Word: pakistans
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...have done by deciding to fight the Taliban. That is why Secretary of Defense Robert Gates acted with such alacrity to replace a good general, David McKiernan, with another, Stanley McChrystal, better versed in the tactics used to fight terrorist insurgencies. That is why we are in Afghanistan and Pakistan: because our enemies - the people who killed 3,000 Americans on Sept. 11, 2001 - are festering there. It would be nice if, unlike Vietnam, our "friends" proved as competent as our enemies, but that is where the wishful thinking inevitably begins...
...Himalayan resort town of Nathiagali, a party is under way. Ice clinks in tumblers and corks pop while the conversation - an amalgam of English and Urdu that is the mark of Pakistan's élite - flows from meditation techniques to a heated debate over a U.S. politician's warning that Pakistan is on the brink of collapse. The hostess, Rifat Haye, 54, is one of two female pilots with the national airline and is celebrating her promotion to captain. She wears jeans. Her hair is streaked with blond, and a diamond nose stud glints in the sun, as does...
...that she means all those Pakistanis who do not belong to her class and who have as much to do with the Taliban as she does, which is to say nothing at all. But her sweeping wave inadvertently encompasses a part of Pakistan she has failed to address - the Swat valley, where the army has embarked on a campaign to rout out Islamic insurgents who threaten to destroy the Pakistan Haye knows and cherishes. (See pictures of Pakistan beneath the surface...
...Pakistan is a complicated country, one of religious and political diversity, fractured by class and ethnicity. Pakistanis like to quip that they have a population of 170 million - and as many different opinions. Which is why defensiveness sets in when outsiders attempt to reduce the country to a terrorist statistic. The problems in Swat don't define Pakistan, says Haye. It's not that she doesn't care - she does - but that Pakistan has very little to do with her Pakistan. "What is all this talk of Talibanization? Not once have these maulvis [religious leaders] complained that a woman...
...indeed unlikely that Pakistan's Islamic militants can seize power. But to spread fear and insecurity and slow down economic development, they don't need to. Hundreds of terrorist attacks have taken more than 2,500 lives in the past 18 months. Talibanization may not have reached Pakistan's élite, but it is already threatening others. Women in the city of Rawalpindi complain that they are harassed if they don't wear headscarves. In Lahore, a prep school for girls has banned the wearing of blue jeans, for fear of a Taliban attack. In the capital, Islamabad...