With our international attention now focused on Pakistan, here is a re-post of an interview with Pakistani Member of Parliament Tahmina Daultana. We spoke to Tahmina at the “World Forum on the Future of Democracy” in Williamsburg, Va., September 2007. She talks about the prospects for democracy in Pakistan.
Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a speech at Washington’s Mayflower hotel that people influential in young people’s lives don’t encourage them to join the armed forces. Recruiting is down because of it, he said, and he also faulted the military for not doing a better job of attracting young men and women.
The debate sparked by Columbia University’s announcement of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s upcoming campus speaking engagement underlines Pakistani parliament member Tahmina Daultana’s recent comment about terrorists. At the 2007 World Forum on the Future of Democracy, she said "If you kill one, ten more appear; if you talk to them, you can handle them. "
Tuesday morning focuses the discussion of democracy on current challenges to national security, “Terrorism and Security.” The panel, moderated by James Loy, former deputy secretary of Homeland Security, included: Ali Ansari, director of the Institute of Iranian Studies at St. Andrews University; Martha Crenshaw, senior fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University; Mitchell Reise, former U.S.
