Why announce a bounty on Hafiz Saeed?
Why now? At a critical moment in the US-Pakistan relationship, with parliamentary debate raging in Pakistan about how to realign relations with Washington, and with the United States desperate to forge some level of cooperation with Islamabad to help move toward the elusive endgame in Afghanistan, why announce a bounty for “information leading to the arrest or conviction” of living-openly-in-Lahore Hafiz Saeed? This is, after all, a man Washington and New Delhi regard as a terrorist, yet whom many in Pakistan regard as a heroic symbol of defiance toward the United States, an essential strategic asset, or both. In short, Washington’s ...
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Are drone attacks really worth it?
On September 20, 2001, while addressing a joint session of the US Congress, then US president George W. Bush said: “Every nation in every region now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.” These words really changed our world, as our rulers sided with them instead of our own people. An inroad into our airspace In less than a month on October 7 2001, the US military started its operation Enduring Freedom to eliminate safe havens of al-Qaeda and in search of Osama Bin Laden. Cities and towns all over Afghanistan were pounded through ...
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Talk to the shoe
Desperate times call for desperate measures. So what do people resort to doing when they have been rendered politically impotent? They opt for symbolic, emotionally charged protests like name-calling, flag-burning, and most recently, shoe-throwing. Shoe-throwing has been the way to get your voice heard since 2008, when Muntader al Zaidi tossed two shoes at George W Bush in Iraq. In a slightly less famous incident, Chinese prime minister Wen Jiabao was the victim of a shoe-attack in the UK in 2009. In the instances mentioned above, both shoe-tossers chose to accessorise their flying footwear with a string of invective. Zaidi ...
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