war in Pakistan

CIA drones quit one Pakistan site — but U.S. keeps access to other airbases

by News Sources 12.15.2011

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism reports: Despite its very public withdrawal from Shamsi airfield at the weekend, the United States continues to have access to a number of military airfields inside Pakistan – including at least one from which armed drones are able to operate, the Bureau understands. The first concrete indications have also emerged [...]

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U.S.-Pakistan relations deteriorate

by News Sources 12.12.2011

Al Jazeera reports: The US has vacated the Shamsi air base in Pakistan’s Balochistan province after a 15-day ultimatum given by Islamabad, prompted by the deaths of at least 24 of its soldiers in a NATO air raid last month. Sunday’s withdrawal was completed when the final flight carrying US personnel and equiptment flew out. [...]

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Pakistan stops NATO supplies after raid kills up to 28

by News Sources 11.26.2011

Reuters reports: NATO helicopters and fighter jets attacked two military outposts in northwest Pakistan on Saturday, killing as many as 28 troops and plunging U.S.-Pakistan relations, already deeply frayed, further into crisis. Pakistan retaliated by shutting down vital NATO supply routes into Afghanistan, used for sending in almost half of the alliance’s non-lethal materiel. The [...]

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World history at warp speed

by News Sources 11.03.2011

Helena Cobban asks: From Afghanistan, to Iraq, to Pakistan, to Somalia, to Yemen– and now, to Libya… What has the U.S. military brought in its wake?? The collapse of communities, of whole economies, of institutions, and families… Tragedies, wherever you look. This is not to indict individual members of the military, which as a group [...]

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Costs of war: 225,000 killed, $3.2-4 trillion

by Paul Woodward 06.30.2011

On September 14, 2001, when President Bush shouted through a bullhorn to rescue workers at the ruins of the World Trade Center, he said: “I can hear you! I can hear you! The rest of the world hears you! And the people — and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of [...]

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Poll: Majority says US military involved in too many places

by News Sources 06.20.2011

The Hill reports: An overwhelming number of voters believe the United States is involved in too many foreign conflicts and should pull back its troops, according to a new poll conducted for The Hill. Seventy-two percent of those polled said the United States is fighting in too many places, with only 16 percent saying the [...]

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Listening Post – Pakistan: The most dangerous place to report from

by News Sources 06.11.2011
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Inside Al-Qaeda and the Taliban Beyond Bin Laden and 9/11

by News Sources 06.08.2011

Gareth Porter on the new book by recently murdered Pakistani journalist Saleem Shahzad.

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Prominent journalist Saleem Shahzad murdered after exposing ties between Pakistan’s navy and al Qaeda

by Paul Woodward 06.01.2011

Declan Walsh reports: A prominent Pakistani journalist who investigated links between the military and al-Qaida has been found dead, triggering angry accusations against the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency. Saleem Shahzad, Pakistan correspondent for a news service based in Hong Kong, disappeared on his way to a television interview in Islamabad on Sunday evening. On [...]

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NATO concern over Pakistan nuclear arsenal

by News Sources 05.24.2011

Al Jazeera reports: The head of NATO has admitted that the security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons is a matter of concern, the day after the worst assault on a Pakistani military base in two years. Anders Fogh Rasmussen was speaking in Afghanistan on Tuesday, where he met Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, to discuss the [...]

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Whose side is Pakistan’s ISI really on?

by News Sources 05.12.2011

Declan Walsh writes: If there was one telling moment in Pakistan in the 10 days since Osama bin Laden’s death, when a Hollywood-style American assault on a suburban house left the country reeling, torn between anger, shame and denial, it occurred late one evening on a prime-time television show hosted by Kamran Khan. Chatshow hosts [...]

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Time for Pakistan to divorce the US

by News Sources 05.12.2011

Shaukat Qadir, a retired brigadier and former president of the Islamabad Policy Research Institute, explains how Pakistan ended up at war with itself dealing with a tribal rebellion. If we hark back in time, in 2001, the Pakistani Pashtun and all Afghans were celebrating US intervention in Afghanistan. It would liberate them from Taliban oppression. [...]

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News roundup — May 9

by News Sources 05.09.2011

Bin Laden’s death doesn’t end his fear-mongering value Glenn Greenwald writes: On Friday, government officials anonymously claimed that “a rushed examination” of the “trove” of documents and computer files taken from the bin Laden home prove — contrary to the widely held view that he “had been relegated to an inspirational figure with little role [...]

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The death of Osama bin Laden

by Paul Woodward 05.02.2011

“As crowds gathered outside the White House, there was little question that Mr. Obama’s presidency had forever been changed.” That’s the caption the New York Times put under the photo below. David Axelrod might have preferred this event to have occurred closer to the end of Obama’s reelection campaign, though accusations that the news was [...]

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Pakistan’s secret dirty war

by News Sources 03.30.2011

Declan Walsh reports: The bodies surface quietly, like corks bobbing up in the dark. They come in twos and threes, a few times a week, dumped on desolate mountains or empty city roads, bearing the scars of great cruelty. Arms and legs are snapped; faces are bruised and swollen. Flesh is sliced with knives or [...]

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CIA linked to Pakistan Taliban

by News Sources 02.27.2011

Pakistan’s Express Tribune, which is affiliated with the New York Times, reports: As American newspapers lifted a self-imposed gag on the CIA links of Raymond Davis, in place on the request of the US administration, The Express Tribune has now learnt that the alleged killer of two Pakistanis had close links with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan [...]

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2010, the year of assassination by drones

by News Sources 01.03.2011

The Asian News International news agency reports: As many as 2,043 people, mostly civilians, were killed in US drone attacks in northwestern parts of Pakistan during the last five years, a research has revealed. The yearly report of Conflict Monitoring Centre (CMC) has termed the CIA drone strikes as an ”assassination campaign turning out to [...]

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‘Disappeared’ Pakistanis — innocent and guilty alike — have fallen into a legal black hole

by Paul Woodward 12.31.2010

Without a single reference to President Obama’s drone war in Pakistan, extrajudicial detention of prisoners at Guantanamo, the torture of suspected terrorists, CIA-run secret prisons, rendition, presidential authorization to assassinate US citizens, or the United States’ long history of supporting governments that use their power to suppress political dissent by making their opponents “disappear,” the [...]

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Obama’s indiscriminate slaughter in Pakistan can only encourage new waves of militancy

by News Sources 12.30.2010

Mehdi Hasan writes: Speaking at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner in May, Barack Obama spotted teen pop band the Jonas Brothers in the audience. “Sasha and Malia are huge fans, but, boys, don’t get any ideas,” deadpanned the president, referring to his daughters. “Two words for you: predator drones. You will never see it [...]

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The leaks that aren’t really leaks

by Paul Woodward 12.23.2010

Glenn Greenwald praises the New York Times for an article which “exposed” planning for an imminent expansion of Obama’s war in Pakistan: In my view, the NYT article represents exactly the kind of secret information journalists ought to be revealing; it’s a pure expression of why the First Amendment guarantees a free press. There are [...]

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Will Obama’s war in Pakistan soon escalate to a ground war?

by News Sources 12.22.2010

The New York Times reports: Senior American military commanders in Afghanistan are pushing for an expanded campaign of Special Operations ground raids across the border into Pakistan’s tribal areas, a risky strategy reflecting the growing frustration with Pakistan’s efforts to root out militants there. The proposal, described by American officials in Washington and Afghanistan, would [...]

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How the Afghan counterinsurgency threatens Pakistan

by News Sources 12.17.2010

Anatol Lieven writes: By now, almost all the likely outcomes of US strategy in Afghanistan are bad ones. They range from unending civil war, with government forces barely managing to hold their own against the Taliban, to de facto partition of the country. There is a chance that the Taliban would accept a settlement involving [...]

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“No Pakistani child is worth one whit less that any American child”

by Paul Woodward 10.20.2010

FB Ali at Sic Semper Tyrannis drew my attention to a blog post that appeared in Pakistan’s Express Tribune. It was written by a US Army helicopter pilot, John Bockmann, who was recently deployed to help in relief work, following this summer’s devastating flooding. US humanitarian aid — especially when provided to a country like [...]

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Washington Post calls for escalation of the war in Pakistan

by Paul Woodward 10.05.2010

After three Frontier Corps soldiers were killed in a NATO helicopter attack on a Pakistani border post last week, the Pakistani government cut off supplies to Afghanistan by closing the Torkham border crossing. It was the easiest way of sending a message to Washington that killing Pakistani soldiers is unacceptable. The Washington Post‘s editorial page [...]

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