Pakistan
Slaughtering humanitarian workers
A word of sympathy for the employees of the UN World Food Program who were viciously killed today in a suicide bombing in Islamabad. People on the antiwar left who voice outrage at U.S. drone attacks might want to say something in condemnation of this completely senseless, unprovoked and premeditated atrocity. Just a thought. The WFP, needless to say, is
Scahill’s million
On June 6, Jeremy Scahill appeared on Real Time With Bill Maher and stated that a million Iraqi civilians have been killed in Iraq. Maher was correct to greet the figure with skepticism. Scahill based his remarks on a much-discussed Johns Hopkins study published in The Lancet in 2006. The methodology of the study was promptly discredited by Iraq Body
Face time with the culprits
Steve Coll has an amazing story about traveling in earthquake-stricken Kashmir on the pontoon boats of Lashkar-e-Taiba, which is very likely the force behind the Mumbai attacks. The question, Coll suggests, is whether Jamat-ud-Dawa, Lashkar’s “legitimate” charity arm, had advance knowledge as well.
Benazir Bhutto, martyr
I had some music-related and other posts stored up, but I’m putting this blog on temporary hold in mourning for Benazir Bhutto. And not only for Bhutto, but for the entire nation of Pakistan, which is erupting into chaos as I write this.