An Almanack

President-elect Barack Obama is about to announce his foreign policy team.No matter who is on it, Obama promises that the policy will be set by him. Nowhere is his intellect more needed than on policy towards Pakistan.

On 1 Aug 2007 Obama said:

The first step must be getting off the wrong battlefield in Iraq, and taking the fight to the terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

He said he would make the hundreds of millions of dollars in US military aid to Pakistan conditional on the following actions by the Pakistani government:

1. substantial progress in closing down terrorist training camps
2. evict foreign fighters
3. prevent the Taleban from using Pakistan as staging area for attacks in Afghanistan

I have not heard a clearer analysis yet. There is more: (more…)

At this early stage, public information has to be gleaned from the Indian media: most sources here are quoting Indian reporters. Indian TV is aggressive in its reporting. But it can also be even more sensationalist and exploitive than the American media. Imagine CNN on acid and you get their partner IBN. The FOX sister channel in India is SKY-TV; the reporters are much like Geraldo Rivera only without the restraint and sophistication.

The print media in India is better, as here. The Times of India, for example, is a usually reliable source. They report that at least one terrorist has been captured alive. He is

21 year old Azam Amir Kasav, who hails from tehsil Gipalpura in Pakistan’s Faridkot.

That is in Punjab, the largest of the four provinces of Pakistan. (more…)

So what do we know so far about what is going on in Mumbai? (more…)

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Until a couple of months ago, Iceland was considered the fourth most productive country in the world with a per capita GDP of $65K. After fishing declined, Iceland opted not to industrialize itself: too polluting. Instead, they went into biotechnology, software and the like. And most of all, banking.

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Exhale Now. The US and the world came so close to a disaster and survived only because the right leader showed up. Just in time.

Think back to the dark days after 9/11 when we almost destroyed ourselves by lashing out in blind rage. Hitting at imaginary enemies, while the real ones were regrouping in the Hindukush mountains. Jonathan Alter was floating the idea that torture may not be so bad after all. Tom Friedman helped sell the Iraq invasion. Colin Powell showed up at the UN with fake evidence for WMD, with the CIA director sitting behind in silence to give credibility to the lies. Hillary Clinton gave a craven speech in the Senate, pretending that she was not voting for the Iraq war, but was merely authorizing it. (Ugh?) Joe Biden had a plan to divide Iraq into three parts. And these are just the Liberals and Moderates. Just the people who have came to their senses by now.

A minor American politician, a State Legislator from Illinois named Barack Obama, gave the best argument against the Iraq war: it was dumb. Only a few seconds of the film of that speech that survives. The words repeated by-some of his supporters- are powerful, even if, delivered without Obama’s special diction. Clear thinking matters most when even the smartest people are confused.
Listen to it:
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