Things categorized as 'Ayaz Amir'
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Leadership
• Leadership is not part-timism. It is a single-minded vocation that brooks no rivals and indeed can co-exist with no distractions. You can't be into business deals and kickbacks and the ...
Changing the way we have been
• The stakes couldn't be higher nor the opportunity hidden in this hour of seeming distress more promising. Provided we don't prove exceptionally unlucky once more -- or exceptionally stupid -- ...
The enemy is us
• And this enemy comes most visibly in the form of sloppy thinking---thinking either plain misguided or consciously perverse. Take the latest offering from those great self-appointed champions of secular thinking, ...
Pakistan’s first (or rather second) true war
• For sheer irresponsibility nothing beats President Asif Zardari's statement, in another avoidable newspaper interview, that the operation in Swat would soon be extended to Waziristan. Whom was he trying to ...
If only words could do the trick
% From Amit Kumar somewhere across the planet comes this somewhat puckish email: "Dear Sir, Would you kindly clarify as to which flavour of Taliban - the freedom fighters in Afghanistan ...
Battle for Pakistan
• This battle -- now a simmering war of attrition -- has been on for some time and we are losing it. The Pakistan army was always meant for wars against ...
Doctrine of the hundred onions
% Pakistanis are familiar with this tale. A man condemned to punishment was given a choice between eating a hundred onions or receiving a hundred strokes on his back. He settled ...
Endgame Zardari; or Goodbye to All of this
• This is not a tragedy. It is a self-manufactured farce-- a crisis wholly self-invented --which cannot go on much longer without irreparably compromising the nation's already embattled wellbeing and security. ...
So What Else did Anyone Expect?
• The Pakistani nation has been guilty of many follies. We’ve made wrong decisions and have had to live with the consequences. But Asif Ali Zardari was not a choice the ...
Swat: doctrine of necessity (in its purest form)
• Those armchair warriors -- and there's no shortage of them out here -- who are wringing their hands over the Swat accord should ask themselves whether the government had any ...
Missing the essence of Talibanism
• I think we are not getting it. Talibanism in Afghanistan is a revolt against the American occupation. Those who can't see this deserve an extended stay in a re-education camp. ...
Country burns, political class fiddles
• As Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani asserts his authority, President Asif Zardari can be forgiven for regretting why he became president instead of prime minister, the real fount of authority ...
Burning anger, smouldering silence [English]
• The Predator strike on a Bannu village marks a first: the first missile strike outside FATA (the acronym to describe the seven tribal agencies--now the scene of the mayhem the ...
A president proving all too true to himself [English]
• Those counting on Asif Ali Zardari's reinvention, that as president he would cast off the baggage of the past and be a new man, can be reminded of a line ...
Is there anything more to see? [English]
2 People of my generation -- those in their mid- to late-fifties -- have seen it all: our share of power-grabbing generals promising the nation the moon and leaving disaster behind; ...
Our priceless talent for wasting time and money [English]
• If anyone ever mentions the need for an in-camera session of parliament on any issue ever again I would be tempted to reach for my gun. That the ongoing in-camera ...
Of Pakistani bondage [English]
% There is no end to the ironies which afflict our increasingly caught-in-a-bind republic. George Bush, sure to be commemorated as one of the greatest disasters to reside in the White ...
Whose war? America’s or ours? [English]
• Was there such an animal as the Tehrik Taliban-I-Pakistan before the American invasion of Afghanistan? The Americans sparked turmoil and chaos in this region and now that they are bogged ...
Confusion of the lambs [English]
3 The United States has us in a vice and we are not even yelping. A dog in our position would yelp. Even a goat would bleat. But the Islamic Republic, ...
Army chief speaks; where’s the president? [English]
2 General Ashfaq Kayani's statement---coming not a moment too soon---to the effect that there was no agreement permitting American forces to launch attacks on Pakistani territory should have come from the ...
What’s all the fuss about? [English]
• Barring a stroke – of which the chances, it has to be admitted, appear pretty slim – Asif Ali Zardari, son of Hakim Ali Zardari, is all set to be ...
