Geography Archives: Pakistan

Many Iranians, ranging from university presidents in Iran to immigrants here in the United States, feel insulted by the treatment president Ahmadinejad received in New York in September.  This is understandable, coming in the midst of a larger media campaign to demonize Iran, including the newspaper cartoon last month that depicted Iranians as cockroaches crawling […]

In the fuss about Iranian president Ahmadinejad’s visit to New York, a finer point was lost.  Columbia University and its current president, Lee Bollinger, have for some time each been a leader in the fields of foreign policy opportunism and service to global oppressors. In 1955, a mere two years after the CIA reinstated the Shah […]

Since the 1990s, the U.S. government made overtures to the Indian Government for a military alliance.  When the Bush administration came to power it wanted India to be a part of its missile defence shield.  Since 9/11, the Indian and U.S. navies and Special Forces have conducted a number of joint exercises in the Indian […]

An argument at a summer fair in the small town of Muegeln, between Leipzig and Dresden, ended with a mob of fifty drunken young men wielding knives and other weapons and shouting “Foreigners Get Out!” chasing eight men from India — longtime residents in Muegeln — across the town square.  The Indians, some badly wounded, […]

  Abrar-ul-Haq is a Pakistani singer. Visit malangbaba for an English translation of the song’s lyrics, whose faith comes from “Neither the masjid of believers / Nor the rituals of pagans.”

  In recent months Iran has made large strides toward mastering nuclear technology.  Alarmed by these advances, the Bush administration and its European allies have stepped up their hostile actions and threats, specifically: Attempting to prevent the entry into service of Iran’s first nuclear power plant at Bushehr.  The Bushehr reactor will use nuclear fuel […]

Islamabad, Pakistan July 23, 2007 Farid Esack here (that Muslim guy from South Africa).  I am still around in Islamabad — my last few days — and I am still enjoying it as my two-month sojourn here draws to a close.  Islamabad is not quite Pakistan, certainly not Karachi, where I lived for eight years […]

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — For my first three days in Pakistan, no conversation could go more than a few minutes without a reference to the crisis at the Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) compound.  I had landed in Islamabad on July 8, and by then it seemed clear that government forces would eventually storm the mosque and […]

As we near the end of the first decade of the 21st century — or what the neocon ideologues propping up the Bush administration triumphantly call the New American Century — the contradictions of capitalist imperialism are becoming more and more acute. The most recent fallout of Bush’s policy is in Pakistan, where a movement against the US-backed regime of General Pervez Musharraf has been brewing since March 9, 2007 when the general dismissed the Chief Justice (CJ) on charges of corruption and nepotism.

CHAIN OF DISASTERS & THE WEAKEST LINK The only thing that Bush’s “war on terror” has spread faster than disaster and misery has been opposition to its means and ends.  Six years into this self-righteously promoted crusade, Washington is more isolated internationally than ever.  Within the U.S., the Commander Guy’s approval rating has fallen below […]

  How should progressives respond to the ongoing brouhaha about Salman Rushdie‘s knighthood?  We should begin by reminding ourselves, particularly if we live in the West, that the so-called “Muslim” response to the announcement of Rushdie’s knighthood does not speak for the majority of Muslims, or for what matters to most Muslims in the world.  […]

WCP leader Maryam Kousha addresses protesters in London in 2005.  Also pictured is Peter Tatchell. It is a sad day when self-described progressive gay rights defenders risk their credibility to promote the agendas of Middle Eastern fanatics.  Yet that was just the scenario when Doug Ireland and Peter Tatchell broke with several reputable rights groups […]

For the first time since its rise as a superpower the United States is facing a serious threat to its hegemony across the globe. In February this year, Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed a security conference in Munich that had 250 of the world’s top leaders and officials in attendance, including such luminaries as the […]

  Ron Jacobs is the author of the first comprehensive history of the Weather Underground: The Way the Wind Blew: A History of the Weather Underground.  His articles, essays and reviews have appeared in CounterPunch, Monthly Review,  MRZine, Alternative Press Review, Jungle World, Works in Progress, State of Nature, and a multitude of other places.  Ron […]

The Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front called a bandh, i.e., a general strike.  The strike began today, 6 February 2007.  The JKLF chairman Mohammed Yasin Malik said at a press conference in Srinagar: “Peace process and killing of innocent Kashmiris cannot go together, and the recent discoveries about the killings of innocent Kashmiris by Indian forces, […]

When Colonel Harry Summers told a North Vietnamese counterpart in 1975 that “[y]ou know you never defeated us on the battlefield,” the reply was: “That may be so, but it is also irrelevant.1 News stories surrounding the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq proclaimed the arrival of a long-promised “Revolution in Military Affairs” (RMA), a […]

  There’s a woman — some call her “Black Hawk Down” lady — who lives in a packed, squalid neighborhood in the middle of Mogadishu and runs a rather simple but grisly museum.  For under a dollar, visitors can view her prized possession, the mangled, mud-splattered nose of a US Black Hawk helicopter that was […]

The war that Western powers — primarily US, Israel and Britain — began against the Islamic world after September 11, 2001 is about to enter a new more dangerous phase as their early plans for “changing the map of the Middle East” have begun to unravel with unintended consequences. Codenamed “the war against terror,” the […]

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Annual Fundraising Appeal Friends of MRZine and Monthly Review! The continuing existence of MRZine and Monthly Review depends on the support of our readers.  Unlike many other publications, we make all new Monthly Review articles, as well as MRZine articles, available online, free of charge.  We do so without drawing any advertising money at all […]