the equivalent of 5 americans

In environmental sciences on climate change, GHG emissions are often referred to as CO2 equivalents (CO2 eq.), weighing their respective impact on climate change compared to that of CO2. theOnion proposes to do exactly that with the value of human life weighing it in comparison to an american life – you may forward to 1:25 [...]

Afghanistan: Transition to What?

Unfortunately they have Audio problems half way through. But what you can hear is well worth it. Especially the first part.
Michael Semple (is he really wearing Peshawari chappels there?) and Najam Sethi (one of European media’s darlings-trias when it comes to local commenters – Ahmed Rashid, Tariq Ali, Najam Sethi) are bringing in great points [...]

Dear Hillary, which Pakistan are you talking about?

“The image systematically created of Pakistan by these sources has an operative function of furthering US and Nato intervention in this region. The logic is simple but all the premises are false and based on a distortion of facts, history and most conceptions of justice – Christian, Islamic, liberal and Marxist.” Read further..

View from US: What ‘Sy’ said

Anjum Naz recalls an interview with Seymour Hersh in the context of his recent NYT article about Pakistan’s nuclear facilities:  ‘If Musharraf was to go… there’ll be a traffic jam! There’ll be the CIA, Mossad and RAW jumping in to grab [Pakistani] nuclear facilities:’ said Seymour Hersh.

the missing sense of war

Matthew Hoh, high ranking diplomat in Afghanistan, quits his job and sums up what more and more politicians and people around the world think: Afghanistan is not to win for anybody (not even the Afghans).
read the letter … (in english)
read the letter … (in german)

[Satire] U.S. Condemned For Pre-Emptive Use Of Hillary Clinton Against Pakistan

Pretty close to the truth, I must say.

U.S. Condemned For Pre-Emptive Use Of Hillary Clinton Against Pakistan

Daniyal Moeenuddin on “When to go and When to stay”

A short radio feature on the recent attacks in Pakistan on “The TakeAway” with Issam Ahmed (Christian Science Monitor) and Daniyal Moeenuddin.

Imad Ahmed interviews Vali Nasr

Our friend Imad Ahmed (who probably none of us has seen in ages, one of the busy bees who seems to have made the step from carpet-pundit – that’s where we still are – to real-pundit, he still makes a bit too much of himself though I fear, why is his pic in the interview [...]

Flawed Questions, Missed Alternatives, Rethinking Causes – lecture by Nazif Shahrani

Christian Bleuer on Ghosts of Alexander has provided some excellent material on AfPak – a lecture at ANU by Nazif Shahrani, which can be accessed here as an mp3.
He is talking about alternatives to the current war that were never considered, a Bonn agreement that was leading into the wrong direction looking for the wrong [...]

PBS Documentary/Obama’s War

As always – I was just about to Quit Firefox when on on my last scroll movement on Stephen Walt’s FP blog I stumble across a link to a new (to me) PBS Documentary on their AfPak Channel – Obamas War. Sit back and prepare to spend the rest of the evening watching and following [...]