Whether a "whistleblower," as Edward Snowden is inevitably being called, is good or bad, helpful or damaging, is an unavoidable and fundamental question, thus also inevitably divisive. While The Guardian understandably makes the most out of his story, U.S. media have predictably moved into damage-control mode, with even so impeccably...

Behind incidents (that word is radically inadequate) like the revelation that the National Security Agency and the FBI are monitoring essentially all phone calls within, to, and from the United States - for so we must assume - lies a mystery deeper than politics. We could phrase it as a...

I was born in 1965, the year the first U.S. combat troops went to Vietnam. Growing up in middle-class America in the late 1970s and early 1980s, I distinctly remember that "Vietnam" -- the place name stood in for a great many things left unsaid -- was not discussed, almost...

On my Facebook page on May 1, the second anniversary of the operation that killed Osama bin Laden, I re-posted the link to an article of mine originally published in the Pakistani newspaper Dawn. In the distress of that extraordinary moment, pulling an all-nighter in a motel room...

Should Return of a King: The Battle for Afghanistan 1839-42 be read as an account of the first Afghan war in its own right, or as a cautionary tale in the context of Afghanistan today? The question is pointless -- the answer is...

Seattle, April 17 - Those who follow my work know that one purpose of my writing and public speaking is to emphasize the humanity of Muslims and Muslim societies to Western readers and students, especially other Americans. Another, related purpose is to counter the post-9/11 American tendency to...

On March 5 in my home city of Seattle, I had the pleasure of being part of the first North American audience to view the fine debut feature by a talented and enterprising Pakistani filmmaker, Iram Parveen Bilal. Josh (English title: Against the Grain) is the story of...

I don't know much of the specific background of the anti-Christian rampage last week in Lahore. But is there anything I don't know that would mitigate or excuse it? A major theme of my writing and public speaking is an insistence on distinguishing between what I call the Pakistan I...

Aiken, South Carolina, February 23 -- We're hearing more in the media these days about drones, which I suppose is an improvement on 2009, when an audience member at a church in Seattle asked me, "What's a drone attack?" I don't have much to say about drones that isn't being...

Once upon a time, novelists could be simultaneously serious and popular. Hemingway comes to mind, but even moreso Steinbeck, who had less literary pretension and more sustained and pointed topical engagement. Graham Greene aimed at...

On the Monday morning after the massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, James Howard Kunstler wrote:

Next, of course, comes the empty ritual of pretending that we must make sure something like this never happens again. How? By some forensic inquiry into the psychology of the shooter, Mr. Lanza... his comings, goings, email...

Galveston, Texas - I'd rather be telling you about my driving trip around America and promoting my next book, Home Free: A Real American Road Trip, but I feel compelled to say something about the appalling, and tiresomely predictable, subject of Gaza. Or rather, not Gaza per se but...

By the time you read this, Mitt Romney's selection of Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin as his running mate will have been analyzed ad nauseum from every angle, and the news cycle will be moving on en route to some new obsession. That's fine -- or rather, it's not fine,...

It's been barely two weeks since the mass murder in the movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, and here we go again. These incidents always shock - or rather titillate - the American public briefly, then quickly fade to the level of white noise and lore. Remember the Virginia Tech campus...

As I write this on Friday morning, safe (or am I?) at home in Seattle, we don't know much about the mass shooting incident overnight at the movie theater in Aurora, Colorado. No doubt by the time you read this,...

I've been intending to share a sketch of the itinerary I'm planning for my drive around the USA this fall for my next book, Home Free: An American Road Trip, but that keeps getting overtaken by events. I'm starting to get used to the idea that this might be...

This post is about both Pakistan and America. The two countries have more in common than any of us like to admit. For example, both societies tend toward paranoia and fondness for conspiracy theories. Another, very poignant common trait is that both nations were founded very self-consciously by high-minded idealists...

The short answer is that it's because I'd rather not fly. I've been flying around America all too much the past five or six years and, while it has allowed me to parachute into many fascinating communities and stories, ultimately the frustrations outweigh the gains, if not in business terms...

Or, to put the question differently: In the United States of America, do we enjoy the right to free speech?

You could certainly argue that Guillen should have known better than to say anything at all, on that particular subject -- Fidel Castro and Cuba -- in that particular city --...

My column under the Blogs heading on Dawn.com was cancelled last week. That's too bad, but it's the way it goes; journalism is an inherently unstable line of work. The reason was budget constraints; my wonderful editor, Zeresh John, told me she was especially sad because I was Dawn's only...