Managing Pakistan's failure

[ramana]

Moved the predicting TSP acts to this thread....
http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewto ... &start=120

[A_Gupta]

Annual Reports of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan are available here.
http://www.thepersecution.org/hrcp/

Paradoxically, the existence and working of such a commission is not indicative of failure; but the situation described in the reports is.

[shiv]

Paradoxically, the existence and working of such a commission is not indicative of failure; but the situation described in the reports is.

Arun - among the harshest criticisms I have read of US society is that the conservatives who control debate and the media allow a degree of liberal views to be aired to give the impression of a free and open society - but that is not allowed to go beyond a point.

The same is true for the Pakistani establishment who go to great lengths to give the appreance that Pakistan has all the structures admired by western society - even as they suppress, stonewall and deny the real gaand-masti that goes on in Pakistan. With Western support it has been very difficult to unmask Pakistan.

What the fruck was the Paki human rights commission doing when Hindus and Sikhs were being screwed, and what again have they actually done about women's rights? The human rights commission is a body that is utilised by the establishment as a "front" - a "face" of moderate modern Pakistan, and its findings can be used to milk more money.

[RajeshA]

X-Posting from "TSP Thread"

This year is gone as far implementation of anglo american strategy for afpak is concerned. Which means that Obama has a ready excuse for not adhering to the date of the withdrawal. Petraeus has already started hinting that the initial withdrawal may only be a small batch.

Anyway, that was to be expected. We need to figure out what these floods mean long term. Pakistan is even more of a basket case now than before. Earlier, pakistan did not need aid to feed its masses, its agriproduce was sufficient for that - onlee the elite needed to be paid off. Now, the yanks and prits need to supply enough food and material for elite and a very large section of the population. They cannot do this.

This leaves the door open to jehadis. Jehadis have one major financial advantage over the western agencies - they have very low overheads. In addition, they have a very large network which is already functional on ground. With a small amount of money from sympathetic muslim donors in the world, they can outfeed and outlast the western aid agencies on ground. This means that the west has lost the propoganda war before it even started.

This leads us to the question - the anglo americans will start wondering - what is the cost of propping up pakistan and what is the utility, and is there a fair tradeoff between the two?
The floods have disrupted many military and AF bases in pakistan. Even when the waters recede, the pakistani army will be torn between providing aid and fighting militants. It will be at a major propaganda disadvantage as the jehadis will press home the point - what is PA doing killing jehadis (those are helping the poor) and supporting the US?

This point, if presses properly, has the potential to turn the pakistani public against its government - destabilizing the country at a fundamental level. Till now, the rank and file abduls have kept quiet because PA is thought of as supporting Islamic objectives. If PA is seen as unIslamic, it will be the end of the social contract that is the foundation of pakistan.

Which leads us to the penultimate question - are the jehadis strong enough to take over pakistan? They are strong enough to kick PA out of certain mountainous regions, which are inaccessible at any rate. They are strong enough to provide aid better and faster than the PA-western combine. They are strong enough to fight short pitched battles against the PA (Lal Masjid), which they lose anyway. The reason is that the ranks of PA are still servile to the officer class.

Which leads to the final question - just what the hell is happening to the PA? All this stress - a hypocritical war of terror, loss of democracy, gain of a farcical democracy, death of BB (who was something that many aam pakis COULD look up to), the total absence of any national leadership, the open interference and humiliation by US army in pakistan, the civil war state in most of pakistan - all of this has to have an impact on the common soldiers of PA. Exactly what they are going through - no one knows. Many of the areas under attack and also under floods are the same places where PA sources its soldiers from. PA's inability to help them will have a demoralising effect on them.

This is a factor that needs a close watch in the coming months.

[shiv]

With an economy that has a 25% dependence on argriculture, Bakistan's biggest loss this year will be loss of crops. People will be fed on aid and will survive - and Pakistanis don't care about deaths or suffering except when they can milk money from it.

Pakistan's poverty profile (from my memory) is that about 25% are absolutely poor and a further 15% or so (maybe higher) are seasonally poor - i.e. their poverty is aggravated by circumstances such as drought (or floods I guess). But only a small percentage of the Baki population has been affected by floods - however the floods have affected the "breadbasket" of Pakistan.

I always thought that flood plains are extremely fertile. So this year's floods should mean bumper harvests in future. In other words all damage will be temporary. Like I said economic strife will be looked after by donors. Coffers will be filled - come hell or high water (pun intended I guess).

Infrastructure comes in 2 flavors:
a) National/strategic: roads, major bridges, railways, electricity,
b) mango Abdul - huts

The former will be repaired with donor funds. Mango Abdul will be asked to wank off as usual. He will be given plastic sheets used for wrapping aid to use as roofing material.

So what is likely to happen? The dependence of violent anti-India jihad on zakat and people will be hampered for a year or two. The people who lose lands that they have occupied for generations are likely to pose a threat of social disorder.

Who will lose lands in a country where most people don't own land? I think the main strife might not be between landlord and occupant but between former occupants. People who had slightly better pieces of land but had to flee might find that someone else has occupied the land. With no law and no rights and no ownership it will boil down to a fight between two groups at the bottom of the scale with no skin off the landlord's balls. The other set of people who will lose the place they lived on will be those people displaced by changes that Pakistan will make to prevent future flooding.

In the long term there is likely to be more trouble. Flooding occurred for the following reasons:
1) The flood plains (extra space required by the Indus for occasional flooding) were occupied by people and farms
2) Pakis resorted to "Xtreme irrigation" making canals indiscriminately to hydrate barren land. The water diversion slowed the silt laden rivers downstream and led to deposition of silt.
3) the silt in turn raised the water level and aided upstream farming.

The Paki army - which was in charge of WAPDA (Water and Power Development Authority) in Pakistan has been incompetent as usual.

Moving people and farms out of flood plains will cause unrest. Desilting will be paid for by aid, but it will reduce water flow in some canals causing unrest in that area. Some zamindars will resist.

Pakistan might show a tendency to become poorer - so the USA will pour in aid.

[ramana]

X-post..

Sum posted in TSP thread....

Understanding the Pakistani floods

M.K. Bhadrakumar

The floods have further exposed the regional, political and ethnic divisions in Pakistan.

One day in mid-April, Dr. Bernard Rieux spotted a dead rat in the building he lived in the Mediterranean city of Oran, Algeria. Thousands of rats staggered out of their hideouts in the following days and died on the streets gripped by violent convulsions, spitting blood. A fortnight later Michel, concierge of Rieux's building, was down with a strange illness. While the rats suddenly disappeared, Michel died within two days.

That is how the terrible arrival of the bubonic plague in Albert Camus' masterpiece is chronicled. Major catastrophes tiptoe unnoticed. Pakistan's flood too appeared from nowhere. When the plague first arrived, the Oranites seemed to take life for granted and couldn't grasp its full import but soon they understood they must face up to an extraordinary situation and decide on their attitudes to it. They were forced to think, reflect and discard their “unauthentic” existence.

The flood is described in cold figures — 20 per cent of Pakistan devastated; one out of five Pakistanis' lives ruined; hundreds of thousands of electric pylons, cattle, culverts and bridges perished; farmlands inundated and crops rendered unworthy. The flood is destined to become a mathematical constant sooner or later and the residue that will endure is that the millions of human beings helplessly tossed around by it have become variables.

Pakistan, especially its elite — civilian but, more importantly, the military — faces an existential choice. They need to realise, as Greek philosopher Socrates once said, that the unexamined life is not worth living and they need to react in a unique way. A major catastrophe is also an opportunity to undergo transformations. However, regrettably, the discourse of the Pakistani officials and analysts has continued to turn in its old gyre. The well-known Pakistani journalist, Ahmed Rashid, typically summed it up last week as “an unparalleled national security challenge for the country, the region and the international community. It has become clear this week that, unless major aid is forthcoming immediately and international diplomatic effort is applied to improving Pakistan's relations with India, social and ethnic tensions will rise and there will be food riots.”

Mr. Rashid added: “Large parts of the country that are now cut off will be taken over by the Pakistani Taliban and affiliated extremist groups, and governance will collapse. The risk is that Pakistan will become what many have long predicted — a failed state with nuclear weapons… All of this will dramatically loosen the state's control over outlying areas, in particular those bordering Afghanistan, which could be captured quickly by local Taliban.” Mr. Rashid, of course, concludes predictably, taking a swipe at India and seeking the West's mediatory “help” in India-Pakistan relations: “India has failed to respond to the crisis and there remains bitter animosity between the two countries, particularly because India blames the current uprising in Indian Kashmir on Pakistan — even though Indian commentators admit that it is more indigenous than Pakistan-instigated.”

From the above we get a fair idea of the thought processes in Rawalpindi within the military establishment: Pakistan's coffers are empty and the international community should loosen its purse-strings; the military is overstretched with relief work and as Mr. Rashid put it, “the army is unlikely to be in a position even to hold the areas along the Afghan border;” Pakistan's stability which is linked to tensions with India ought to be the concern of the West whose mediation on Kashmir, therefore, is an imperative need so as “to sort out acute differences over their river systems.” Fortunately, Mr. Rashid stops just short of accusing India of engineering the floods.

The shocking reality is that there has been no trace of any new thinking. The Pakistani military continues to be in a game of one-upmanship with the civilian leadership. Unsurprisingly, the military's work of rescuing flood victims is a visible act and politicians cannot match that. As a perceptive young Pakistani scholar Ahsan Butt put it: “This needs to be understood because to the extent that this is purely a logistical crisis, the military almost has an ‘unfair' advantage in that it has the better toolbox for the immediate aftermath … To use a cricketing analogy, batting is a lot easier at the non-striker's end.” The fact remains that the military establishment has excellent spokesmen in the mainstream media, especially the top news channels, and the media invariably apply exacting standards to the civilian leaders while, for example, the military's institutionalised corruption is simply ignored or downplayed.

Given the gigantic scale of reconstruction that lies ahead and the tardy performance standards of the civilian governments of the South Asian region, the Pakistani political elite will inevitably appear chaotic and inept in its response to the floods, while any further drain of support for the already-weak civilian government can only tighten the powerful military's grip on the power structure. This means that for the foreseeable future, the military will continue to operate with full autonomy on foreign and security policies of core concern, although the scope for conflictual relationship with the civilian leadership or the launch of a coup will not necessarily increase — and may diminish — in the given situation of a fundamental imbalance in the calculus of power.

To be sure, the floods have further exposed the regional, political and ethnic divisions. Most certainly, there will be nasty disputes in the coming period over the allocation of aid, especially on the part of the smaller provinces, as regards the Punjabi-dominated establishment's perceived self-aggrandisement. On the other hand, in Punjab, the main Opposition, Pakistan Muslim League (N), is in charge and it would get into a blame game with the federal government over the inevitable acts of commission and omission in relief and reconstruction. In fact, the signs are already there.

A core issue concerns the strategic impact of the floods on regional security issues devolving upon the United-States led war in Afghanistan. A mixed picture emerges. To quote an expert in the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, “The U.S. has an opportunity in this disaster to do even more to demonstrate to the people and leaders of Pakistan just how helpful the U.S. and the American people can be to move Pakistan forward. But, at the same time, the problems that Pakistan faces, in the immediate near-term as well as the longer term, have simply been compounded. Everything that the U.S. already thought was going to be very difficult.”

In financial terms, it means a need arises to reassess the disbursal of the $7.5-billion aid package under the Kerry-Lugar-Berman legislation — shifting attention from long-term projects to the immediate priorities. In political terms, the impact will be felt on several templates. One, there are no means of divining whether with all the King's men and all the King's horses deployed in Pakistan, Uncle Sam's image would still get burnished in the Pakistani eye. Probably, it is a long haul for the U.S.' public diplomacy — even with George Sores brought into the act. A July 29 Pew Global Attitudes Project estimated that 59 per cent of Pakistanis regarded America as an enemy country. In short, the fragility of the U.S.-Pakistan relationship remains a fact of life.

On the contrary, USS Peleliu arrived off the coast near Karachi on August 12 along with helicopters and a thousand Marines who have since been deployed and Pakistan hasn't erupted in flames or protest marches. Not only will this “collaboration,” to borrow the words of noted author Shuja Nawaz, “go a long way toward building up relationships among rank-and-file service members.” It is also an extraordinary sight to see the Marines involved in relief work alongside some controversial Islamic charity organisations such as the Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation linked to the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba and the social welfare wings of the rabidly “anti-American” Jamaat-e-Islami.

The million-dollar question indeed is what will happen to the Pakistani military's operations in the Afghan-Pakistan border region, especially the North Waziristan area. Even the U.S. special representative for AfPak, Richard Holbrooke, wryly said, “It is an equal-opportunity disaster, and military operations have effectively faded away.” The bitter truth is that the U.S. is fated to learn — even if Mr. Holbrooke is loath to admit it — that aid will not address the real security threats in Pakistan. The high probability is that the U.S.-led coalition will soon find itself out on a limb in Afghanistan with the Pakistani military nowhere seen cracking down on the Haqqani insurgents and their allies ensconced in FATA. The implications are, simply put, too stunning to want to think about — although the flood waters may help wash away the WikiLeaks documents detailing not only how the ISI sympathises with the Taliban but they also meet to plan joint actions.

[RajeshA]

X-Posting from TSP Thread

Anecdotal evidence from Pakis calling after the floods says that poor people are resorting to infanticide as situation is hopeless. The consensus in the upper classes is very short time for the split into three regions:Pakjab, Sindh and Baloch. K-P most likely merge with Afghanistan. Massa is the only glue preventing this thru forces.

Need to educate massa to let the people be free.

In the name of flood situation, Pakistanis have resorted to all sorts of special treatment and radical measures like

• Demanding writing off of the whole debt - I think around 54 billion USD.
• Demanding Trade Agreement with America, giving Pakistan special access.
• Demanding huge amounts of aid
• Tolerating Falah-e-Insaniyat (a subsidiary of Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, a terrorist organization) and its relief work in affected areas (later useful for recruitment)
• Stopping any cooperation on GWOT citing floods.

Under these exceptional circumstances, anything is possible. The provinces can declare independence citing abandonment by central government, or willfully flooding areas of less importance to the power brokers in Islamabad and Rawalpindi. Other countries can recognize those provinces as independent. It is far easier to make one's case claiming abandonment rather than claiming cruelty and crimes!

In the confusion and chaos everything is possible. But it has to take place in this window of opportunity.

[svinayak]

It is also an extraordinary sight to see the Marines involved in relief work alongside some controversial Islamic charity organisations such as the Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation linked to the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba and the social welfare wings of the rabidly “anti-American” Jamaat-e-Islami.

It is interesting now that US military and these terrorists organization are working together. But the fact is that they know each other from the days of afghan wars and cooperated together against a common target in the sub continent. India is also a target for both

[ramana]

Recall Daoud Gilani aka David Headley was workign for two masters ISI and USA.

[A_Gupta]

Pakistan appears to have more local democracy under military regimes than under civilian regimes, as per this UN paper.
http://www.unescap.org/huset/lgstudy/co ... istan.html

The period 1958 to 1969 saw the erection of Pakistan's first Martial Law and the establishment of a military government as well as the development of an extensive elected system of local government.....However, with the fall of the Ayub Khan regime, to which the system was closely associated, it fell into disfavour.

If the first Martial Law Government was the pioneer in devising an extensive system of local governments, it was the second Martial Law Regime of General Zia that implemented elected local governments.

....After the election of Senators and members of the provincial and national assemblies, the role of local governments has been substantially marginalized. These elected representatives have taken over some functions which local governments used to perform....There seems to be an inherent conflict of interest between different tiers of government in which local governments, assumed to be the most expendable, have had to bear the brunt.

[RajeshA]

X-Posted from the TSP Thread

Pakistan Drowning in Neglect

There was another way out — a six-hour drive west to the city of Quetta. Unfortunately, Baluch separatists had struck: they were stopping vehicles, pulling out Punjabi passengers and shooting them. Most of the men in our crew weren’t Punjabis, and they took that route. But I am a Punjabi, as are two of the reporters, and we had to find another way.

Got to give it to the Baluch, at least they give it back to the Pakjabis! The Pakjabis can send in their Army, but someday no civilian Pakjabi without Army protection can venture inside Baluchistan. Those days are gone!

If some day Baluchis learn how to use IEDs and SAMs, even the Army may not be able to go in. Baluchistan would be independent.

[RajeshA]

X-Posted form the TSP Thread

Pakistan's Economic Meltdown has Begun says this TFT Article
Excerpts

The Ministry of Finance has prepared an assessment of macroeconomic impacts of the disaster, parts of which have been leaked in the press. The highly respected and entirely credible Advisor for Finance, Sakib Sherani, is now saying that zero GDP growth and 25 percent inflation are distinct possibilities.

A fifth of Pakistan’s land mass and almost a third of cropped acreage (17 million acres), including much of the country’s most fertile, irrigated land, is or has been, under water. There is a strong possibility that the Rabi sowing season (September-October) will pass by and vast tracts of land will not have been brought under cultivation. Kharif sowing will not begin till February 2011, and the crop won’t be harvested till August 2011. That’s a full year when approximately a third of the population, primarily dependent on agriculture, will not be able to generate an income.

A third of the population is more than 50 million people!
Labourers who work in the fields are normally paid daily. That pay is used to buy food for the family. With no work, we are looking at millions of families starving to death.
The first reports of aid trucks being looted came in 2 days back. And aid is not going to be there for long. The support will be there for a max of 1 month after which Pakistan will have to stand on its feet! But no crops, no govt machinery and no organisation in getting things back to normal means millions of poor people roaming the lands for food! Folks, 1 year is a very long time for someone with a hungry stomach! Even Islamist organizations cannot deal with this despite what news agencies claim!
There will be influx of people into the big cities in search of work and food!
Pakistan is staring at anarchy, looting and widespread violence in smaller towns before the end of the year!

I do hope and pray 2011 is the year !

[RamaT]

Sad news in NY Times today.. well, sad for the Cheenis and Pakis.

Every year delayed is a year for us to grow and thrive and render these strategic projects to pressure India irrelevant. Jai Ho!

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/27/world ... yzj57vj49w

Great chunks of the famed Karakoram Highway — a celebrated feat of high-altitude engineering built by the Chinese over two decades — have disappeared as cliffs fell away in the torrent. The route, which winds hundreds of miles from the Chinese border in the Himalayas to the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, may now be impassable for years, officials said.

[abhischekcc]

^ What that means is that for many years hence, China will not be able to put strategic pressure on India by threatening to send troops/nukes from that highway.

[A_Gupta]

Prof. Walter Russell Mead says (X-Post)
http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/ ... ough-love/

The costs of helping Pakistan get on its feet are significantly less than the costs of living with its continued and ultimately catastrophic decline.

This is different from the assessment made from the Indian point of view of BRFers.

[brihaspati]

The KKH was in any way being affected by climatic and geological disasters for some time. A collapse formed a huge dam in the NA which ultimately even the Chinese engineers gave up on repairing and went for a diversion.

Prof. Meads' assessemnt is difficult to justify, unless he explicitly valuates the cost of loss of control over the Pak territory and its ripple effects on strategic and economic interests of the USA in the region - something he has not mentioned.

He seems to blissfully unaware of the geographical history of the region. Civilizations and regimes in the area were always vulnerable to climatic vagaries and weakened enough to lose control to new invading forces periodically - unless they were part of more stable systems based in the heartland of India.

No matter what rebuilding efforts take place there - it will only become one more example of the "bottomless basket" if it is attempted to retain it as an independent separate entity.

[Suppiah]

If some day Baluchis learn how to use IEDs and SAMs, even the Army may not be able to go in. Baluchistan would be independent.

If GOI has any sense they would give them whatever they require...moral support onlee..

[Johann]

I don't believe Pakistan will collapse, but its crisis will intensify over the next year or two.
- The flood disaster is going to greatly deepen Pakistani dependence on American aid
- The price the Americans charge will be more offensive action against problem areas, paticularly North Waziristan
- The price the PA will pay will be the end of the phoney peace and the opening of the jihadi front in Punjab, especially southern Punjab

[abhischekcc]

It is true that these floods will increase US leverage over pakistan, but leverage is leverage only until US has funds to provide for it.

If PA increases offensive against jehadis, especially before full economic normalcy takes place (which may be 5-6 years away), the jehaids will win public sympathy. Not to mention sympathy within PA ranks. If offensive operations intensify, it will create enormous psychological tensions within PA itself, due to split loyalty.

Adding spice to the situation is that many non-punjabi groups see this flood as an opportunity to agitate for freedom, etc. These sentiments will intensify and manifest themselves as attacks against punjabis and PA, and their properties and interests. This is already happening.

So, PA will not only be fighting jehadi elements, but also freedom movements across the length and breadth of pakistan. It will be stretched to breaking point, if it isn't already.

Pakistan has already effectively collapsed. Its only unifying factor is the army and the appearance of unity it presents, not to mention its very real ability to enforce some of interests across that country. PA unity of command is helping maintain pakistan's semblance of unity.

Currently, various groups are too shocked by the catastrophe and distraught and simply want to rebuild some normality. But in the coming months, as political and ethnic groups regroup after the relief operations, they will make a bid for power, independence, or whatever it is they want.

When these factors converge in the winter months (traditionally, the season of war in Northern India), the PA will be hard pressed. Moreover, it is the rank and file that will start mutinying against PA general staff, because of the factors I mentioned above. It is then that the disunity of PA will be exposed. and the last glue of unity in pakistan will dissolve.

PS
What is interesting is that the more pressure US puts on pakistan, the faster these factors will emerge and strengthen. So, if US gives pakistan aid, and expects more action against jehadis, it will hasten the disintegration of PA. And if US sits back to allow PA to reassert itself, it will have no incentive and justification to provide any aid, which by itself will weaken the authority of PA, since providing relief allows it to build itself as the hero.

So this is the choice facing the US:
1. Aid + offense = disintegration of PA
2. No aid + no offense = reduction of PA authority

Knowing the can-do action oriented character of Americans, we know that they will go for the first option.

-------------

PPS
I had written some days ago that we need to watch what is happening within PA to understand which way the wind is blowing. Since getting news from within the PA is difficult, we can watch what is happening in western punjab as a proxy for that.

[svinayak]

Prof. Meads' assessemnt is difficult to justify, unless he explicitly valuates the cost of loss of control over the Pak territory and its ripple effects on strategic and economic interests of the USA in the region - something he has not mentioned.

He seems to blissfully unaware of the geographical history of the region. Civilizations and regimes in the area were always vulnerable to climatic vagaries and weakened enough to lose control to new invading forces periodically - unless they were part of more stable systems based in the heartland of India.

No matter what rebuilding efforts take place there - it will only become one more example of the "bottomless basket" if it is attempted to retain it as an independent separate entity.

We need an article on this theme. Can you put some framework and this needs to be published for the western audience.
There can be no independent entity in the region - no strategic geo political location possible.

[svinayak]

The well-known Pakistani journalist, Ahmed Rashid, typically summed it up last week as “an unparalleled national security challenge for the country, the region and the international community. It has become clear this week that, unless major aid is forthcoming immediately and international diplomatic effort is applied to improving Pakistan's relations with India, social and ethnic tensions will rise and there will be food riots.”

Mr. Rashid added: “Large parts of the country that are now cut off will be taken over by the Pakistani Taliban and affiliated extremist groups, and governance will collapse. The risk is that Pakistan will become what many have long predicted — a failed state with nuclear weapons… All of this will dramatically loosen the state's control over outlying areas, in particular those bordering Afghanistan, which could be captured quickly by local Taliban.”

During the 2005 earthquake disaster Mr Rashid had said that the Kashmir movement is effectively dead now.
We saw there was no letup and change in the support from accross the border. Ahmed Rashid is saying NOW that now the intensity of the conflict for the entire India will increase and US should help. This is a classic blackmail modus oper and the public has not caught into it.

[Singha]

the unity in the pakistan army leadership (to retain power and loot the entire country) seems to be the only thing holding it back from a yugoslavia like inter-provincial armed wars and massacres.

its time to approach non-pakjabi generals and landlords with better financial terms if they can form their own caliphates.

ofcourse unkil would like to keep the carcass in one piece but will live with ten if he has too - anything to keep a jdam out of NYC.

per WSJ karachi had already seen a instance of police firing on refugees attempting to squat on unoccupied but completed flats.
the builders called the cops in who killed 3 people.

[RajeshA]

X-Posted from TSP Thread

Pakistan's misery made worse by political failure by Penny Cole: A World To Win Blog

The Taliban were working with, or indeed WERE the “timber mafia” in the Malakand region where they were allowed to stay in control from 2007 to 2009. During that time more than 70 per cent of forests were cut down, contribuing to the present disaster.

But everywhere, local politicians, police and military are either powerless to stop the loggers and big landowners, or are in their pay – or both. Bribery, corruption, and complicity with terror go hand-in-hand to undermine any environmental protection.

The loss of forests transforms even a normal monsoon from a benefit to a curse. Forests absorbs water, and help refill aquifers. Without trees, flash floods run off into rivers, with no benefit for next year’s crops and without replenishing wells and springs. Fertile top soil is washed away.

o India should build the Afghan Parliament with intricate wood work, using lots of wood.
o May be Afghanistan can become a hub for creating fanciful furniture with Indian expertise from wood imported from Pakistan.

Disclaimer: Just jokin'!

[Johann]

ABCC,

Take a look at the the talk I posted in the Af-Pak watch thread, but I'll try to summarise a few important points.

- The Islamists of the PA are largely of the Islamic Nationalist variety, while the TTP is of the Pan-Islamic Global Jihad; the former believes in Pakistan, the latter has no loyalty to the idea. PA field grade and junior officers will not join any movement unless its one that proclaims its desire to save Pakistan.

- The Punjabi Taliban has grown increasingly indiscriminate, attacking Barelvis in the way it used to attack minorities like Shia and Ahmediyas. This kind of Takfiri mass-terror against the majority will alienate the public and push them in to rallying around the state and the army, the way they did in Swat. The Afghan Taliban OTOH has become a lot smarter about not p!ss!ng of ordinary Pashtuns in the last two years, and they've benefited hugely from it.

The Punjabi Taliban will do much better if it pursues a line based on land redistribution and reliable Islamic courts, like some of the more successful Taliban franchises in Pakistan, instead of the sectarian warfare and mass terror.

[Singha]

zero GDP growth and 25% inflation annually is a good start. the big landowners who control the supply of foodgrains can mercilessly exploit the situation as usual and share profits with the urban rape trading class.

[RajeshA]

shiv ji,

BRF is feeling jealous saar!

[shiv]

shiv ji,

BRF is feeling jealous saar!

If I understand your meaning right I need to cross post what I posted elsewhere over here...

Well here it is - slightly modified..

The semantics of “failed” and “not failed” are a waste of time.

If you take a medical analogy you will find that a very ill patient in an intensive care unit is considered as being made up of “systems” – each of which gets support as it fails. His kidneys fail and he gets an artificial kidney (dialysis). His lungs fail and he is put on a ventilator. Finally his heart fails and he is put on mechanical heart support. And then they say: “This man is alive”. What is not said is that he is almost dead. It is semantics. “Image” hardly matters.

The Pakistani army took over the governance of Pakistan several times because governance failed. They never set it right. The failure of governance over the decades by both army and civilians led to a disastrous breaking off of East Pakistan and even now everyone knows that chunks of Pakistan (eg North Waziristan) are out of control of the Pakistani government (civil or military). Economic failure has been supported by aid. Military failures have been supported by foreign training and arms.

It is social failure that foreigners cannot repair. But Pakistani leaders have fostered a culture of blaming everything on external agents (as has been pointed out by many on here. ) Realizing that is only half the story. What is even more grave is to move one step forward from this realization and think of what to do next.

Put yourself in the position of a Pakistani leader – a politician or a general. If Pakistani people who are suffering from something or the other ask you who is at fault, whom do you blame it on:

1) If you blame the people – they will lynch you.
2) if you blame yourself and your fellow politicians or generals – you will once again be lynched.
3) If you blame previous leaders the people will give you a chance to make things better and when you fail you are asked why you have failed
4) If you blame an external agent (India, USA, Israel, Islamophobia) then you are shifting the blame and you may get a chance to survive if your people are stupid enough to believe you yet again.

For Pakistani leaders, blaming external agents is the natural choice. And as long as external agents are blamed and demands are made on them Pakistan’s social failure will get worse, but they escape being lynched by Pakistani people. “If India solves the Kashmir problem all will be well”. “If the US had not ditched us we would not have had extremism” “If India had not opened all its flood gates we would not have had floods” “If the world had given more money we would have been fine”. This is a list of excuses that we have seen and are sure to see again in future.

But telling Pakistanis the truth about who is to blame is sure to cause anger and recrimination in Pakistan. Pakistani people – poor and deprived as they may be are not so stupid as to allow the current social set up in Pakistan of elites, military and awam to survive if the truth is told.

So the truth will not be told. All the existing power brokers of Pakistan (Military, feudocracy and mullahs) have a hand in its current failures and until they go nothing will change. But removing all of them in one go will not happen without violent upheaval and revolution. And none of them will give up without a fight.

Pakistan is heading towards definite overall failure as things stand now. Like a box of biscuits that appears intact from the outside but has only broken fragments inside, everything inside Pakistan has failed or is in a state of failure – be it leadership, civil society, democratic norms, constitutional law, law and order, the military, education, the economy – you name it – it has failed to a greater or lesser extent. All that remains is for the spirit of the Pakistani people to be broken.

Pakistan has not failed? Who is deluding whom?

The results of such failure can be predicted to an extent. A failed Pakistan will still have its 170-180 million people who will need to live. As Pakistan breaks up into multiple power centers, with no power being in overall control – any internal strife in Pakistan is likely to spill over into other countries. Those countries will react and interfere inside Pakistan. If you look at Pakistan today – all this is already happening. There is already a degree of failure in Pakistan affecting other countries and there is already external interference manifesting. I think a lot of Pakistanis have not yet woken up an smelt the coffee. Perhaps Pakistanis are tea drinkers – but they have not been reading the leaves.

When Pakistani leaders beg other nations to come and help them – the most powerful nations will come in and will interfere. because such an invitation is an admission of failure. But if they do not admit failure, the failures will still show up as social strife that affects other nations (terrorism, economic and political refugees, inability to cope with natural disasters) – who will interfere anyway because their interests are affected by internal Pakistani failures. Catch 22. It’s all happening live now in Pakistan.

Just because a nation has its name as an independent country in the United Nations is does not mean that it is not a failed nation – or heading towards failure. The UN can’t stop that. The UN will merely give new names to the countries that are formed out of a failed state.

[RajeshG]

Johann

That was brilliant talk. And the usage of the term "Islamic Nationalism" is just brilliant stuff. Just the term itself explains the junoon and the contradictions that go with it in a very precise way.

Your pitting of islamic-nationalism and global-jihad as 2 opposing forces is something i dont agree-with/understand. The other thing i have a hard time agreeing with is the usage of personalities/events/dates as a reason of the mess. I will post if i can articulate these objections in some sensible way.

Thanks.

[RajeshA]

If I understand your meaning right ....

Thank you! BRF is feeling better now!

[abhischekcc]

>>Just because a nation has its name as an independent country in the United Nations is does not mean that it is not a failed nation – or heading towards failure. The UN can’t stop that. The UN will merely give new names to the countries that are formed out of a failed state.

Amazingly simple fact that some people have difficulty wrapping their heads around.

[JwalaMukhi]

X-post

shiv wrote:
In fact in both cases those Indians, like firangis are trusted to do the right things and not be parochial. Pakis of course will do their utmost to claim that they are biased Indian agents. The happiest thing is to see Paquis changing from screw India to screw the world. True purity calls for that onleee no?

The western nations have no compunctions to be in bed with Islamism. They infact are deeply embedded with Islamism. Islamism has positioned itself to be a service provider. The only terms remaining is the price.
The basic fact is that: Pak is an established whore available for bidders. Pakis are the flag bearers of islamism and who have better negotiations with their clientele. Elsewhere, others who seem to represent islamism are available for cheap. Pakis are a different breed, they are trying to extract maximum from their clientele using all kinds of trick in and out of book. SDREs have no role in the negotation between pakis and their clientele. Bemoaning that will be just chest beating.

So, India as already well put by RajeshA, has to harness this islamism, instead of complaining about how other johns are taking advantage of the paki whore. There are mechanisms by which the service provider can be leveraged without getting into bed with the service provider. That's possible. One of the main route is to ensure that Pakis/Islamists do not orgasm at screw India prospect.

[Philip]

If I can draw a parallel here,when diaster struck in Sri Lanka ,when the ASian tsunami hit the IOR,within hours,despite also being gravely affected in southern India,the Indian
armed forces were in Sri Lnaka who called for help helping with relief and restoring the infrastructure.I personally know of a close friend in the IA,IPKF veteran,who was sent to Hambantota.The devastation was immense,bodies everywhere.For the first few weeks they lived under plastic sheets concentrating on relief,setting up medical facilities and in Galle the IN within a few weeks restored the badly damaged harbour,with sunken ships, sufficiently for ships to enter with aid,etc.The Lankans never forgot the immediate way and manner in which India came to their aid.It was much later that the Yanks/USN and the Marines arrived and when they did,they found nothing left for them to do. 3 months later,as I've mentioned before,teams of middle-aged uniformed apparent "Christian soldiers" arrived to do "counselling" in the affected areas!

I've mentioned this because the Paki military machine is a formidable force of more than half a million troops.It has a large presence in every part of the country,but appears to have been shell-shocked with the disaster and no one seems to have been willing to take decisive action.Does this indicate that it has become subservient to the US to an extent where it is incapble of independent thought and action,apart from plottting and planning terrorist outrages by the ISI? Certainly what comes across is the gulf that separates the three legs of the Paki "stool",civil service,politicos and military.

[Johann]

Johann

That was brilliant talk. And the usage of the term "Islamic Nationalism" is just brilliant stuff. Just the term itself explains the junoon and the contradictions that go with it in a very precise way.

Your pitting of islamic-nationalism and global-jihad as 2 opposing forces is something i dont agree-with/understand. The other thing i have a hard time agreeing with is the usage of personalities/events/dates as a reason of the mess. I will post if i can articulate these objections in some sensible way.

Thanks.

That's very kind of you to say so Rajesh.

Pakistani Islamic Nationalism does not seek confrontation with the Global Jihad, but rather seeks to harness it as a mobilising agent and force multiplier as it did in the 1980s and 90s. Unfortunately Global Jihad's ideology takfir, which means they are ready to condemn anyone who deviates even slightly from their line as kaffirs and traitors deserving of death.

There is a similar dynamic in the Israeli-Arab conflict. Palestinian Islamic Nationalism (Hamas, PIJ) was able to run its own show with the global jihad channeling moral and financial support. Post 9-11 the intense pressures of American actions have produced a situation where the Global Jihad condemns Hamas as a bunch of sell-outs, and is actually in conflict with them.

Global Jihad is the spectacular killer, but in the long run it's like Ebola - so virulent that it kills its own host (i.e. Muslims) and burns itself out before it can really take over. Its the militant Islamic nationalism that's far more patient, and far better at mobilising Muslims en masse.

[svinayak]

I've mentioned this because the Paki military machine is a formidable force of more than half a million troops.It has a large presence in every part of the country,but appears to have been shell-shocked with the disaster and no one seems to have been willing to take decisive action.Does this indicate that it has become subservient to the US to an extent where it is incapble of independent thought and action,apart from plottting and planning terrorist outrages by the ISI? Certainly what comes across is the gulf that separates the three legs of the Paki "stool",civil service,politicos and military.

This indicates that the PA was built only for anti-India activities and not for the service of the country.
All the force projection of PA in the last few decades are fake and were meant for India just to create a false image.

[ramana]

More stats of Paki failure:

FLOOD TIDES
by Steve Coll

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2 ... _talk_coll

...
It’s not only a country that is poorly governed and menaced by Islamist radicals; it’s also one that is growing economically, and that houses a raucously open society populated by muckraking journalists, comic novelists, cheesy reality-TV producers, real-estate hustlers, world-class squash players, and the like. The number of Pakistanis living in poverty fell by almost half between 1999 and 2008, from thirty per cent of the population to about seventeen per cent. This extraordinary change, a result of rapid economic growth and remittances from Pakistanis working abroad, is not often discussed on American cable-news outlets. Five years ago, Pakistan’s economic growth rate reached eight per cent annually, and the economy has continued to expand, if more slowly, even since 2008, when the global financial crisis and the domestic Taliban insurgency took hold simultaneously. (The number of Pakistanis living in poverty almost certainly has crept up again, and will move higher still because of the floods.)
...

[A_Gupta]

^^^^
Successful propaganda. If you look at the World Bank Database, "The World Development Indicators (WDI) provides a comprehensive selection of economic, social and environmental indicators, drawing on data from the World Bank and more than 30 partner agencies. The database covers more than 900 indicators for 210 economies with data back to 1960."

then on poverty there are only a few actually collated numbers between 2000 and 2009.

Poverty headcount ratio at $1.25 a day (PPP) (% of population)
2002: 35.87%
2005: 22.59%
all other years blank.

Poverty headcount ratio at $2 a day (PPP) (% of population)
2002: 73.91%
2005: 60.3%

E.g., for the data "Poverty headcount ratio at national poverty line",
none of the years has any data.

___

PS: and there is stuff like this:

________________________________________
From: Arun Gupta
Sent: 17 July 2010 13:58
To: OPHI
Subject: Re: Pakistan - country specific summary of MPI analysis

http://www.ophi.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/Pakistan.pdf

I was surprised to see in charts C, D for Pakistan that no one is nutritionally poor in Pakistan. Even countries like Argentina or China have their Nutrition poor people, but not Pakistan.

It can't be that you're missing statistics:
e.g.,
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.as ... 009_pg7_24


Pakistan has 8m malnourished children’

LAHORE: More than eight million children are suffering from malnutrition and 3.5 million are working as labourers in the country, said Global Organisation for Human Empowerment and Rights Foundation Executive Director AG Chohan on Monday. He said children’s rights were neglected in Pakistani society. He said all people should work for the promotion, protection and preservation of children’s rights. staff report

-Arun Gupta

Dear Arun,

Thanks for your query. We did not have any nutrition data in the survey that we had used to calculate the MPI for Pakistan. It is not that there is no nutrition deprivation in Pakistan, but the fact is that there is no data to measure nutrition deprivation. We hope this helps.

Please feel free to let us know if you have any other concern.

Best regards,

OPHI Team.
Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI)
Tel. +44 (0)1865 271528
www.ophi.org.uk

[shiv]

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2 ... _talk_coll
...
It’s not only a country that is poorly governed and menaced by Islamist radicals; it’s also one that is growing economically, and that houses a raucously open society populated by muckraking journalists, comic novelists, cheesy reality-TV producers, real-estate hustlers, world-class squash players, and the like. The number of Pakistanis living in poverty fell by almost half between 1999 and 2008, from thirty per cent of the population to about seventeen per cent. This extraordinary change, a result of rapid economic growth and remittances from Pakistanis working abroad, is not often discussed on American cable-news outlets. Five years ago, Pakistan’s economic growth rate reached eight per cent annually, and the economy has continued to expand, if more slowly, even since 2008, when the global financial crisis and the domestic Taliban insurgency took hold simultaneously. (The number of Pakistanis living in poverty almost certainly has crept up again, and will move higher still because of the floods.)
...

Hoodbhoy says:
http://www.viewpointonline.net/pakistan ... ecret.html

Contrary to claims made in 1998, the bomb did not transform Pakistan into a technologically and scientifically advanced country. Again, the facts are stark. Apart from relatively minor exports of computer software and light armaments, science and technology remain irrelevant in the process of production. Pakistan’s current exports are principally textiles, cotton, leather, footballs, fish and fruit. This is just as it was before Pakistan embarked on its quest for the bomb. The value-added component of Pakistani manufacturing somewhat exceeds that of Bangladesh and Sudan, but is far below that of India, Turkey and Indonesia. Nor is the quality of science taught in our educational institutions even remotely satisfactory. But then, given that making a bomb these days requires only narrow technical skills rather than scientific ones, this is scarcely surprising.
....
But the fact is that despite a 50-year long nuclear history, and vast spending, Pakistan has proven unable to build for itself even a single electricity-producing nuclear reactor. These are technologically far more complex than nuclear bombs. Pakistan relies on a forty year old Canadian reactor (in Karachi) and a ten year old Chinese reactor at Chashma, which together constitute 2% of total electricity capacity. A second Chinese reactor has been under construction at Chashma since 2005 and is expected to be completed next year.

[shiv]

This article has a place here too
http://s-data.current.com/191kn4c
Pakistan: A Land Left to Drown by the ‘Timber Mafia’

Trees felled by so-called illegal loggers - an infamous "timber mafia" that has representatives in the Pakistan Parliament in Islamabad and connections right to the top of government and the military - are stacked in the innumerable nullahs [steep narrow valleys], gorges and ravines leading into the main rivers. From there they are fed into the legal trade, earning the mafia billions of dollars yearly. "Other than landslides, soil erosion and the occasional homes and crops being swept away, it [the forest denudation] was not considered a disaster and hence didn't make the headlines," wrote Ayesha Tammy Haq, a columnist with the Pakistan daily Express Tribune newspaper.
..
By 2005 Pakistan had lost 25% of the forest cover that existed in 1990. Experts predict at current rates of exploitation - more than 100 square miles of trees clear-felled annually - the remaining forests will all be gone by 2010.

Even allowing for journalistic exaggeration - there is something going on...

[RajeshA]

Hoodbhoy says:
http://www.viewpointonline.net/pakistan ... ecret.html

Contrary to claims made in 1998, the bomb did not transform Pakistan into a technologically and scientifically advanced country. Again, the facts are stark. Apart from relatively minor exports of computer software and light armaments, science and technology remain irrelevant in the process of production. Pakistan’s current exports are principally textiles, cotton, leather, footballs, fish and fruit. This is just as it was before Pakistan embarked on its quest for the bomb.

Declining leather exports

Leather exports declined from $1.24 billion in 2007-08 to $900 million in 2009-10. About $25 million to $30 million per annum are earned from the export of sausage casings, made from animal intestines, which is also reducing due to decreasing livestock availability.

Pakistan snapshot: apparel trade overview

Contribution of textile and apparel exports to Pakistan's total exports: Pakistan exported US$10.244bn worth of textile and apparel worldwide in the 12-month period from July 2009 to June 2010. This accounted for 53% of the country's total exports of US$19.382bn during the year.

Flooded Pakistan To Fulfill Cotton Shortage With Indian Imports

The recent floods in Pakistan have also spelt doom for the nation’s cotton crop, which was left ravaged, forcing the textile manufacturers to scourge countries around the world for cotton to keep their business going. The search for cotton also landed the Pakistani textile mill owners at the doorstep of India as the Pakistani spinners get ready to import close to one million cotton bales from India in the coming days.
A senior member of the textile mill owners fraternity told the press on Monday that owing to concerns arising out of disrupted domestic supply, due to the torrential rains destroying 2.5 million to 3 million bales of cotton throughout the country, the spinners were seeking cotton from other cotton-growing countries.

India should really stop cotton exports to Pakistan, even as we increase them to Bangladesh or use them domestically for apparel production. What is the need of providing Pakistan with a lifeline.

[shiv]

India should really stop cotton exports to Pakistan, even as we increase them to Bangladesh or use them domestically for apparel production. What is the need of providing Pakistan with a lifeline.

Well - a bumper crop in India could lower prices catastrophically and the crop may rot in India - so as long as Paquis pay for it they can have it I guess.