What next for Pakistan’s army? By Sadanand Dhume

Excerpt;

…. On November 30 we’ll host a panel discussion at AEI to discuss the situation in Pakistan and what it means for the United States. Our focus will be on the Pakistani army, the country’s most powerful institution by a long measure. If the United States and Pakistan are to avoid the recurrence of incidents like this weekend’s, their armies will need to work out clearer ways of communicating along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. At the same time, if Pakistan’s fledgling democracy is to have a chance of flowering, its generals will have to give up their virtual monopoly on their country’s policies toward Afghanistan and India, and also develop a keener appreciation for the idea of civil supremacy than they have managed thus far.

To read complete article » http://blog.american.com/2011/11/what-next-for-pakistans-army/

Pakistan’s Border Outrage – A break with America isn’t in Islamabad’s best interests.

Pakistan’s porous border with Afghanistan was an accident waiting to happen, and the crash finally occurred with Saturday’s clashes involving U.S. forces that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers. The Pakistanis are furious with America, yet more worrying is that they continue to be in denial about what’s causing this relationship to unravel.

The pattern is familiar. When Navy SEALs raided Osama bin Laden’s compound in a Pakistani military garrison town in May, Islamabad condemned the action as an assault on its sovereignty and scaled back military ties. Now Pakistan has shut its western border to NATO supply trucks headed into Afghanistan …

Read more » THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Norway mass murderer won’t go to prison

Norwegian mass killer ruled insane, likely to avoid jail

By Gwladys Fouche and Victoria Klesty, Reuters

(Additional reporting by Balazs Koranyi; Editing by David Stamp)

OSLO (Reuters) – Court-appointed psychiatrists have concluded that Norwegian mass killer Anders Behring Breivik is criminally insane, prosecutors said on Tuesday, meaning he is likely to be sent to a psychiatric institution indefinitely rather than to jail.

Breivik killed 77 people in July by bombing central Oslo and then gunning down dozens of mostly teenagers at a summer camp of the ruling Labour Party’s youth wing, in Norway’s worst attacks since World War Two.

Prosecutors said Breivik, a self-declared anti-immigration militant, believed he had staged what he called “the executions” out of his love for his people.

“The conclusion … is that he is insane,” prosecutor Svein Holden told a news conference on Breivik’s psychiatric evaluation. “He lives in his own delusional universe and his thoughts and acts are governed by this universe.”

If the court accepts the psychiatrists’ conclusions, Breivik

would be held in a psychiatric institution rather than in a prison. Norwegian courts can challenge psychiatric evaluations or order new tests but rarely reject them. ….

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