For Humanity's Liberation!

Soldiers of Good Fortune
Businesses and financial ventures in Pakistan, big and small, are run by and for the military. It controls at least 30% of the economy and much real estate, its dealings are opaque and unaccountable, and it isn’t going to relinquish its privileges any time soon.

The noted critic and a Palestinian now teaching at Columbia University, examines the way in which the West observes the Arabs. “… The scholar who studies the Orient (and specifically the Muslim Orient), the imaginitive writer who takes it as his subject, and the institutions which have been concerned with teaching it, settling it, ruling it, all have a certain representation or idea of the Orient defined as being other than the Occident, mysterious, unchanging and ultimately inferior.” –Albert Hourani

Pakistan is the latest country affected by spreading instability because of the war on terrorism after 9/11. More than four years after the capture of Baghdad, the geopolitical outlook is bleak. The military impasse has been followed by diplomatic disasters. The terrorist threat is undiminished despite the declared objective of the United States. None of the conflicts – Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Somalia – have been resolved. There are 165,000 US troops in Iraq but prospects remain uncertain.