Pakistan is pressing its military battle against Taliban forces that seek to destabilize its government — and the region — into Taliban strongholds. in recent recent weeks, Taliban forces have staged a series of stunning attacks and now the Pakistan government seems to be saying in effect “it’s our turn.” Meanwhile, in Washington, recent Taliban bombings in Pakistan have been so...

The UNHRC has officially adopted the Goldstone report criticizing Israel and Hamas for their conduct during the Gaza war. Well, sort of — though Goldstone’s report contained criticisms of both Israel and Hamas, the UNHRC’s resolution, “inexplicably”, says nary a word about Hamas. Stunning, I know. Judge Goldstone apparently is displeased with this, but you can’t tell me he’s...

I have always believed that if there is a clear and present danger to the security of the United States or an imminent attack, our country has every right to launch a preemptive military strike against the potential source of such a threat. Regrettable, such a valid doctrine, in my opinion, was adulterated by the previous administration. Early in his administration—and, yes, as a result of 9/11—Bush...

Paresh Nath, The Khaleej Times, UAE This cartoon is copyrighted and licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited. All rights reserved.

In many parts of India you can see people enjoying bhang/hashish (or cannabis/marijuana) by the roadside without attracting a look of surprise or disapproval. It is only when the Western world began to raise hue and cry that people in the urban areas began to smoke/drink it discreetly at the occasional activation of the dormant laws. In nearly 80 per cent of India it is still openly consumed (generally in...

After being invaded by the previous U.S. administration based on faulty information, how do Iraqis feel about the current president of the United States winning the Nobel Peace Prize? In the first translation on the subject we’ve had from Iraq, Abd Al Razzak Al Rabihi doesn’t spare the use of exclamation points in his understandable outburst of exasperation. He writes for Iraq’s Kitabat newspaper...

GENIE ASKS UNCLE SAM: ‘WILL IT BE A MILITARY BASE, A COCA BASE OR A DATA BASE?’ How do Colombians feel about the seven military bases the United States intends to build on their nation’s land? According to this off-color tongue-in-cheek column by Colombian writer and art professor Lucas Ospina, it’s alright with him – with one important proviso. For Colombia’s Semana newspaper...

I would like to invite all writers, editors, commentators and readers to make some major predictions for the future that they believe will transpire by or around certain future dates. I ran this idea by Joe Gandelman last week who told me to run with it. These “revelations” can concern science, technology, environment, wars and militaries, climate change, healthcare, religion, politics, economics, business,...

Eli Lake reports. Mohammad Ilyas Kashmiri was killed by a Predator strike last month. This week, he granted an interview to the Asia Times. Comment: Cases like this highlight why drone strikes have to be part of a larger strategy,” said Andrew Exum, a former Army Ranger officer and part of an assessment team that advised Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, commander of U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan. “Drone...

Afghanistan produces over 90% of the world’s opium, the main ingredient in heroin. Many Afghans, among its predominantly rural population of around 28 million, simply grow and cultivate opium poppies across some of its vast territory that is equal in size to the state of Texas. Most of Afghanistan is very arid and mountainous, not fit for any agriculture or productive human activities. The export value...

Jack Ross at The American Conservative has the same feeling about Commentary that I do:  it’s like a catastrophe on the highway that you can’t look away from. Here, Ross reacts to Commentary’s Jennifer Rubin, who takes umbrage at Maureen Dowd’s “liberal venomous paranoia” about Liz Cheney’s post-Bush career of attacking Pres. Obama for his unforgivable decision to...

Roman Polanski and his victim, Samantha Geimer, as she looked as a thirteen-year-old in 1977. One of the interesting side effects of the arrest of film director Roman Polanski is the soul-searching it has set off in the other countries that claim him as one of their own – in this case, Poland. Why are people defending a man who committed, in the eyes of most civilized people, one of the worst crimes imaginable...

How much danger terrorists pose in Britain? “The campaign I am talking about is not being planned by Jihadis or fringe Irish nationalists but by white ‘neo-Nazis’ who want to murder Asians, black people, Jews and gays in the bizarre belief it will trigger a ‘race war’, says Johann Hari in The Independent. “The police are warning ever-more urgently that similar attacks seem...

Yesterday I wrote a post questioning the need for so many countries in the 21st Century, particular vulgar, repressive military dictatorships, to have nuclear weapons. My premise was not the relative civility of non-nuclear nations vis-à-vis those that possessed nuclear weapons but the proper use of U.S. military power. However, many nice places can be found that have no nuclear arms, nor are they signatories...

When we were growing up, teenagers, especially girls in our extended family, were mostly Archie fans. These comic books, to be found scattered around in many teenage bedrooms, invited my occasional curiosity. Interestingly, the nearly 70-year-old Archie is still evergreen and his romantic pursuits still invite media spotlight. “That perennially teenage redhead from Riverdale made headlines around the...

If one were to point out a central theme for most of the global reaction to President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize win, it would be the fear on the part of the overwhelming percentage of the planet’s population that our young leader will be hamstrung by the award. This article by Olivier Picard of France’s Dernieres Nouvelles d’Alsace puts it this way in part: “Barack Obama cannot...

Some of the most dysfunctional autocratic regimes run by the most repressive and nasty leaders on the planet want Nuclear Weapons. The only explanation is their lack of perceived “Cojones” (vulgar Spanish for testicles or balls) and some modicum of international respect and fear. I apologize to some readers who might be offended by this word but I used it because these regimes are essentially so vulgar...

What’s so lucrative about selling chicken to China? We sell them parts of the bird that we won’t eat – like the feet. Worth just a few cents a pound in the U.S., American chicken feet fetch 60-80 cents a pound in China. From the Xinjingbao of the People’s Republic of China, this strategy session from Chinese researcher Xue Chung explains more than you ever wanted to know about what China...

I’m guessing he wouldn’t answer that question, but I hope his answer would be Morgan Tsavngirai, leader of a peaceful effort to bring democracy and human rights to Zimbabwe, which has been terrorized and impoverished by the Mugabe regime. Obama met with Prime Minister Tsvangirai at the White House in June. During the 2008 campaign, Obama contacted Tsvangirai: “to share my deep concern for...

The Iraqi Army Diaries — Entry 2 by S. D. Liddick In the spring of 2009 I embedded with the U.S. Army’s 1-63 Combined Arms Battalion, in the small town of Mahmudiyah, 20 miles south of Baghdad. The town is a cardinal point on what American soldiers have termed the Triangle of Death. Within a month I was offered a de facto embed spot with the Iraqi Army (IA), by General Mohammed, commander of the...

I’m glad to see a staunch liberal staying strong on this issue. Hypothetical question: What if Feinstein were up for re-election in 2010 instead of 2012? I don’t know, but here’s what she said Sunday on ABC: The mission is in serious jeopardy. I think General McChrystal, who is one of our very best, if not the best at this, has said a counterterrorism strategy will not work. The president...

Osama bin Laden has all but vanished from the radar of the American media/public. Even president Barack Obama seems no longer interested in bin Laden, while the world had thought that the “war against terror” was all about capturing bin Laden! The present chase to capture al Qaeda looks like fighting with the severed tail of a lizard. Meanwhile Osama, dead or alive, manages to come back into spotlight....

Article I, Section 9, of the U.S. Constitution states in part: “…No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince or foreign State.” The best precipitating motive behind the inclusion of this...

Health care reform, nuclear war, global climate change, hunger and poverty…. and the huge mistake Pres. Obama made in accepting the Nobel Peace Prize. Yes, really. This is what Ross Douthat wants to write about in his New York Times column:

When 10 militants burst into Army headquarters in Pakistan in a dramatic bid to take military bigwigs hostage, it signaled a major escalation in the Taliban’s ongoing efforts to undermine Pakistan’s political and military establishment. The fact that the operation flopped on the face of it doesn’t obscure one fact: it was daring and it has put Pakistan’s military on the defensive and...