Gian P. Gentile has a piece in the Christian Science Monitor this week arguing that the Russia/Georgia standoff of August 08 indicates the importance of maintaining a military with strong conventional warfare capabilities. A conventionally trained military can quickly adapt to a counterinsurgency environment, he says, but deemphasizing conventional preparations in favor of a focus […]
As suggested by James Surowiecki in the Financial Page of the New Yorker (July 7, 2008): "When bad things happen, it's always nice to have a scapegoat". Since it is not possible to ask for the resignation of the economy or the media (at least not in democratic countries), Presidents and Prime Ministers have become […]
By common consent Pakistan stands at a critical juncture. The Islamist insurgency in Afghanistan has spread into its western tribal areas, where al-Qaida and Taliban militants are now firmly established. The “war on terror” alliance with the US is under severe strain as Washington noisily criticises the army's failure to curb extremism. Meanwhile 71% of […]
American Special forces entered South Wazirstan to target Al-Qaeda early Wednesday morning. This is a new and significant development because prior to this attack, Americans and NATO forces normally used air power to bomb suspected terrorists in Pakistani tribal areas. This attack signals that Americans and NATO forces are increasingly taking matters in their own […]
For the past year and half the US media has been dominated by the 2008 presidential election. This is in many ways a good thing as we need to know who these candidates are and what they stand for and against, but the coverage has become so saturated that we are starting to miss coverage […]
At a press conference in Damascus following a quadripartite meeting that joined Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy alongside Assad, the Syrian president commended the Doha Agreement, which he said had erased the specter of civil war in Lebanon. "Yet the situation in […]
In his hysterical editorial in today's Guardian, Edward Lucas calls Russia “deeply corrupt and lawless”. Unfortunately, exactly the opposite is true: Russia is so saturated with laws and its legal system so harsh that “more than one in 10 of the country's citizens have been convicted of crimes over the past 15 years“, reports […]
DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan ‚ Helicopter-borne American Special Operations forces attacked Qaeda militants in a Pakistani village near the border with Afghanistan early Wednesday in the first publicly acknowledged case of United States forces conducting a ground raid on Pakistani soil, American officials said. Until now, allied forces in Afghanistan have occasionally carried out airstrikes […]
PESHAWAR/BEIJING: Pakistani Taliban on Tuesday claimed they had kidnapped two Chinese telecommunications engineers and two Pakistanis and that abductions would continue until the government stopped attacking militants. Talking to Daily Times over telephone, Taliban spokesman Muslim Khan said the two Chinese engineers, their guard and driver were in the custody of his colleagues. He said […]
A failed assassination attempt on Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani in the capital Islamabad highlights insecurity in the nuclear-armed country just three days before a presidential election will name Pervez Musharraf's successor. Pakistan has been rocked by a spate of violence that has seen hundreds die in suicide bombings and explosions over the past […]
Jeffrey Azarva at the American Enterprise Institute argues today that as Egyptian President Husni Mubarak continues to block democratic reform a new U.S. administration would do well to “send Mubarak and the one-in-three Arabs he rules the message that U.S. aid cannot be taken for granted.” Since the early 1980s the United States has provided […]
Raghida Dergham writes for al Hayat on the American presidential candidates and foreign policy from an Arab perspective. Quick excerpt: Rarely do the Democrats remember that global protests to American policies are not solely ascribed to the war in Iraq. They are equally ignited by the policies adopted by Democratic presidents in the past […]
Popular from Press
