How long this standoff will continue is debatable but what we need to consider is how this situation has deteriorated to a point that the US feels it can attack and kill Pakistanis at will.
Pakistan’s relations with the US have never been easy but recent developments have brought them to such a point that even the polite and usually soft-spoken Pakistani Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani was forced to concede: “we do not trust the Americans.”
General Mirza Aslam Beg — who is the former Chief of Army Staff of Pakistan and currently Chairman of the Islamabad-based NGO, Foundation for Research on International Environment, National Development and Security (FRIENDS) — expresses some of his views about the Islamic resistance and Pakistan.
Since he entered the White House in January 2009, Barack Obama has made war on Pakistan the most important policy of his presidency even while he has maintained a broad grin on his face. the presidential campaign: speak softly but carry a big stick.
The release of Raymond Davis on March 16 has dismayed most Pakistanis who felt the American was guilty of murder and should have been dealt with according to the law of Pakistan. Instead, what this confirms yet again is the craven attitude of the government in its dealings with the US.
The Raymond Davis saga is beginning to assume the proportions of a spy thriller, literally. Presenting himself as a security contractor with the US Consulate in Lahore.
Raymond Davis, the CIA agent operating as a "security consultant" at the US Consulate in Lahore, will be set free, Crescent International has learned. Davis shot and killed two people riding a motorbike in Lahore on January 26 whom he accused of trying to rob him.
The assassination of Punjab Governor Salman Taseer on January 4 at the hands of his own bodyguard has exposed the numerous fault lines criss-crossing the social fabric of Pakistani society over the blasphemy law. It has pushed the country toward two extremes drowning out rational and knowledge-based discussion.
Last month’s events have confirmed, yet again, with striking clarity how deeply polarized the Pakistani society is. The killing of Salman Taseer, Governor of Punjab Province, by his own bodyguard on January 4 has scared the living daylights out of the already cowardly rulers.
As he was wheeled into the operation theatre at a Washington hospital, Richard Holbrooke, the US special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, must have prayed the Pakistani surgeon tending to him would successfully stitch his torn aorta to save his life so he could “save” Afghanistan.
Jonathan Banks, the CIA station chief in Pakistan, left Islamabad in a hurry after his cover was blown. Banks had a “business” visa but operated from the US embassy from where he coordinated drone strikes on North and South Waziristan.
A fresh development in this schizophrenic saga is the return of Pakistani strongman Pervez Musharraf to the political arena
At the other end of the country, violence has periodically erupted between different ethnic and political groups in Karachi
Zardari owns a huge property in France where his father Hakim Ali Zardari now lives
While in Istanbul, we witnessed a remarkable display of brotherhood of Islam. Everyday, there were scores of public iftars organized by officials of various districts in the city, starting with the mayor of Istanbul.
Addressing the ‘nation’ on 15 August, to mark the 55th anniversary of ‘independence’, prime minister AB Vajpayee cut his task down to addressing "cross-border terrorism". His main theme was how Pakistan is trying to thwart India’s ‘peaceful’ efforts to resolve the problems of Kashmir...
“Pakistan First”, was the slogan coined by former Pakistani military dictator, General Pervez Musharraf in his very first address to the people after grabbing power in October 1999. It was to be the underlying theme by which he would govern for nearly a decade.
Almost every statement in the above paragraph, except perhaps for the simple statement of fact with which it starts, could prove the subject of heated debate.
On his first visit to curry favour with the Indians, Britain's still green prime minister, David Cameron left his manners at home and lashed out at Pakistan. The July 28 remarks in Bangalore were not only crude but completely off base when he accused Pakistan of providing safe havens to terrorists and exporting it east and west.
