KABUL – On the flight out of Dubai, an item in the pockets of the passenger seats removes all doubt about the airplane’s destination: along with the laminated sheet detailing aircraft safety procedures is a brochure from the United Nations Landmine Action Service explaining how to avoid death or injury from the explosive devices in …
Continue reading “Afghanistan Has Everything but Peace”
A Wall Street Journal article last week detailed a Department of Defense memo that discusses the legality of interrogation and torture methods in the wake of events at Abu Ghraib. The document reportedly advises that the president has authority to order almost any action, including physical or psychological torture, despite federal laws to the contrary. …
Continue reading “Torture, War, and Presidential Powers”
KARACHI – Conservative opinion holds the Great Communicator Ronald Reagan, who died this month at 93, to be a great U.S. president. His greatness largely comprises his ability to convince his country’s people, or a majority of them, that he stood for freedom and democracy and that communism was the worst of evils. He certainly …
Continue reading “Reagan’s Blowback in Central Asia”
NEW DELHI – India’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which lost power in recent elections, is in crisis after its leader, former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, blamed his government’s poll defeat on the party’s failure to rein in the anti-Muslim pogrom in western Gujarat state in 2002. Vajpayee made the admission at the hill resort …
Continue reading “Pro-Hindu Party Faces Split over Anti-Muslim Pogrom”
DAMASCUS – Kurds within Syria are beginning to demand increasing recognition in the face of the autonomy enjoyed by Kurds within Iraq. Kurds number about 1.5 million in a Syrian population of 17 million. A total of 20 million Kurds are scattered across several countries. Turkey has about half the Kurd population, Iraq about five …
Continue reading “Kurd Unrest Spreads to Syria”
I thought it was terrible. I was wrong. It is far, far worse! These words sum up my feelings at that moment. I was standing on a hill overlooking the infamous Kalandia checkpoint. Below me was a narrow road, packed with Palestinians in the blazing sun, 30 degrees centigrade (86 F) in the shade (but …
Continue reading “A Nightmare Come True”
From Dahr’s weblog: Several of us are sitting in the hotel room having lunch, watching the news trying to keep up with the violence daily engulfing Iraq. Let me give you a quick rundown from the last 24 hours. Late last night fighting continued in Sadr City between the Mehdi Army and occupation forces … …
Continue reading “Violence Engulfing Iraq”
Even as authorities for the U.S.-run occupation cede a greater share of security responsibilities to Iraqi forces, spokespeople for the Iraqi police and paramilitaries in many areas of the war-torn country say they lack the legitimacy and tools necessary to carry out their duties. With the transfer of official sovereignty to a U.S.-sanctioned governing body …
Continue reading “Americans, Iraqis Vie for Control of Security Forces”
The Arab reform debacle is widening as Arab leaders fail to achieve either a unified or a comprehensible vision for their own countries. Under various guises and pretenses, the Arab Summit in Tunisia last May only deepened the impression that Arab leaders are incapable of devising their own reforms. My worst fear is now unfolding: …
Continue reading “Reform as a Euphemism for Stagnation”
http://www.independent.org/tii/antiwar/e040611.html
