For months now, people in Pakistan and the world have wondered about the inaction of Pakistan in dealing with the Taliban. The Pakistani Taliban (hard to differentiate between the Afghan and the Pakistani Taleban since they both respect Mullah Omar as the supreme leader), already present in the hard regions of Pakistan that touch Afghanistan, suddenly in the last few months attacked a beautiful tourist valley called Swat (not very far from the capital) and started a campaign of attacks, hardline Islam, and general targeting of Government institutions such as schools, police stations, etc. The Government, far from fighting this force effectively, backed down and after a sort of retreat, signed a peace treaty in which they agreed to the terms of the Taleban, with the only condition being that the Taleban will not bear arms in Swat after the deal. However, this was a compromise comparable to the buckling down to Hitler in Munich, and had effectively the same effect.
The Taleban saw this buckling down of state authority as a show of its weakness in front of the Taleban (and maybe a sign that the state was having problems in getting the army to fight against an Islamic inspired force), and started expanding the campaign, thereby using the Swat valley as a base from which to overrun nearby districts. In their next target, they reached close to Islamabad, and the Government let loose a volley of talk at them, accusing the Taleban of violating the terms of the accord and hoping that the Taleban could be persuaded to back down. There was still no direct action that the militia understand.

continue reading "Pakistan finally takes on the Taliban"

Obama would not have expected to be hit by popular anger so early, and hence the missteps that was visible in the early reaction by his administration to the scandal. After pumping huge amounts of money into many big banks, financial institutions, and other companies such as auto companies, there is a massive amount of public anger. For somebody who has just lost their job, or has their house taken away in a foreclosure, or is having to suffer the embarrassment of having to take free food, the concept of the Government supporting massive companies with public money is hard to take. After all, in simple terms (and even when you go through the whole complexity), the losses being suffered by the economy are directly attributed to the wrong economic policies that were being offered by a number of players in the financial sectors – these being banks, mortgage companies, investment banks, and other similar players.

continue reading "The AIG scandal and impact on Obama"

The Bush Administration, in its fight against global terrorism, had taken on the mantle of expanded powers, using its own legal team to claim mighty powers; these powers started getting challenged after some time through public discussion and legal means. However, the American constitution is not pretty clear on many of these areas (given that this was a constitution written more than 200 years back, such vagueness is to be expected); what is clear is that a wartime President has the power to take many actions in the pursuit of a war (with Congress and the courts not having the ability to second guess many of these powers). The dispute over the past many years winding its way through the American higher courts were about the scope of the powers of the President, and these were tricky questions. After all, there was little doubt that many of the people who were imprisoned were those who were guilty of planning or had undertaken extreme forms of violence and against whom there was no direct evidence that would convict them, or the evidence was obtained through means that would not stand up in court. One of the terms that was used by the Bush administration and that led to a huge amount of discussion was the term ‘enemy combatant’. The Bush administration took the position that people termed as such were not allowed the same rights as those of a normal criminal accused, but could be held under the authority of the President.

continue reading "No more using of the term enemy combatants"

The first debate between the 2 contenders ended in mostly a draw. Different media are reporting different winners, so you can guess as to how balanced the discussion was. Well, actually, both these contenders are seen to be great speakers, they know their points by now and so do their audiences. In such a close fight, it is almost impossible for either of them to say anything new or radically different from what they have spoken before, so even though the debate was interesting, it was abundantly clear that the debate would not have any clear winners. So, for example, if you take this CNN Report, it mentions that Obama was slightly higher in terms of a perceived debate winner, but not by too much, and the poll had more Democrats than Republicans.

Men were nearly evenly split between the two candidates, with 46 percent giving the win to McCain and 43 percent to Obama. But women voters tended to give Obama higher marks, with 59 percent calling him the night’s winner, while just 31 percent said McCain won. “It can be reasonably concluded, especially after accounting for the slight Democratic bias in the survey, that we witnessed a tie in Mississippi tonight,” CNN Senior Political Researcher Alan Silverleib said. “But given the direction of the campaign over the last couple of weeks, a tie translates to a win for Obama.”

continue reading "First debate between McCain and Obama: No clear winners"