Pakistan Topics

Democracy Now! stories, posts and pages that relate to Pakistan

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  • Former Adviser to Gen. Stanley McChrystal Calls for Moratorium on US Drone Strikes in Pakistan

    Andrew Exum is a former Army captain who has been openly critical of the drone attacks inside Pakistan. Exum served on active duty in the US Army from 2000 until 2004, including two years leading a platoon of Army Rangers inside Iraq and Afghanistan. He recently returned from two months in Afghanistan, where he served as part of the advisory team of the commander of US troops there, General Stanley McChrystal. [includes rush transcript]
    Aug 11, 2009 | Story

  • David Wise: "The CIA, Licensed to Kill"

    The US drone attacks inside Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq have received bipartisan support in Washington. And when the CIA disclosed the existence of an aborted secret assassination program last month, congressional outrage centered around the fact that lawmakers weren’t properly informed. The open acceptance of assassination as a tool of US policy can in part be explained by the fact it’s been going on for decades. [includes rush...
    Aug 11, 2009 | Story

  • EXCLUSIVE: John Walker Lindh's Parents Discuss Their Son's Story, from Joining the US-Backed Taliban Army to Surviving a Northern Alliance Massacre, to His Abuse at the Hands of US Forces

    In their first extended interview, the parents of John Walker Lindh, Marilyn Walker and Frank Lindh, join us for the hour to tell their son’s story. He was born in Washington, DC in 1981. At the age of sixteen, he converted to Islam. In 1999, Lindh left the United States for Yemen to study Arabic and the Koran. He later traveled to Pakistan and then to Afghanistan, before 9/11, where he received military training from the US-backed, Taliban-run...
    Jul 31, 2009 | Story

  • US-India Nuke Deals Raise Fears of Escalated Indo-Pakistan Arms Race

    The Obama administration took major steps this week toward helping several major US defense contractors sell sophisticated US arms and nuclear technology to India. Increased US-India nuclear cooperation is stoking fears the US is escalating India’s arms race with Pakistan. We speak to Arjun Makhijani of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research and journalist Siddharth Varadarajan of The Hindu, India’s leading English-language...
    Jul 24, 2009 | Story

  • John Pilger on Honduras, Iran, Gaza, the Corporate Media, Obama's Wars, and Resisting the American Empire

    Award-winning investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker John Pilger joins us for a wide-ranging conversation on Honduras, Iran, Gaza, the media, healthcare, and Obama’s wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Pilger has written close to a dozen books and made over fifty documentaries on a range of subjects, including struggles around the world for a more just and peaceful society and against Western military and economic intervention....
    Jul 06, 2009 | Story

  • Noam Chomsky on “Crisis and Hope: Theirs and Ours”

    Noam Chomsky, the MIT professor, author and dissident intellectual, just turned eighty years old this past December. He has written over 100 books, but despite being called "the most important intellectual alive" by the New York Times, he is rarely heard in the corporate media. We spend the hour with Noam Chomsky. He spoke recently here in New York at an event sponsored by the Brecht Forum. More than 2,000 people packed into Riverside...
    Jul 03, 2009 | Story

  • Pakistani Opposition Politician Imran Khan on US Drone Attacks, the "Massive Human Catastrophe" in the Swat Valley and the Escalation of War in Afghanistan

    At least sixty people have reportedly died in the South Waziristan region of western Pakistan after a US drone attack Tuesday. The attack came as the Pakistani army and air force expanded their military operations from Swat into South Waziristan. We speak with Pakistani opposition figure and cricketing legend Imran Khan, the leader of the political party known as the Movement for Justice. Khan has been an outspoken critic of both US drone attacks...
    Jun 24, 2009 | Story

  • "Guantanamo at Home": Muslim American Syed Fahad Hashmi Held in 23-Hour Solitary Pretrial Confinement for Over Two Years in Case Resting on Plea-Bargaining Government Informant

    One day after President Obama trumpeted the achievements and freedoms of Muslim Americans in his celebrated Cairo speech, we look at the case of Syed Fahad Hashmi, a US citizen who has been held in pretrial twenty-three-hour solitary confinement in a Manhattan federal prison for over two years. Hashmi is charged with providing material support to al-Qaeda in a case that rests on the testimony of Junaid Babar, an old acquaintance of Hashmi’s...
    Jun 05, 2009 | Story

  • Conservative Historian Andrew Bacevich Warns Against Obama's Escalation of War in Afghanistan and Intensifying Use of Air Power in Region

    Less than a week after US air strikes killed over a hundred Afghan civilians, President Obama’s top security adviser, General James Jones, said Sunday that the US will continue its strikes in Afghanistan, despite sharp criticism about rising civilian casualties from Afghan President Hamid Karzai. We speak to Boston University professor and retired military colonel Andrew Bacevich about why Obama’s plans in Afghanistan and Pakistan...
    May 11, 2009 | Story

  • Manan Ahmed on the Politics of US "Hysteria" over Pakistan

    As a truce between the Pakistani government and the Taliban collapses, clashes between the two sides have forced tens of thousands to flee Pakistan’s Swat Valley. We speak to University of Chicago historian Manan Ahmed about the distinction between legitimate and overblown concerns about Pakistan’s internal unrest. While US political culture has focused on the Taliban, it’s taken for granted the legitimacy of the US-backed Zardari...
    May 07, 2009 | Story