How Islamic ‘Islamic terrorists’?
It was bloodcurdling! On Friday night when I saw on my television screen Islamic State terrorists mowing down unsuspecting Parisians, chills ran down my spine. Those Muslim killers, most of them French-born, slaughtered 132 people and wounded 350 others. The same kind of horror had also struck me when I saw mangled bodies of Pakistani […]
Fighting phantom terror
THE ISLAMIC STATE has sent new shock waves through the world by capturing more than 200 Syrian and Egyptian Christians. The terrorist group’s gruesome killing of other hostages has heightened concerns among many about the fate of these hostages. Meanwhile, the Obama administration and the Iraqi government reportedly have shelved their long-publicized plans to try […]
Terror bred by grievances, not Islam
PRESIDENT OBAMA’S speech at this week’s terrorism conference in the White House sounded to me like a broken record from the George W. Bush administration. Bush and his advisers attributed Muslim terrorism to Islam. “Islam is a religion in which God requires you to send your son to die for him,” said John Ashcroft, Bush’s […]
Pakistan ties: Old wine in old bottle
SADLY, the Obama administration appears to be trying to revive its failing Cold War policy to refurbish the strained U.S. ties to Pakistan. Ever since its inception, what remains of Pakistan after the secession of Bangladesh has been under the rule of its self-serving feudal-military-bureaucratic class. Today’s Pakistani prime minister and president belong to that […]
Time to get over anti-Islamist paranoia
ANDREW J. BACEVICH says “the big story of Muslim self-determination is likely to continue unimpeded” and lead to the rollback of American hegemony over Muslim societies. In his Washington Post piece, the historian recalled that when the British Empire was collapsing, it could turn over its “imperial responsibility” to the United States. But Americans today, […]
John Kerry: Same old same old
John Kerry’s recipe to meet U.S. foreign policy challenges appeared to have been copied from the neoconservatives’ play book: trade, aid and democracy. All these have been tried. They didn’t work.
Obama’s sermon on extremism
President Obama told the U.N. General Assembly that Muslims must shun “extremism” and exercise “tolerance” for their adversaries. He was referring to the violence-prone protest rallies that the American film “Innocence of Muslims” has triggered in many Muslim countries. The amateurish video shows the Prophet Muhammad in pornographic poses and other demeaning postures. Some Muslim […]
U.S. policy threatens Pakistan’s stability
Book Review: Middle East Policy, Washington, D.C.; Fall 2011 By Mustafa Malik THE QUESTION once again: Is Pakistan a ‘failed state’ that’s going to bite the dust? Anatol Lieven is among the latest authors to try an answer. His book Pakistan: A Hard Country is a broad and detailed survey of the security, economic, social, […]
Aiding Arab freedom serves U.S.
(Published in the Columbus Dispatch, April 30, 2011) By Mustafa Malik Democratization of Arab societies “would be a disaster” for the West, warns Princeton University scholar Bernard Lewis. Yet he predicts that Islamic political parties are “very likely to win … genuinely fair and free elections” in the Arab world. One of the West’s best-known […]
U.S. policy, not Islam, breeding terrorists
By Mustafa Malik (Published in the Austin-American Statesman, March 20; Columbus Dispatch, March 16, 2011) WASHINGTON – Rep. Peter T. King had said his congressional hearing on Muslim radicalization would investigate the causes of the problem. It didn’t. I have long been calling, in my newspaper columns and at public forums, for a serious investigation […]
