Pakistan

US Weighs Taliban Strike Into Pakistan

WASHINGTON - President Obama and his national security advisers are considering expanding the American covert war in Pakistan far beyond the unruly tribal areas to strike at a different center of Taliban power in Baluchistan, where top Taliban leaders are orchestrating attacks into southern Afghanistan.

According to senior administration officials, two of the high-level reports on Pakistan and Afghanistan that have been forwarded to the White House in recent weeks have called for broadening the target area to include a major insurgent sanctuary in and around the city of Quetta.

Posted in Afghanistan, Pakistan

Pakistan in Turmoil

The Nation Editor's Note: In a concession to opposition leader Nawaz Sharif, the Pakistani government agreed Monday to reinstate Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry.

Posted in Pakistan

Pakistan Ex-PM Sharif Defies House Arrest

LAHORE, Pakistan - Pakistan's main opposition leader Nawaz Sharif defied house arrest Sunday and urged thousands of supporters in Lahore to march on the capital, ramping up his challenge to the government.

The former premier, now the most popular political leader in the country, led about 6,000 supporters in a banned protest in Lahore, where riot police fired tear gas and clashed with stone-throwing mobs in pitched battles.

Posted in protest, Pakistan

Marching for Democracy in Pakistan

Imagine this scenario: What if a U.S. president, in blatant contravention of the U.S. Constitution, fired every Supreme Court justice because he didn't like their decisions, and filled the court instead with his own cronies? What if a new president was elected on a promise to restore the rightful judges to their legal positions after he was in office?

Posted in Pakistan

The Pakistani Monster

Recently, a top US diplomat warned that Pakistan poses a bigger security threat to the world than Afghanistan.

Posted in Pakistan

If This Becomes Obama's War, It Will Poison His Presidency

The armed assault on Sri Lanka's cricket team in Lahore has been a brutal demonstration, if any more were needed, that the war on terror is devouring itself and the states that have been sucked into its slipstream. Pakistan is both victim and protagonist of the conflict in Afghanistan, its western and northern fringes devastated by a US-driven counter-insurgency campaign, its heartlands wracked by growing violence and deepening poverty.

Posted in foreign policy, Afghanistan, Israel/Palestine, Pakistan

Pakistan's Drift into the Hands of Extremists

The appalling terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan cricketers in Pakistan had one aim: to demonstrate to Washington that the country is ungovernable. This is the first time that cricketers have been targeted in a land where the sport is akin to religion. It marks the death of international cricket in Pakistan for the indefinite future, but not just that, which is bad enough. The country's future is looking more and more precarious.

Posted in Pakistan

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 23, 2009
2:10 PM

CONTACT: Veterans for Peace
Mike Ferner 419-729-7273
Michael T. McPhearson 314-303-8874

Veteran Organization: 'More Soldiers Will Only Lead to More Death; Not Stability and Peace'

NATIONWIDE - February 23 - U.S. troops continue to occupy Iraq with no clear plan to bring them home. Tuesday, February 17th, President Obama ordered 17,000 troops to Afghanistan to join the 37,000 already there. He also ordered a review of U.S. policies in the region. The President has been quoted by prominent news outlets as saying in various ways that it will take more than military force to solve the problems of Afghanistan.

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Veterans For Peace is a national organization founded in 1985. It is structured around a national office in Saint Louis, MO and comprised of members across the country organized in chapters or as at-large members. The organization includes men and women veterans of all eras and duty stations including from the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), World War II, the Korean, Vietnam, Gulf and current Iraq wars as well as other conflicts. Our collective experience tells us wars are easy to start and hard to stop and that those hurt are often the innocent. Thus, other means of problem solving are necessary.

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Posted in veterans, War/Empire, Afghanistan, Pakistan

Afghan-Pakistan War Council

Team Obama will be holding a war council of sorts this week, as top Pakistani and Afghan officials come to Washington as part of Obama's ongoing review of the conflict. Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi and Afghan Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta will meet with, among others, Hillary Clinton, Robert Gates, Richard Holbrooke, and Bruce Riedel, who's coordinating the administration's rethink.

Posted in War/Empire, Afghanistan, Pakistan

Google Earth Reveals Secret History of US Base in Pakistan

The US was secretly flying unmanned drones from the Shamsi airbase in Pakistan's southwestern province of Baluchistan as early as 2006, according to an image of the base from Google Earth.

Posted in drone attacks, Pakistan