Zafar Hilaly, Guess who walked away with nation’s 100 bn rupees? Shaheen Sehbai, Fasi Zaka,

Zafar Hilaly: Obama can beat up on the Taliban for a few more years and then offer some operational successes as a smoke screen to declare victory and withdraw. Alternatively, he may be able to kill or capture a high profile al Qaeda leader, perhaps even Osama and Al-Zawahari, if they are alive and in Afghanistan or Pakistan, and declare that the surge has been successful and the mission accomplished. This may earn Obama kudos with the American electorate but it will not change anything on the ground. There are Islamists and ultra-nationalist Muslims in every village in Afghanistan. Xenophobia existed in Afghanistan long before Bin Laden’s arrival (the Arabs of al Qaeda are pejoratively called ‘camels’ by the Taliban), and will continue much after the US’s departure.

Guess who walked away with nation’s 100 bn rupees? By Rauf Klasra
ISLAMABAD: In a country where over 40 per cent of the population is said to be languishing under the poverty line with families surviving on less than $2 a day, the shameful revelation of the filthy rich getting....


Shaheen Sehbai: The fact that the 007-Geneva operation ordered by Mr Zardari and conducted by an otherwise respected Wajid Shamsul Hasan has left the country with the thought that the gang sitting in Islamabad is on the run and trying to cover up its tracks, cannot be denied. The fact that the boxes of hard evidence of the Swiss money laundering cases collected in Geneva and airlifted to London the same day have disappeared and no one is ready to own them, despite mute claims by NAB, shows how scared the Zardari camp is fearing the fate which is in store. That these cases may be reopened is a high possibility.
I wonder if Anne Patterson is using the Bill Clinton defense, when he tried to wiggle out of confessing to an extra-marital affair by claiming that oral acts do not cover that definition. Is she denying Blackwater (which technically doesn't exist anymore), by evading responses on Xe? If that is the case, it is disingenuous and untrustworthy.

Fasi Zaka: Blackwater changed its name to Xe (which is short for Xenon, an inert element) to appear harmless in the wake of bad press around the world. Maybe they should have changed their name to Hydro, which would not refer to a neutral, water-like substance but hydrogen, the most inflammable of elements.