'Pakistan'
During the run up to the invasion of Afghanistan, three burly American classmates jeered at me. They said, “We’re gonna kill Osama.” Presumably, I would be especially aggrieved at Osama’s death, since I am a Muslim, and therefore, an Osama sympathizer if not also ...
The Ajmer Sharif Dargah in north India has become for politics what the Wagah border is for peace activists. It is just so much melting wax and withering flowers.
Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari is to pay a visit to the shrine on what has been touted as a ...
Lahore.
Relations between the Pakistani government and the military have been tense recently, even resulting in rumours of an impending military coup. A coup is not very likely at this stage, but the situation has created the environment for at least one n...
The United States’ announcement that it plans to end the combat role of its troops in Afghanistan earlier than expected, and before the end of next year, is a crucial milestone in the international forces’ retreat from the country. Coming after the French deci...
The definition of “shooting yourself in the foot” is generally accepted as “doing something unintended that spoils things for you.” The Marx Brothers had a sketch in which one of them did just that, and politicians and bureaucrats have been doing it for centurie...
Washington DC
The Pakistani military leadership’s response to the U.S. report on its helicopter attack on two Pakistani border posts Nov. 26 assailed the credibility of the investigation by Air Force Brig. Gen. Steven Clark and expressed doubt that t...
Saadat Hasan Manto’s centenary is being observed quietly by friends and admirers in Lahore. No official recognition or mention. He’s almost become a non-person. Manto died in Lahore in 1955. He was forty-three years old. The life of one of our greatest short-story w...
Checkpoints are common to every country in the Middle East and beyond. They play a central role in the daily lives of people from Tripoli in Libya to Peshawar in Pakistan and from the mountains of south-east Turkey to the marshes of southern Sudan. Nobody knows their numb...
“Pakistan Rejects US Findings on Deadly Air Strike” was a typical headline on December 23, following the Pentagon’s “Department of Defense Statement Regarding Investigation Results into Pakistan Cross-Border Incident.”
The “incident” involved hours ...
In late November, NATO (heavily U.S.) forces whacked 24 Pakistani soldiers on the Afghan border. As of November 30, Pentagon and Secretary of State Hilary Clinton had not yet accepted blame; but they were “investigating” and “regretting.”
However, the next ...
They left me clutching
islands of farewells.
– Agha Shahid Ali, The Country Without a Post Office, 1997.
My friend was like an imp – mischief drew his smile, as did Beauty. Poetry was his mét...
Bush started shooting into Pakistan in 2004, and Obama has continued this bloody practice, culminating recently in the massacre of 24 Pakistani soldiers, with 13 more wounded. The attack lasted for hours, yet afterward, the US claimed it was all an accident. Hillary Clint...
The killing of 24 Pakistan army soldiers in Mohmand Tribal Agency on November 26 by US air strikes is unforgivable. I was in Mohmand three weeks ago, visiting 77 Brigade, whose officers and soldiers were slaughtered by US aircraft, and I know exactly where Pakistan’...
The U.S. military and the Barack Obama administration have been thrown into confusion by the attack on two Pakistani military posts near the border with Afghanistan Saturday morning, even as the attacks provoked the Pakistani government and military leadership into much s...
The Nato assault on a Pakistani checkpoint close to the Afghan border which killed 24 soldiers on Saturday must have been deliberate. Nato commanders have long been supplied with maps marking these checkpoints by the Pakistani military. They knew that the target was a mil...
It is becoming increasingly clear that the AF-PAK war will end in yet another grand strategic defeat for the United States. To date, President Obama, has been able to distract attention from this issue, but given the stakes in 2012, that dodge is unlikely to last. Get r...
Tunisians, Egyptians, Bahrainis and Yemenis are occupying the streets and blogging furiously. Europeans and North Americans have followed suit to create their own Liberty Squares. To varying degrees, all are middle and working class movements that appear to recognize the ...
“Terrorism is not a statistic for us.”
—Asif Ali Zardari, president of Pakistan
This is a Pakistani truism that few Americans understand. Since the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in October 2001, Pakistan has lost more than 35,000 pe...
Early September 2011, a former intelligence official commented to the Washington Post that, “The CIA has become one hell of a killing machine”. He then attempted to retract, but his words were on record. But is that really what it should be: a hell of a killing machin...
In the wild gyrations surrounding the Obama administration’s AfPak scenario, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s recent swing from ...
They increasingly dot the planet. There’s a facility outside Las Vegas where “pilots” work in ...
Dissension over Adm. Mike Mullen’s accusation that the Haqqani network of Afghan insurgents is a “veritable arm” of Pakistan’s intelligence agency and the revelation that a U.S. official met with a Haqqani official have provided new evidence of a l...
Over two thousand years ago the Roman judge Lucius Cassius coined the phrase ‘cui bono?’, meaning loosely ‘who benefits?’, and was quoted approvingly by Cicero because the thrust of the question was intended to improve justice. As a principled man of law (then, ...
In a soon-to-be published book entitled Gandhi and the Unspe...