US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta raised a storm signalling that US and NATO troops in Afghanistan will transition from a combat role to a “training, assist and advice” role by late 2013, a year earlier than the mandated 2014 schedule. Presidential candidate Mitt Romney had earlier railed against US troops fighting a war of independence…
Mumbai is a city of contrasts, never so apparent as one comes in to land at the International Airport. High-rise developments are pockmarked across shanty towns, ongoing construction of raised expressways snaking over slum areas to overcome the enormous traffic jams clogging the city. Dreams sometimes become a reality in this sprawling metropolis, multiple times…
By all accounts Hussain Haqqani and Mansoor Ijaz were good friends, the tone and tenor of the BlackBerry exchanges clearly show they made for a lethal combination. The May 10 Memo was meant to be a specially crafted “neutron bomb” to (1) change the present national security parameters in Pakistan and bring it into line…
The compulsions for survival has driven our leaders over the past decade to allow the US-Pakistan relationship to gradually degenerate into a master and slave status. Pakistan is now subjected to various insults across the board periodically, in the past year motivated vilification of the Pakistan Army and the ISI by key US public officials…
The Supreme Court (SC) having given notice to several respondents in the Manzoor Ijaz – Haqqani Memo issue, the govt resorted to its usual ploy of attempting to frustrate the course of justice. The first salvo was Dr (??) Babar Awan’s vitriolic attack on Tariq Khosa, appointed by the SC as a one-man Commission to…
The New Year is usually associated with joy but this time around a great many countries approached it bad that happened, whether in Pakistan or outside seemed to be our fault or so we were told. And what about our leaders? They being interested mostly in self survival, fell over themselves in keeping the USA,…
Absurdity is used in existentialist and related philosophy according to the Wikipedia Encyclopedia to describe absurdly pointless efforts to try and find such meaning or purpose in an objective and uncaring world. In common usage absurdity is synonymous with ridiculousness. Thomas Hobbes discussed the two concepts as different, absurdity having to do with invalid reasoning…
A delegation of Army officers from the prestigious Command & Staff College, Quetta visiting the Supreme Court (SC) were told by their host, Honourable Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, that repeated military intervention had weakened state institutions, that the military had no business in the business of governance of the country. He emphatically reminded the assembled…
The greatest most expensive manhunt in history, employing man and material resources far beyond anything else in recorded times, culminated at about 3 am on Sunday May 1, 2011. With a shot to the head over the left eye, and maybe another one in the chest, Osama Bin Laden’s decade-long successful evasion of those seeking…
Bin Laden’s hideout in a mainly garrison town seriously compromised the credibility of our intelligence agencies and our Armed Forces (read “the Pakistan Army”). That he was not in some cave was no surprise, the embarrassing security lapse in failing to locate him within days and weeks, let alone nearly six years, was shocking. The…
