Getting Pakistan Wrong
Graham Usher : Afghanistan
The US military's aggressive confrontation with the Taliban and its Al Qaeda cohorts in Pakistan is only making matters worse.
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Surprising Outcomes in Pakistan
Moni Mohsin
In an election replete with surprises, the people of Pakistan have chosen wisely. Now it is up to the elected parties to rule wisely.
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Bhutto's Tangled Legacy
Graham Usher
Will the PPP revive her power-sharing deal with Musharraf or join with Nawaz Sharif to re-establish constitutional rule?
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Jinnah's New Republic
Andrew Roth : Nation History
Seldom has a state been created under such contradictory pressures or with such a load of full-grown problems.
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Amid Silence, Terror War Escalates
Tom Hayden : Afghanistan
Bush's "war on terror" is escalating without discussion or dissent amid the most open and democratic of American processes--the presidential debates.
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A New Diplomacy for Pakistan
Christian Parenti : US Foreign Policy
As American policy-makers and pundits seek a Plan B for Pakistan, it's time to recognize the desperate need for a new diplomacy for the Muslim world.
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Benazir's Bequest
Amy Wilentz : Benazir Bhutto
In the shock, power grabs and crackdowns that followed Benazir Bhutto's assassination, it's easy to forget that the greatest casualty in Pakistan is the rule of law.
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Charlie Wilson's War--and Ours
Robert Scheer : Film
Unlike the plot of the latest Tom Hanks film, the blowback price of our incessant meddling could prove quite high. And even Hollywood can't put a pretty face on that one.
2007
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Amnesia at the Multiplex
Lakshmi Chaudhry : Islam & Muslims
Two films address US adventures in Afghanistan and Pakistan, with a big dose of historical amnesia, political pandering, moral superiority and outraged innocence.
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Pakistan Without Benazir
The deeply flawed, arresting, autocratic Benazir Bhutto had the wherewithal to save her country but repeatedly disappointed. Yet she represented the best secular option for breaching Pakistan's multiple fissures.
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Benazir Bhutto: A Death Foretold
For all her pro-American rhetoric, many in Benazir Bhutto's party held America responsible for the "judicial murder" of her father. Will Bhutto's assassination have a like impact?
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Benazir Bhutto: An Age of Hope Is Over
Barbara Crossette : Urban Issues
As the world mourns the loss of Benazir Bhutto, it would be myopic to focus only on Islamic-inspired violence and on Pakistan. For all of post-independence history, South Asia has been a region drenched in blood.
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Another Death in Rawalpindi
The killing of Benazir Bhutto echoes Pakistan's troubled history, portends more violence and flags a proud country's collapse into chaos. It also signals the manifest bankruptcy of the Bush Administration's anti-terrorism.
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GWOT: Pakistan
Shahan Mufti : US Foreign Policy
As the Taliban gains strength, a nascent democracy in Pakistan withers.
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Students for a Free Pakistan
Jayati Vora : Student Movements
Putting blogs, cellphones and text messages to work, Pakistani students around the world are rallying against Musharraf's martial law.
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Pakistan's Bomb: Have It Your Way
Catherine Collins & Douglas Frantz : Nuclear Arms & Proliferation
Thanks to globalization, the 'Islamic bomb' turns out to be a little bit American, Canadian, Swiss, German, Dutch, British, Japanese and even Russian.
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A Good Week for the Saudis
Their boy Nawaz Sharif's back in Pakistan, oil prices are soaring and the Bushies continue to do their bidding.
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Trappings of Democracy in Pakistan
Graham Usher : US Foreign Policy
As hopes fade for the rule of law in Pakistan, the Bush Administration signals it will settle for just the trappings of democracy. People are braced for disaster.
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Bush, Pakistan and the Bomb
Jonathan Schell : Nuclear Arms & Proliferation
The Bush Administration's failed war on terror has stoked the fires it was meant to quench. And in Pakistan, the risk of nuclear terrorisism is on the rise.
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Bush Stands By His Dictator
Robert Scheer : George W. Bush
Bush's coddling of Pervez Musharraf defies all reason--and bears some unsettling similarity to his own offenses and misteps as President.
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Judicial Activism in a Time of No Irony
Patricia J. Williams : Attorney General
Contemplating Mukasey, Musharraf and the imprisoned lawyers of Pakistan: how easily a modern liberal democracy can slide into a totalitarian state.
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Reading Lincoln in Pakistan
Pervez Musharraf wraps himself in Lincoln's mantle, but no one is fooled.
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Musharraf's Emergency
If the United States is so keen on spreading democracy and fighting radical Islamists, why does it continue to back a leader who has suspended the Constitution and gone to war with legal activists?
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Our Man in Pakistan
Robert Scheer : US Foreign Policy
Gen. Pervez Musharraf turns out to be just another crummy dictator. But he's our dictator--using the $10 billion in US aid to jail judges and lawyers, and give shelter Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Thanks, George.
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Who Lost Pakistan?
How often can the Bush Administration be caught off guard by the consequences of its own actions? Endlessly, it seems.
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Benazir Bhutto's Defining Moment
She alone can mobilize Pakistan's poor with promises of democracy, development and free, fair elections. But does she have the power to ward off US meddling and stop Pakistan's slide into chaos?
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Red Mosque: Endgame for Musharraf?
In the violent aftermath of the storming of Islamabad's Red Mosque, the military-mullah alliance that kept Pervez Musharraf in power is unraveling, the Taliban is ascendant, and hopes for stability are fading.
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Bush's Pakistan Paradox
Robert Scheer : US Foreign Policy
He invaded Iraq, which had no connection to WMDs or terrorist threats against the US, while coddling the military junta in Pakistan, which was guilty on both counts. Go figure.
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Pakistan: The Intersection
Sam Graham-Felsen, James Jacoby & Ali Sethi : Video
VideoNation travels to Pakistan to assess the nation's future through the eyes of students at the progressive National College of Arts and the extremist-dominated Punjab University.
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Pakistan's Shaky Dictatorship
Only reform can halt the growth of violent Islamization in Pakistan, which threatens to topple the current government.
2006
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Mumbai's Casualties
The grisly commuter train bombings in Mumbai on July 11 both endangered the India/Pakistan peace process and underscored its fragility.
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Challenging Musharraf
Massive protests over the Muhammad cartoons add to the growing sense that Pakistani President-General Pervez Musharraf is losing control.
2005
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A Tale of Two Tragedies
The Pakistan earthquake has left 3.3 million people homeless--far more than the tsunami. But suffering Pakistanis are either being preyed upon by Islamist groups or ignored by the uniformed establishment--with no sign of recovery.
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A Con Job by Pakistan's Pal, George Bush
Robert Scheer : Arms Spending & Proliferation
Trying to follow the US policy on the proliferation of nuclear weapons is like watching a three-card monte game.
2002
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War Talk
Arundhati Roy : Nuclear Arms & Proliferation
It's not just the one million soldiers on the India/Pakistan border who are living on hairtrigger alert. It's all of us. That's what nuclear bombs do.
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No-Risk Electioneering
Musharraf's referendum only exacerbated Pakistan's political crisis.
2001
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Pakistan, the Taliban and the US
If Islamabad heeds Washington's war demands, it risks likely internal revolt.
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A Political Solution Is Required
An overcommitment to Washington could lead to a civil war in Pakistan and split the armed forces.
This Week: Katrina vanden Heuvel on the meaning of patriotism this July 4th. Plus, some of our most compelling interviews from the first half of 2008: Victor Navasky on the experts getting it wrong about Iraq; Stuart Klawans on Romanian film; and Arthur Danto on the state of contemporary art. (13mb mp3)
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