Much to the dismay of the government’s detractors and contrary to the vilification campaign going on in the country against the leadership, the US Senate voted on Thursday to triple non-military aid to Pakistan to roughly 1.5 billion dollars per year through 2014 in its effort to show the world that Pakistan is a critical [...]
This post originally appeared on Wasiq Ali’s blog this morning and was too important to not re-post here. By Wasiq Ali The Washington Post of September 25, 2009 carries a news story about the rising anti-Americanism in Pakistan titled Anti-U.S. Wave Imperiling Efforts in Pakistan, Officials Say As the story points out – “A new wave [...]
There has been much chatter recently about security companies in Pakistan and whether that is a threat. This despite a complete lack of explanation for what the threat is, or any evidence that a threat exists at all. The latest story comes from a raid on the offices of Inter-Risk, a Pakistani security company that [...]
By Yahya Hussainy English essayist and poet Samuel Johnson once said, Patriotism is the last resort of a scoundrel. By that well-known definition what should one think of the fact that ever since the civilian government came to power in Pakistan there has been a rise in the number of Pseudo-Patriots and Conspiracy Theorists? In [...]
Columnist Morton Kondracke wrote in yesterday’s issue of the newspaper Roll Call that Pakistan is a bright spot among the difficulties present in South Asia and the Middle East, and that the US Congress has the opportunity to make a difference in the region by continuing support to Pakistan. As late as five months ago, [...]
At an iftar in honor of the visiting Governor of Sindh, Dr. Ishrat Ul Ebad Khan and the Mayor of Karachi, Syed Mustafa Kemal, Ambassador Husain Haqqani spoke movingly about what it means to be a Pakistani. “This embassy is the embassy of all Pakistanis, regardless of ethnicity, province, religion, sect,” he declared. In one [...]
London’s Financial Times looked at the first year of Zardari’s presidency and found that Pakistan’s president has defied expectations pushed by critics and doubters and has made significant progress in the country, leading it down a new path to progress. As Pakistan’s president prepares for a summit next week in New York with US President Barack [...]
Being an avid follower of various Pakistani political blogging websites on the internet, I have come to the conclusion that Pakistani bloggers need a change in their thought process. It seems to me that it has become a necessity to assume the worst case scenario of a particular situation. Although generalizing is a habit that [...]
Ambassador Haqqani spoke in Denver last week and reiterated the point that US support for Pakistan is a key to winning the struggle against militants. Most importantly, he reinforced the call for greater economic cooperation between the two nations and the development of greater economic opportunity for Pakistanis. “If the United States cannot get the [...]
Mr Husain Haqqani, Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States, has written to the Foreign Office and the ISI complaining that journalistic and institutional visas to Americans were being denied through the device of withholding “clearance”. In an understatement, the ambassador added that this could “damage” Pakistan’s image. The Foreign Office, of course, can hardly help, [...]