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Afghanistan’s Defense Minister has proclaimed 2008 the worst year since the fall of the Taliban in terms of violence and terrorist activity. Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak attributed his country’s state of affairs to a flow of Al Qaeda militants from Iraq to Afghanistan. But US and NATO forces have sharply stepped up their attacks this year, killing many civilians and increasing popular hostility to the occupation. The drug trade in Afghanistan has also sharply increased, and is funding private militias. Interestingly President Hamid Karzai’s own brother is one of Afghanistan’s biggest drug smugglers, as reported just this month in the New York Times. Also reported in the Times just days ago is that a draft report by U.S. intelligence agencies concludes that Afghanistan is in a downward spiral and they doubt whether the Kabul government can stem the Taliban’s rise. Meanwhile in the border region with neighboring Pakistan, US drones have been dropping bombs in addition to ground troop incursions by both US and Pakistani troops. The violence in the North West Frontier Province has been so severe that the United Nations is reporting nearly 190,000 civilians have fled the area in recent weeks. Afghanistan and Pakistan have become flashpoints of US foreign policy particularly in the election campaigns of John McCain and Barack Obama both of whom want to send additional troops as a solution to the violence.

Today we’ll spend the hour focusing on that part of the world with eminent Pakistani born activist, novelist, writer and critic, Tariq Ali, whose latest book is called The Duel: Pakistan in the Flight Path of US Power. We’ll also hear excerpts from a recent documentary on Afghanistan’s political history and women’s rights, by local film maker Meena Nanji called View From a Grain of Sand. And we’ll hear what the candidates themselves have said about Afghanistan and Pakistan.