KARACHI -- As militant attacks in Pakistan continue unabated, there are increasing calls for the government to rethink its strategy -- and look deep within. What is happening in Pakistan today is an "unprecedented" situation and the government's "lack...
Arrogant US Misses the Message From Pakistan’s People
There has always been in American foreign policy circles a virus called arrogance, caused by the hereditary assumption that Americans know better than others. Surprisingly, this does not always prove the case, but the condition seems highly resistant to treatment,...
Afghan Insurgents: Terrorists, or Tea Partiers?
In waging its war in Afghanistan, the Obama administration faces a big problem, and his name is Hamid Karzai. This fashion plate, whose name has become synonymous with corruption, claims to be the president of Afghanistan, but this is a double fiction. In reality, he...
Kerry Argues for Counterinsurgency Lite
Amid growing speculation and partisan bickering over what President Barack Obama will do about the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, an influential Democratic senator Monday warned against deploying tens of thousands more U.S. troops there. Just back from a...
The Rotten Fruits of War
Pro-War Officials Play Up Taliban-al-Qaeda Ties
U.S. national security officials, concerned that President Barack Obama might be abandoning the strategy of full-fledged counterinsurgency war in Afghanistan, are claiming new intelligence assessments suggesting that al-Qaeda would be allowed to return to Afghanistan...
Long Wars and Peace Prizes
Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who has become the point man for the long-war mafia, delivered his ultimatum to President Barack Obama on Friday, Oct. 9. As has been his practice over the past several weeks, McChrystal proxy-leaked details of his demands through the Wall...
Last Exit Before Quagmire
The Washington Post yesterday made available an unclassified version of Gen. Stanley McChrystal's long-awaited report on the war in Afghanistan. Politically, the report is bold, in that it acknowledges the enemy has the initiative and we have been fighting the war –...
Us or Them in Afghanistan?
In Washington, calls are increasing, especially among anxious Democrats, for the president to commit to training ever more Afghan troops and police rather than sending in more American troops. Huge numbers for imagined future Afghan army and police forces are now...
Taliban’s Tank-Killing Bombs Came from US, Not Iran
In support of the official U.S. assertion that Iran is arming its sworn enemy, the Taliban, the head of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), Dennis Blair, has cited a statement by a Taliban commander last year attributing military success...


