By: Shamshad Ahmad In an unlettered society where one rarely comes across people genuinely into writing or reading and where books are sold not by content but by weight as a waste paper commodity and where book stores are disappearing fast getting converted into video shops or burger stands, the arrival of every single new book by a Pakistani author is freshening expression of a resolve not to give up the b ...

Asif Haroon Raja While George W Bush led regime of neo-cons had initiated the insane war on the pretext of 9/11 attacks, Obama administration took no steps to wind down the war after taking over in January 2009 by which time the futility of war and hidden motives had been exposed. Rather, the Democrats accelerated the war and introduced drone war to further fuel terrorism. Under the cover of war on terror, ...

by Major John Evans   MY previous experience in Pakistan included looking down on Peshawar from the Khyber Pass in Afghanistan and receiving some rocket fire from the eastern side of the border while in Asadabad. Despite this, I was aware that the media’s portrayal of Pakistan was not entirely accurate and I was looking forward to my stay at the Command and Staff College in Quetta. However, I never could ha ...

By Robert Dreyfuss The United States is slipping and sliding down that proverbial “slippery slope” in Syria toward something that looks increasingly like war. Most worryingly, according to The New York Times, the CIA is training Syrian fighters in Jordan. Buried in its story today about Secretary of State John Kerry’s announcement that the United States will increase aid to the rebels, including medical sup ...

By Dr Zafar Nawaz Jaspal The withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan in 2014 certainly has decisive impact on both Afghanistan’s domestic situation as well its relations with its neighboring states. Afghanistan’s internal political environment will inescapably transform, once the foreign troops depart from the country. The makeover of new Afghan ruling elite would determine and chalk out Kabul’s forei ...

By: Sikander Shaheen Hallmarked with renewed commitments, reprioritised relationships, invariable highs and sinking lows, Pakistan’s defence sector had been the centre-stage of dramatic turn of events in the year 2012. Not only the external strategic pressures but the challenges from within as well predominantly marked the chronology of happenings on the defence side. With the standoff between Islamabad and ...

By Pat Buchanan Regularly now, The Washington Post, as always concerned with fairness and balance, runs a blog called "Right Turn: Jennifer Rubin's Take From a Conservative Perspective." The blog tells us what the Post regards as conservatism. On Monday, Rubin declared that America's "greatest national security threat is Iran." Do conservatives really believe this? How is America, with thousands of strategi ...

By Franklin Lamb Iran is expected to meet with other world powers in Astana, Kazakhstan to discuss its nuclear program. Discussions that the occupiers of Palestine fervently hope will not be successful. It is toward this end that their key demand this week to the US Congress, the White House and the European Union is “to cast responsibility on the Iranians by blaming them for the talks’ failure in the clear ...