A hidden world, growing beyond control

Washington Post

 The top-secret world the government created in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work.

America’s ‘Primal Scream’

The frustration in America isn’t so much with inequality in the political and legal worlds, as it was in Arab countries, although those are concerns too. Here the critical issue is economic inequity. According to the C.I.A.’s own ranking of countries by income inequality, the United States is more unequal a society than either Tunisia or Egypt.

 

Op-Ed Columnist

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

Published in NewYork Times on October 15, 2011

 

IT’S fascinating that many Americans intuitively understood the outrage and frustration that drove Egyptians to protest at Tahrir Square, but don’t comprehend similar resentments that drive disgruntled fellow citizens to “occupy Wall Street.”

Endgame in Afghanistan

by Khalid Aziz- Dawn.

THE current tensions in Pakistan-US ties have convinced many Pakistanis that the US will undertake an operation in North Waziristan thus breaching Pakistani sovereignty.

Such a conclusion became likely after Adm Mike Mullen’s uncharacteristic outburst recently at a US Senate hearing. He held the ISI responsible for the recent attacks in Kabul. His ire is more a product of expectations gone sour than a warning. It is likely that there were promises made by Pakistan for undertaking such an operation but that later the idea was dropped. The important statement issued after the extraordinary meeting of Pakistan’s military commanders last Sunday made it clear that Pakistan will not undertake an operation in Fata. But at the same time the commanders wished for good relations with the US.

The age of high-tech war: after Libya

Paul Rogers, 09th September 2011

There is intense rethinking in the Pentagon about the “war on terror”. The outcome of the Libyan conflict will reinforce its principal trends.

When Donald Rumsfeld was appointed George W Bush’s defence secretary in 2001, he had the clear aim of fighting wars with minimal “boots on the ground”. From that point, the United States would fight its enemies mainly from the air and the sea. This vision of a high-tech military age saw armies as increasingly redundant.

9/11, and the lost decade

Paul Rogers, 08th September 2011

What are the principal lessons of the ten years of war since the 11 September 2001 attacks? Paul Rogers, whose first openDemocracy column was published a few days after 9/11, responds to three questions.

About the author

Paul Rogers is professor in the department of peace studies [10] at Bradford University. He has been writing a weekly column [10] on global security on openDemocracy since 28 September 2001, and writes an international-security monthly briefing for the Oxford Research Group [10]. His books include Why We’re Losing the War on Terror [10] (Polity, 2007), and Losing Control: Global Security in the 21st Century [10] (Pluto Press, 3rd edition, 2010). He is on twitter at: @ProfPRogers

What has been the biggest single impact of 9/11 on the public and political world?

America’s wars: the logic of escalation

Paul Rogers, 22nd September 2011

The United States’s political-military strategy for drawdown in Afghanistan is in trouble, even as Washington is tempted by increased high-tech military engagement in other theaters of war.

The killing of Afghanistan’s former president Burhanuddin Rabbani in a suicide bomb-attack at his home in Kabul on 20 September 2011 removes  a senior player who for decades was at the centre of the country’s political scene. A major incident in itself, which led the current Afghan president Hamid Karzai to return home from New York to attend the funeral, Rabbani’s death follows the concerted assault on key targets in central Kabul on 13-14 September that lasted twenty hours.

The exact responsibility for Rabbani’s death is still  to be established. But this and similar operations  – such as attacks on Kabul hotels, and on the offices  of the British Council in the city on 19 August – reflect the ability of the Taliban to hone tactics in recent months in response to the “surge” in United States troops into Afghanistan.

Every casualty: the human face of war

OpenDemocracy

The idea of recording, identifying and acknowledging each individual victim of armed conflict – and holding to account those responsible – extends the principles underlying the laws of war.

From the Soviet Union to Libya, the story of a single American submarine – the USS Florida – throws light on the transition to the post-cold-war world. The Florida was an Ohio-class ballistic-missile submarine launched in 1981, at the start of the most dangerous period of that conflict, and commissioned two years later. It was then one of the most powerful warships ever built.

Our Fantasy Nation?

Nicholas D. Kristof

On the Ground

Nicholas Kristof addresses reader feedback and posts short takes from his travels.

It has among the lowest tax burdens of any major country: fewer than 2 percent of the people pay any taxes. Government is limited, so that burdensome regulations never kill jobs.

This society embraces traditional religious values and a conservative sensibility. Nobody minds school prayer, same-sex marriage isn’t imaginable, and criminals are never coddled.

The budget priority is a strong military, the nation’s most respected institution. When generals decide on a policy for, say, Afghanistan, politicians defer to them. Citizens are deeply patriotic, and nobody burns flags.

So what is this Republican Eden, this Utopia? Why, it’s Pakistan.

Killing “faith ” is impossible

Dr Irfan Zafar

North Waziristan has a total area of 4,707 km2 with an estimated Population of 361,246. Pakistan has a total area of 796,095 km2 with a population of around 170,600,000 and United States covers an area of 9,826,657 km2 with an estimated population of 308,745,538. Unites States forces are ranked 3rd in the world with 1,477,896 active personnel. Pakistan maintains the 7th largest army with 617,000 personnel. Ever wondered what is so powerful about North Waziristan with a handful of terrorists making the 3rd and the 7th largest Armies in the world being pushed against the wall?

Like It or Not, the US and Pakistan Need Each Other

Reza Aslan
Posted: 7/11/11 02:56 PM ET  Published in Huffington Post
Reports this week that the Obama administration is suspending some $800 million in military aid to Pakistan confirms what everyone already knows: the relationship between the two erstwhile allies in the war on terror is teetering on the verge of collapse. Indeed, there are powerful voices in both countries calling for a complete severing of ties. This is understandable as each country has reason to be distrustful of the other. But it would be a colossal mistake for Pakistan and the United States to give into these voices and give up on each other.

Don’t Be Spooked by Pakistan

From Foreign Policy

A CIA veteran’s prescription for how the United States can get along with an ally it doesn’t trust.
BY MILT BEARDEN | JULY 11, 2011

More than two months after the raid by U.S. Navy SEALS on the Abbottabad compound of Osama bin Laden, the relationship between the United States and Pakistan is at its lowest point in the almost six decades of a rocky, on-again-off-again alliance. The United States has suspended some $800 million in military aid, and the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, is traveling to Pakistan this week for what is certain to be a chilly meeting with his counterpart, Pakistani Army Chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani.

After the bin Laden Raid

Shuja Nawaz | June 27, 2011
For the second time in the life of the current government a parliamentary session has produced a unanimous “feel good” resolution, after what must have been serious prodding by the military.
Private discussions again leaked badly to the media, making it difficult to ascertain what was really said, given that we cannot judge the motivations of the leakers. If the past is any guide, nothing substantive will result from this exercise as individual political parties go their own ways and there is no cohesive action by parliament or the government to follow up on the main points of the resolution.