For crying out loud. Hadh hoti hay. Our mango republic, ran by the Dictator Formerly Known As The General, has lost its mind.
I have often highlighted the reports and writings of Nicholas Schmidle, a freelance journalist, reporting from Pakistan on numerous occasions. I have often exchanged emails with him. He was, contra majority, writing, researching and engaging directly with the turmoil gripping that nation. Something that I admired and respected in him.
I say “was” because he was deported from the country by the government, Steve Clemons reported today. [thanks e.]
His sin, according to Clemons, may be that his recent piece in the NYT magazine, Next Gen Taliban was deemed offensive.
I can, off the top of my head, list a thousand things more offensive in Pakistan at this moment. Schmidle’s piece doesn’t make the list.
I am too angry to really pretend having that academic distance my gentle readers expect from me.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Between this and the e-crime bill, the parallel to mid-2000′s Zimbabwe you raised a few months back starts to seem ever more bleakly prescient.
‘from whom to expect justice?’ indeed.
Re.. Hadh hoti hay. Our mango republic, ran by the Dictator Formerly Known As The General, has lost its mind.
COMMENT: Close to the edge? —Abbas Rashid Daily Times 1/12/08
“Postscript: US support for democracy in Pakistan has been rather neatly put into perspective by figures on US assistance to Pakistan reportedly computed by Hussain Haqqani: since 1954, the US has provided Pakistan with assistance to the tune of $21 billion. Of this $17.7 was provided under military rule and $3.4 under civilian rule.”
It is all our Tax Dollars at work