NewsTrust - Terrorism - Most Recent Stories: Opinion (Mainstream)

Who Created Major Hasan?

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Robert Wright - Nov. 21 (Opinion) - seeing the fort hood shooting as an act of islamist terrorism is the first step toward seeing how misguided a hawkish approach to fighting terrorism has been.

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Things Not to Be Thankful For - Silverdome, Goldman Sachs & Congressional Recess

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Daily Show - By Jon Stewart - Nov. 20 (Comedy News) - Detroit sells its Silverdome for less than a one-bedroom apartment, Goldman Sachs reports huge profits, and three congressmen warn New Yorkers of terrorism.

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Kerry: Afghan handoff may take 4-5 years

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

USA Today - Nov. 18 (Interview) - In the past year Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., has become a more prominent force in Washington. As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Kerry offers a critical voice at a time when the United States is engaged in two wars abroad while facing myriad challenges on the international front. The Vietnam War veteran, who was his party's presidential candidate in 2004, recently has warned that though the cost of failure in Afghanistan would be substantial, Afghans must do the heavy lifting. He is pushing an initiative on climate change, tying it directly to national security. Kerry discussed these and other issues Tuesday with USA TODAY's editorial board. The following Q&A is adapted from that session and edited for length and clarity.

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The right's nonsensical arguments against trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in New York.

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Slate - By Dahlia Lithwick - Nov. 17 (Opinion) - Opposition to the Obama administration's plan to try alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his confederates in a federal court in New York City is hardening into two camps. One is concerned that we may be unwittingly playing into the terrorists' hands. The other is incensed that we already have. What both camps share, besides a kind of unhinged logic and complete disregard for the legal process, is an obsessive fascination with the accused. The result is a broad willingness to sacrifice our commitment to legal principles in favor of the symbolic satisfaction of crushing the hopes and dreams of a motley group of criminals.

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Renouncing Islamism: To the brink and back again

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The Independent - By Johann Hari - Nov. 16 (Opinion) - In the mosques across the city, I hear a fringe of young men talk dreamily of flocking to Afghanistan to "resist". Yet this whisper never has an immigrant accent. It shares my pronunciations, my cultural references, and my national anthem. Beneath the beards and the burqas, there is an English voice.

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The three fallacies that have driven the war in Afghanistan

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Independent - By Johann Hari - Oct. 21 (Opinion) - A bloody escalation in the war is more likely to fuel jihadism than thwart it. If Obama is serious about undermining this vile fanatical movement, it would be much wiser to take the hundreds of billions he is currently squandering on chasing after a hundred fighters in the Afghan mountains and redeploy it. Spend it instead on beefing up policing and intelligence, and on building a network of schools across Pakistan and other flash-points in the Muslim world, so parents there have an alternative to the fanatical madrassahs that churn out bin Laden-fodder. The American people will be far safer if the world sees them building schools for Muslim kids instead of dropping bombs on them.

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Rebranding America

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 20:09:36 -0700

New York Times - Oct. 18 (Opinion) - President Obama reminds us that America is not just a country but an idea, a great idea about opportunity for all and responsibility to your fellow man.

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Still Not Tired

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Thomas L. Friedman - Oct. 04 (Opinion) - Though we may be tired of this “war on terrorism,” the bad guys are not. They are getting even more creative.

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Obama’s Dick Cheney Moment

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Benjamin Wittes - Sep. 28 (Opinion) - His decision not to consult Congress on detentions represents a virtually wholesale adoption of Bush’s failed policies.

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Blackwater: Widening the rift

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Dawn - By Sana Saleem - Sep. 22 (Opinion) - Conspiracy theories have always had high currency in our part of the world and ritual cynicism towards America is quite usual. Recent reports claiming the presence of CIA’s contractual army – Blackwater – in Pakistan have bolstered concerns within the Pakistani public about US involvement in this country’s affairs. It’s high time, though, that the government came clean with the public about the extent of US involvement in this country’s security affairs.

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Fear was no excuse to condone torture

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Miami Herald - By Charles C. Krulak, Joseph P. Hoar - Sep. 15 (Opinion) - In the fear that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Americans were told that defeating Al Qaeda would require us to ``take off the gloves.'' As a former commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps and a retired commander-in-chief of U.S. Central Command, we knew that was a recipe for disaster. But we never imagined that we would feel duty-bound to publicly denounce a vice president of the United States, a man who has served our country for many years. In light of the irresponsible statements recently made by former Vice President Dick Cheney, however, we feel we must repudiate his dangerous ideas -- and his scare tactics.

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A Journalist in Limbo

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By D. Jeffrey Hirschberg - Sep. 14 (Opinion) - On the front lines of the battle against extremism, in places such as Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq, fiercely dedicated journalists risk their lives every day to report accurate news to audiences besieged by terrorist violence and propaganda. Rahman Bunairee, a 33-year-old reporter for the U.S.-government-funded Voice of America (VOA), is one of those journalists. His reporting from Pakistan on Taliban atrocities long ago made him a target

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A Stable Pakistan Needs a Stable Afghanistan

Sat, 05 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Wall Street Journal - By Frederick W. Kagan - Sep. 05 (Opinion) - Critics of the war have suggested we should draw down our troops and force Pakistan to play a larger role in eliminating radical extremists. American concerns about al Qaeda and Taliban operating from Pakistani bases have led to the conventional wisdom that Pakistan matters to the U.S. because of what it could do to help—or hurt—in Afghanistan. The conventional wisdom is wrong as usual.

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Afghanistan's Sham Vote

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Jean MacKenzie - Aug. 26 (Opinion) - The dust had barely settled on the Afghan elections before the U.S. government, the United Nations and the European Union were hailing them as a success, commending voters for their heroism and election workers for their relative efficiency. This would be laughable if it were not such a great shame.

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Is half a torture investigation better than none at all?

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Slate - By Dahlia Lithwick - Aug. 26 (Opinion) - Holder has fallen prey to the sort of magical legal thinking that seeps through the whole CIA report: the presumption that if there's a legal memo, it must be legal.

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Afghan Elections: Bad And Ugly

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Foreign Policy - By Ian Bremmer - Aug. 26 (Opinion) - While the fact that the elections were held is a positive development, the end result is likely to lack legitimacy. President Hamid Karzai probably gained more than 50 percent of the vote in the first round of the elections, which means that a second round is not needed, but there is a perception that he overcompensated for his declining popularity by engaging in wide-scale rigging and manipulation.

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The truth behind Afghan insurgency

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Boston Globe - By Ralph Lopez - Aug. 18 (Opinion) - The dirty little secret is that the renewed Taliban insurgency could have been avoided. The vast majority of Afghans still hate the Taliban. But in a nation with 40 percent unemployment, working for the Taliban is the only job in town.

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Editorial - War Games - NYTimes.com

Sun, 16 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - Aug. 16 (Editorial) - Senators Sam Brownback and Pat Roberts must put their parochial self-interest aside and yield to the nation’s overriding needs by confirming John McHugh secretary of the Army.

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Separated at birth

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Dawn - By Mahir Ali - Aug. 12 (Opinion) - The probable decapitation of a leading faction of the Pakistani Taliban could be considered an auspicious augury in the run-up to the nation’s Independence Day, although the delay obtaining confirmation of Baitullah Mehsud’s demise also serves as a reminder that, notwithstanding their nomenclature, the tribal areas are not in any meaningful sense federally administered.

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Negligence or complicity?

Tue, 04 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Dawn - By Naveen Naqvi - Aug. 04 (Opinion) - The lesson is clear; the blasphemy law not only violates fundamental principles of justice, it distorts law into an instrument of sectarian witch-hunts and also of collective and individual reprisal. Its victims have ranged from an innocent Hafiz who was burned to death by a frenzied mob, to Pakistan’s most renowned social engineer Dr Akhtar Hameed Khan who suffered years of harassment, death threats and litigation for unsubstantiated allegations of blasphemy

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Tribesman or gunman, who are we really dealing with?

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Daily Mail - By Richard Pendlebury - Jul. 28 (Opinion) - The Taliban must be talked to, says David Miliband. He believes that the moderates among the movement can be separated from the 'hardliners' in order to bring peace to Afghanistan. But who is the typical Taliban today?

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Islamists are losing, but their rivals aren't winning

Sun, 26 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Thomas L. Friedman - Jul. 26 (Opinion) - JALOZAI CAMP, Pakistan — After spending a week traveling the front line of the "war on terrorism" — from the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan in the seas off Iran, to northern Iraq, to Afghanistan and into northwest Pakistan — I can comfortably report the following: The bad guys

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Monkeys on keyboards

Sat, 25 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Dawn - By Cyril Almeida - Jul. 25 (Opinion) - Imagine an infinite number of monkeys banging away on keyboards. It wouldn’t be a surprise if one of them managed to replicate today’s edition of Dawn. (Being in the employ of the paper, I can assure readers that no monkeys are involved in the production of Dawn.)

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Pakistan's real battle: government vs. Army

Sat, 25 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Christian Science Monitor - By Kathryyn Allawalla - Jul. 25 (Opinion) - A few months ago, Pakistan looked as though it was falling apart. The Taliban were solidifying their hold on territory in the north and staging shocking attacks deeper and deeper in Pakistan's heartland. Though the situation in Swat Valley is improving, the success of the Army is upsetting Pakistan's fragile internal balance of power.

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Two Speeches

Tue, 26 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New Yorker - By Jeffrey Toobin - May. 26 (Opinion) - It’s tempting to see last week’s speech-making duel between Barack Obama and Dick Cheney as a mismatch, with the eloquence of the admired incumbent set against the snarl of the discredited predecessor. Certainly, there was no contest in terms of political stagecraft. Obama appeared in the hushed rotunda of the National Archives, in front of the documents that embody the highest aspirations of American government, while Cheney found a secure location at a right-wing think tank, one of a handful of places in the country where he could be assured a friendly audience.

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