Pakistan is a nation in need of healing. The last one year has highlighted the many fissures that have festered below the surface for years. Unity of command, so effective in running a disciplined force like a military unit, has ended up dividing the Pakistani nation. The first opinion poll, conducted by Gallup, after the [...]
By Dr Hasan-Askari Rizvi Almost all groups and parties have strong reservations about the impartiality of the Election Commission that appears helpless in checking the excesses of pro-Musharraf political leaders. Musharraf has repeatedly dismissed these complaints The January 10 suicide attack in Lahore is the latest reminder of the growing challenges to Pakistan’s political and [...]
By Kamal Matinuddin General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani’s direction to the army officers to refrain from meeting politicians and that the prime role of the armed forces is to carry out their professional duties is indeed a very welcoming statement and the need of the hour. It gives us hope that we have now a professional [...]
The first opinion poll, conducted by Gallup after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, showed that nearly half of the sample suspected government agencies (23 per cent) and government allied politicians (25 per cent) of killing Bhutto. Seventeen per cent suspected Al Qaida or the Taliban, while 16 per cent suspected external forces — principally the [...]
I have been scouring the Internet, looking for a poem that Benazir wrote on her 50th birthday. I did not find it, but I found much else, posted by people who never met her, never saw her and yet they felt devastated by her death Few people have been mourned with as much feeling across [...]
By Tanvir Ahmad Khan In our stage of nation-building, real political parties, as distinct from those that are cobbled together overnight to legitimize a coup d’etat, need mass mobilization. This need is the source of the din of democracy which has traditionally jarred the military mind addicted to decorum and order It is a testing [...]
Gary Ackerman, chairman of the congressional subcommittee that held a hearing on Pakistan on Wednesday, has called for a “fundamental reappraisal of US assistance to Pakistan.” Ackerman said, “The United States is at a crossroads with Pakistan. It is clear that despite the deaths of many, many Pakistani soldiers and police, the fight against terrorism [...]
Last week the world was shocked, and my life was shattered, by the murder of my beloved wife, Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto. Benazir was willing to lay down her life for what she believed in—for the future of a democratic, moderate, progressive Pakistan. She stood up to dictators and fanatics, those who would distort and defy [...]
By Azaz Syed Pakistan witnessed a ten-fold increase in suicide bombings in 2007 as compared with 2006, an Interior Ministry document made available to The Daily Times revealed. According to the document, 2007 witnessed 56 suicide attacks, killing 419 law enforcement personnel (LEP) and injuring 217 civilians. This is compared to six such incidents in [...]
America’s most vulnerable ally in the war on terror is Pakistan. But our alliance with the nuclear-armed Islamic state may be exacerbating that country’s instability. For eight years, Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf has delayed, deferred and ultimately denied his citizens the right to freely choose their next leader. U.S. policymakers and analysts concede that Musharraf’s [...]