Its been 2 weeks since the floods began and only today, after his lukewarm and somewhat unnecessary European tour, President Asif Ali Zardari came to see the devastation in person. T.V. footage wasn’t quite immediate enough, you see.
And though he came to visit, and the state run stations ran the footage, curiously the footage was shown without any sound. Perhaps, to run along with a media shut-down, President Zardari was loathe to air shouts and scream, curses directed against him.
In the meantime, the latest forecasts promise even more rain and more flooding further South. The rising costs and casualties in lives lost and livelihoods destroyed have opened up a new volley of cuts and counter-cuts between the U.S aid donors and Islamists organizations.
The U.S. now stands to make a big impression in Pakistan by the sheer country-wide publicity of the aid on offer, publicity that for once is not linked to unpopular policies. In its stead, Islamists organizations reaching more Pakistanis them most other humanitarian organizations are asking victims of the flood to refuse U.S. provided aid.
A few months ago, I wrote about the early stages of the conflict in Ukraine through the lens of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. While it appears likely that the war will carry on into the foreseeable future, enough time has passed for us to make an honest assessment of each side’s relative […]
The Ukrainian Army has made dramatic strides in the last few weeks. Ukraine’s tactical commanders have outfoxed their Russian counterparts, and by issuing a feint towards the south the UA has been able to earn substantial gains in the north of their country. The impact of these efforts have been compounded by the steady stream […]
In mid-May the Irish political party, Sinn Féin, won the plurality of seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly. Many American readers might not fully understand the significance of Sinn Féin’s political victory- but rest assured that subjects of the United Kingdom and a wide range of political movements the world over have heard the message […]
The first wave of the Russian offensive in Ukraine has fallen short of Russian autocrat Vladmir Putin’s ambitions. Most analysts deduced that Putin had hoped to achieve a decapitation strike of the Ukrainian government- taking Kiev and replacing Ukrainian President Vladimir Zolinski with a pro-Kremlin voice. Kiev has been threatened repeatedly through the course of […]
On the weekend of March 26th, the notorious MS-13 gang went on a massive killing spree in El Salvador which left more than 70 people dead by Sunday. Even for a country where powerful gangs hold massive sway, this recent tragedy stands out considering that it was the bloodiest day on record since the civil […]
