Tag Archive | Pakistan Army
Let’s Talk Civil-Military, NOW!
This article appeared in Daily Times on Monday January 30, 2012 as my weekly column BAAGHI Atiqa Odho needs to change her name. Not only her name but also the prefix if she wants to avoid further humiliation that she possibly could not and would not want, just because she is a woman and does [...]
Why no outrage against Taliban?
Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) executed 15 kidnapped members of Pakistan’s Border Security Guard, a paramilitary force that guards the country’s northwestern border region in a major blow to government efforts to pursue peace talks with the militants. While the news about this massacre appeared in media on January 5, 2012, the video was released to media [...]
What’s Brewing in Pakistan
This was written for The Open Magazine of India, and appeared on Saturday January 21, 2012 ISLAMABAD ~ Ever since democracy was restored in Pakistan after the general elections of 2008, not a day has passed without a crisis—sometimes engineered, sometimes resulting from the government’s weaknesses and incompetence. The country’s two major political parties, the [...]
Presidential immunity vs selective accountability
Appeared as my weekly column BAAGHI in Daily Times on Monday January 23, 2012 Umpteen talk shows on 24/7 ‘breaking news’ media in Pakistan tell us almost daily how bad is democracy, how this democracy is worse than the dictatorships we have had, etc. TV presenters and reporters show little care for facts-based evidence to [...]
Friends, Countrymen, Lend Me Your Ears!
This was originally published by Daily Times on Monday January 16, 2012 as my weekly column BAAGHI Benazir Bhutto once said about democratic governments in Pakistan that they might be in office but have never been in power. An unbridled army has always been in the driving seat aided by the judiciary, bureaucracy and the chosen [...]
Memogate: The Bigger Picture
This appeared in Daily Times on Tuesday December 6, 2011 as my weekly column BAAGHI In an op-ed in a British paper, a man claims to have communicated a message from a diplomat to the American establishment. After an aggressive media trial, the diplomat in question has to resign while the heat approached the head [...]
Let us tell NATO, "No More!"
This was originally written as my weekly column BAAGHI and appeared in Daily Times on Tuesday November 29, 2011 The anger in Islamabad is natural and understandable. The early morning attack on Pakistan’s two border security posts by NATO aircraft left nearly two dozen soldiers dead and several injured. Pakistan continues to claim (till Sunday [...]
What Makes it "Memogate"?
This was written for Daily Times, appeared as my weekly Op-Ed BAAGHI on Monday November 21, 2011 By now we all know what Memogate is, and what memo we are referring to here. Without going into the details of what happened or did not happen between Mr Husain Haqqani and Mansoor Ijaz, one has to [...]
Confronting Popular Narrative about the Taliban — II
This appeared as my weekly column BAAGHI in Daily Times on Monday October 17, 2011. The first part of this article can be seen here. This blogpost corrects the two names erroneously misquoted in the printed version; One: it was Jalaluddin Haqqani, not Mulla Omar who took Khost and Two: it was Peter Henning not [...]
