The Kids Are All Right

Current.com has an inter­est­ing (if a bit old) video short on the youth cul­ture of Karachi, Pak­istan. It’s def­i­nitely worth a look. As an aside, I’ve found sim­i­lar stir­rings of a vibrant youth cul­ture here in Islam­abad, which I will be writ­ing more on in the future.

Zardari Surrenders in the Swat Valley

Pak­istani Pres­i­dent Asif Ali Zardari signed into law a peace deal with mil­i­tants in the Swat Val­ley that would enshrine Islamic law in the for­mer Alpine tourist resort just 100 miles from Islam­abad. The above video shows what can be expected under the Pak­istani Taliban’s rule. Zardari is weak. He was being pres­sured by the U.S. and […]

Slouching Towards Oblivion

There can be no ques­tion the Pak­istani state is com­ing under increas­ing strain from mil­i­tants, its polit­i­cal sys­tem and its inter­na­tional rela­tions. The ques­tion is, Where is its break­ing point and what can be done to pre­vent it? And if it comes, then what? Mil­i­tant pres­sures A largely tak­firi and Pash­tun insur­gency has been spread­ing out of […]

The Dilemma of Pakistan

At the risk of mak­ing this a site about Ahmed Rashid, he spoke to the Knight fel­low­ship today and he had more inter­est­ing things to dis­cuss. Some was a repeat of what he men­tioned to me at din­ner a cou­ple of nights back, as would be expected, but he got more deeply into the dilemma of Pak­istan. The […]

How's that Swat 'cease-fire' going?

So how’s that Swat Val­ley cease-fire going, any­way? Not so well… “How can I tell you my name, are you crazy? I was told not to give my name to any­one because the Tal­iban could hurt me,” one girl in the ninth grade told AFP by tele­phone from the for­mer ski resort. This meshes with what I was told […]

'All Pakistan's cities are within the Taliban's reach'

In mid Feb­ru­ary, Pak­istani colum­nist Nazeer Naji penned a col­umn report­ing that Tal­iban mil­i­tants are grad­u­ally expand­ing their influ­ence over the entire coun­try, and not even Islam­abad is safe. The trig­ger for his alarm was the sign­ing of a shari’a-for-peace deal between Maulana Fazlul­lah, one of the Tal­iban com­man­ders, and the Pak­istani gov­ern­ment to estab­lish Islamic law over […]