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Pakistan appears to be acquiescing in Bush administration demands that it send special ops forces in to fight the dissident tribal forces and the Tehrik-i Taliban, according to LAT. Aljazeera International reports on the impact on civilians of this sort of fighting:

How much of the $10 billion in aid Bush and Cheney gave to Pakistani dictator Pervez Musharraf after September 11 ended up being used to kill US, NATO and Afghan troops in Afghanistan? NYT reports that US intelligence intercepted communications between elements of the Inter-Services Intelligence, Pakistan’s military intelligence division, indicating that they gave support […]

Bomb blast outside Pakistani consulate at Herat wounds one. Aljazeera International interviews Gen. David McKiernan, who sounds to me just like Barack Obama on Afghanistan– saying that he doesn’t have enough troops in Afghanistan, that the Taliban and al-Qaeda are resurgent, and that the big problem is Taliban sanctuaries in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas […]

My essay why Bush sent a high-level diplomat to meet Iranian negotiators with no preconditions is out in Salon.com. Excerpt: ‘Pundits and diplomats nearly got whiplash from the double take they did when George W. Bush sent the No. 3 man in the State Department to sit at a table on July 19 across from […]

McCain had pledged to run a clean campaign, but like Mike Tyson when he’s in the mood to munch ear, the Republicans just can’t control themselves. First they tried to blame Barack Obama for the current price of energy, which is actually so high because Republicans have been in Big Oil’s back pocket and in […]

Russia just defeated the US in the race for Central Asian gas. The US bet on a gas pipeline through Taliban territory in Afghanistan and Pakistan to India while trying to sideline Russia and Iran! Putin is rivalling the emir of Kuwait as a fossil fuel master of the universe. The only question is when […]

Mark LeVine is disturbed by the tendency of Barack Obama and other US politicians to lump the Taliban together with al-Qaeda. The latter, he says is an international terrorist organization. The Taliban in contrast is a “territorially rooted” “ethno-nationalist” movement. Aljazeera International on Mawlana Fazlullah, the number 2 man in the Tehrik-i Taliban or Pakistani […]

One hundred Pushtun guerrillas launched a major offensive in an attempt to take Spera District center. They drew down on themselves the full fury of US and NATO air forces that gave support to Afghan National Police, which killed up to 70 of them. Jang reports in Urdu that Khost governor Arsala Jamal said that […]

Scott McClellan admits on Hardball that the White House fed Fox News hosts talking points. Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow point out that in the US, the government is forbidden to propagandize the public. It has long been known that Fox Cable News head Roger Ailes (a former Republican Party official) and other high executives […]