As the new season of the world's longest-running current war, in Afghanistan, is warming up, the Afghan civilians and children are falling prey as easy victims. Early this month, a NATO airstrike killed 11 children, aged between two months and seven years in the Shigal district of Kunar...

This is the text of a speech Dr Ehsan Azari Stanizai delivered at the Afghan Forum at the Australian Provincial Parliament House in Sydney on 27 February 2013.

To begin with, I would like to thank the honourable David Shoebridge, Member of the NSW Upper House for holding 'Vices of...

The end of the U.S. troops surge, the increasing insider attacks on Western forces and the ongoing downward spiral of insecurity across Afghanistan have pushed this war-torn country into a military-political deadlock. The Western exit strategy -- to end combat by the end of 2014 and leave the Kabul regime...

A seven-month deadlock between the U.S. and Pakistan ended last week when the hard word "sorry" over the November killing of 24 Pakistani troops in an errand American air strike was uttered and $1.2 billion in cash was coughed up in exchange for re-opening of the NATO supplies routes into...

"Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder." -Arnold Toynbee

On September 11, 2011, Pakistan took out $36,000 half-page advertisement in the Wall Street Journal to commemorate the 9/11 attacks which read in part, "Since 2001 a nation of 180 million has been fighting for the future of world's 7...

Lacan and his significance in Western philosophy: excerpts of an interview with Ehsan Azari Stanizai.

Alan Saunders: Now, Ehsan, Lacan urged what he called "a return to Freud." Of course, there are many Freuds, so what Freud did he think he was returning to?

Ehsan Azari Stanizai: Lacan reread Freud...

The Afghan war has now entered its tenth year and there is still no flicker of light in the gloom. The West is bogged down in an ongoing guerrilla war. Except for a small number of multi-millionaire families, the vast majority of the Afghan people are not benefiting from Western...

Is Pakistan a friend or foe of the United States (or both?) at the same time as the war in Afghanistan? This issue took an unexpected turn recently as the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared at the end of a bilateral strategic dialogue in Washington that the United...

The people of the mountain tribes hold the key to ending the nine-year war.

A major international recent conference in Kabul underscored new workable plans for Afghanistan that would enable the Afghan government to take greater ownership of the war and and help facilitate a gradual withdrawal of Western forces...

President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan is getting on everyone's nerves in the US and Afghanistan over the endemic corruption in his government. Despite promising a tougher anti-corruption fight, Mr Karzai continues to protect officials from his inner circle and his family members by helping them hold on to ill-gotten wealth...

As the fog of weariness over the war in Afghanistan is growing thicker, some political analysts have come up with the idea that the partition of Afghanistan might be the only alternative to the present counterinsurgency war. In theory, it may seem a panacea but in practice, it could be...

The Afghan capital Kabul was the venue for the most spectacular event in decades on Tuesday, July 20th. Forty foreign ministers from seventy countries and international organisations renewed their support for the Afghan government. Among pledges and commitments of the US-led Western donors, the conference set 2014 as...

President Barack Obama's counter-insurgency strategy (December 2009), ordering 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan, is reaching its climax as a decisive but silent offensive in Kandahar and seems to be gearing up in the coming months. The new strategy was planned to turn the tide against the Taliban to a point...

Over the last few weeks, amid the NATO and US record-high casualties in Afghanistan and the bad news further coming out of the country, skepticism is growing about President Barack Obama's surge strategy.

The angst was further exacerbated recently as a new report by the London School of...

As the Afghan war proceeds in an uncertain path, Iran, Afghanistan's western neighbour, seems to have been reaping all the benefits. Each of the U.S.'s policy setbacks provide a great gift to the Iranian clerical rulers by helping them enhance their clout in the region and expand their...

My life with the Taliban
By Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef
Scribe Publications

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Like genies of the tales of the Arabian Nights they sprang forth from the wasteland of the post-Russian Afghan civil war. Early one morning...

The fourth round of 'strategic -dialogue' between the United States and Pakistan ended on March 25, 2010 in Washington, bringing a win-win situation for both sides. The US seems upbeat that its key ally in the region combating terrorism has finally intensified its efforts to root out the al-Qaida affiliated...

The Pakistani spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) has recently captured nine out of the 18 key members of the Taliban central command circle known as Mullah Omar-led Quetta Shura. Does that sudden and unusual strike mean Pakistan is going to divorce itself from its long-standing ally the Taliban once and...