Military Support

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - The "Arab Spring" seems a long way from Pakistan's winter of discontent. Still, when religious scholar Tahirul Qadri talks about his hopes for the massive rally he is planning in Islamabad on Monday, one that he hopes will lure more than a million people into the streets of the quiet capital, the image he uses is that of Cairo's Tahrir Square. Government leaders have tried to warn the gray-bearded mullah, respected by many for his denunciations of the Taliban and his espousal of tolerance, that a gathering on the scale he is planning would give militants the opportunity to carry out a major terrorist act. Pakistanis haven't forgotten that it was at a large rally in Islamabad's twin city, Rawalpindi, that former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated by a suicide bomber in 2007.

Afghanistan's  ambassador to the United States defended his president's harsh comments about America, saying that Hamid Karzai was only reflecting the sentiments of his public, "as any legitimate president would do. " (see video below) Eklil Hakimi, appearing on CNN on Sunday, was reacting to Karzai's comments that Americans "are demons," and that the alleged killing of 16 unarmed Afghans by a U.S. soldier was "not the first incident, it was the 100th, the 200th and 500th incident.

I strongly support those governors, legislators and citizens who feel as I do that to restrict the use of this state's military forces in support of federally mandated military operations is a most unwise method of making a point in a foreign policy debate. I commanded the National Guard of this state for nearly eight years, from 1975 through 1982 and authorized, albeit under quite different conditions, the use of National Guard support flights for U.S. Air Force operations in Panama.

Your editorial (July 20), "Che Lives," contended that "The United States is proving a basic tenet of the revolutionary left--that the transformation of Latin American society can be defined only in terms of the United States as the Archenemy." You were critical of the present Administration and went back to President Kennedy's Alliance for Progress to find an example of an attempt "to change historical U.S. attitudes." You did not have to go back that far, a more recent attempt was made by the bipartisan Commission on Central America appointed by President Reagan.

President Bush arrived in the Czech Republic on Tuesday aggressively seeking commitments of military support from European leaders for a possible war against Iraq. "Everybody can contribute something," Bush told Czech TV late Monday before leaving Washington for the two-day NATO summit in Prague, the Czech capital. A coalition against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein could be formed in "all kinds of ways," he said in an interview broadcast Tuesday on Radio Free Europe.

After a weekend of stunning setbacks, the United States appears increasingly isolated in its efforts to rally international diplomatic and military support for a war in Iraq, although the Bush administration defiantly pledged Sunday to persevere. "It's not over till it's over," a senior State Department official said of the intense diplomacy underway to deal with multiple challenges. The big question now is: Did the weekend's triple whammy -- Turkey's failure to approve a U.S.

The constitutional crisis in Peru, the Haitian military's overthrow of Jean-Bertrand Aristide and the violent turn of pro-democracy demonstrations in Thailand highlight a principal weakness in international efforts to promote democracy. There are no legal principles outlawing recognition of de facto military regimes or of those that arbitrarily breach the constitutional order. The establishment of such principles, and the creation of mechanisms for their implementation, would do much to foster democracy throughout the world.

When Dorine Kenney learned that her son, Jacob, was going to Iraq, she looked for a way to take care of him even if she couldn't keep him safe. She started sending a box of goodies every week ? chocolate chip cookies, beef jerky, AA batteries and macaroni and cheese deluxe, his favorite. The shopping and packing kept her from thinking about the worst. When the worst happened on Nov. 14, 2003, eight months after he parachuted into northern Iraq with the 173rd Airborne Brigade, she sat in her apartment wanting to die. She couldn't work.

For years, Indonesians dared criticize President Suharto only in whispers. But with opposition to his rule becoming more outspoken by the day, people are beginning to ask: How long can Suharto last, and who comes next? The answer, most agree, is that with no clear opposition leader in sight and with military commanders solidly behind him, the 76-year-old president may well serve until he dies.

A summit of Central American presidents began Monday with a boost from an unexpected source: a hard-line Contra leader who announced that he supports demobilizing his troops. Honduran President Rafael L. Callejas arrived at the meeting carrying a letter from Contra military leader Israel Galeano, known as Comandante Franklin, who said he supported an agreement for the disarming of the anti-Sandinista rebels.