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Obama's Lifeline to Pakistan
The Obama administration’s new policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan plans to hurl a lifeline to the government of Pakistan. It outlines increased counterterrorism and counterinsurgency assistance to Pakistan’s security forces to “disrupt, dismantle and destroy” al Qaeda and its allies operating in safe havens in Pakistan. Further, the policy recognizes an urgent need to balance…
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Not Free At Last
Just as many Americans are feeling better about the state of our democracy, it appears that democracy in some parts of the world is not faring so well. In the release of its annual survey of political rights and civil liberties, Freedom House, an independent U.S. non-profit organization in support of freedom and democracy the…
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Civil Servant Chic
Two years ago, I sat with college sophomores at Princeton University to discuss their professional futures. My pitch was for public service, federal government service to be exact. I was leading the university’s Scholars in the Nation’s Service Initiative, and I faced a youthful, academically accomplished group with hearts that embraced the ideals of service…
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Prioritizing the Middle East
Upon entering the Oval Office for the first time, the past 10 American presidents have found a towering inbox of priorities, near the top of which laid a thick, tattered file marked “Middle East.” President Barack Obama will be no exception. On Jan. 20, he will inherit the immediate consequences of the past eight years…
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No Justice, No Peace in Sudan
For a split second, a recent essay on The Root called “Sudan on the Rebound?” allowed me to feel a bit hopeful. The images of commerce, opportunity and multiculturalism in a bustling East African town—in Sudan, no less—conjured fond memories of my own travels. Those memories abruptly faded with Zachariah Mampilly’s suggestion that seeking justice…
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What is fueling political instability in Pakistan?
The deeply divided political system in Pakistan makes for strange bedfellows. Former President Pervez Musharraf’s resignation on August 18 shed light on one marriage of convenience, a short-lived ruling coalition led by two of Pakistan’s largest political parties—the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N). The December 27, 2007 assassination of PPP…
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Forget the BBQs, Remember Baghdad
I can still see the faces of some of the men and women in the United States armed forces serving in Iraq. Some were smiling, some grimacing, most stared with piercing eyes from behind black shades. Many were hues of brown, most were white. They all deserve to be remembered. It was October 2003. I…
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Myanmar: Why We Have to Talk to the Bad Guys
Once again, a grave humanitarian crisis draws attention to the virtues of calibrated, but constructive international diplomatic engagement, even with the most unsavory of characters. Eighteen days ago, Cyclone Nargis ravaged southwestern Myanmar, affecting nearly 2.5 million people. Myanmar’s isolationist ruling junta has responded abysmally to the crisis, rejecting assistance from foreign aid workers and…
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Things Still Fall Apart
It was out of a “sense of deprivation” that Chinua Achebe wrote Things Fall Apart. That’s what the renowned Nigerian novelist and “inventor of African literature,” told a captivated crowd in Princeton, N.J. who gathered recently to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the seminal novel. Five decades after its release, it is a fitting time…
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Will the Carrots Run out in Russia?
Dmitri Medvedev, a 42-year-old former first deputy prime minister, was overwhelmingly elected to succeed Vladimir Putin as president of the Russian Federation on Sunday, March 2. The election result was no surprise. Sunday’s contest was just a formality. Months ago, Medvedev secured the one vote that most mattered most, that of President Putin himself. The…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
