China Matters has pieces up at Asia Times and Counterpunch under the pen name “Peter Lee”. The Asia Times piece, Taliban Force a China Switch, concerns indications that must worry Beijing that the Taliban has discarded a central pillar of traditional foreign policy in the Pashtun areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan: the relative immunity of...
Read MoreIs America Taking on the Neo-Taliban and Missing the Point?
Why is Afghanistan at the nexus of a regional crisis that threatens the security of the United States and the very existence of Pakistan? Because Afghanistan is awash with money, arms, and foreigners. The Obama administration should think twice before assuming that injecting more money, arms, and foreigners into Afghanistan is going to solve the...
Read MoreVia Juan Cole comes the rather jaw-dropping news that Mullah Omar will be dropped from the U.S. State Department terrorist list. By U.S. standards, they don’t get much more terroristy than Mullah Omar, head of the Taliban and onetime leader of the hard-core Islamic fundamentalist Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, who blew up Buddhas, burka’d the...
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